Neapolitan Style Pizza Dough
When we moved to Italy 3
1/2 years ago. Our new house (500 year old farmhouse)
came with a HUGE wood fired pizza oven.
It hadn't been used in many years. We asked the
neighbors for help and decided to make an bread and
pizza day the following weekend. We bought some pizza
tools and the neighbors showed us a stock of hazelnut
wood behind the oven. The farm has many acres of
vineyards and hazelnut orchards that 2 Piemontese
brothers look after.
The following weekend we got up early and lighted the
pizza oven. Lorenzo, our neighbor said it had to burn
for many hours to get all the dampness out since it
hadn't been used in a long time. Later in the morning
we made a big batch of bread dough.
Thankfully the neighbors had a BIG mixer that he got
from Ferrero, that was used to mix chocolate.
Our normal batch ended up being about 40 big rounds of
bread, similar to ciabatta. The 40 rounds fit in the
all at the same time (that's how big the oven is)! The
fire burned for many hours, the ceiling became all
white, which is what you want, extremely hot, then we
had to let it cool down a little for the bread, for
pizza, the hotter the better (around 700 degrees F).
We took out all the coals and saved them in a metal
container, cleaned the floor of the oven by brush and
then a mop with water.
When the oven was a good temperature (about 375 F), the
bread went in. It turned out perfect! Everybody had
fun. This started a routine to make bread every other
Sunday afternoon, followed by pizza dinner.
Later, for dinner, we put the coals back in, added more
wood and got the oven back up to pizza temperature.
We assembled our pizzas "Pizza Prosciutto", dough,
tomato sauce, proscuitto cotto, mozzarella and oregano
and put them in the oven.
They cooked in about 3-4 minutes and turned out good!
It was now mid October, a little too cold to eat dinner
outside, so we put all the pizzas on big pasta boards
and drove them next door to their winery, Vigin, and we ate them in the
winery on a big temporary table.
A very fun day working together.
The pizza dough was good but I started that day on a
quest to find a great pizza dough recipe that took many
tries, after about 8 bread baking days, this recipe was
finally the winner. This pizza dough recipe also makes
a really good foccaccia.
Bugie di Carnevale
Bugie
di Carnevale
Carnevale
in Italy is a month long
public festival with more partying towards the end of
February.
Lent is book ended by Carnevale
and Pasquetta(little
Easter, always the day after Easter, big, all day,
outdoor BBQ with lots of wine!), two big parties of
eating rich foods and drinking.
One of these
rich foods is Bugie di
Carnevale, a fried
pastry sprinkled with sugar.
It is literally everywhere during the month of
February.
This is a recipe we got from our neighbor Pina. For the
past 2 years I have made these with her during
Carnevale.
Definition of Carnevale in Wikipedia
The Lenten period of the Liturgical
year Church calendar, being the six weeks directly
before Easter, was marked by fasting and other pious or
penetential practices. Traditionally during Lent, no
parties or other celebrations were held, and people
refrained from eating rich foods, such as meat, dairy,
fats and sugar. The forty days of Lent, recalling the
biblical account of the forty days that Jesus spent in
the wilderness, serve to mark an annual time of
turning. In the days before Lent, all rich food and
drink had to be disposed of. The consumption of this,
in a giant party that involved the whole community, is
thought to be the origin of Carnival.
Carnival
is a festive season which
occurs immediately before Lent;
the main events are usually during February. Carnival
typically involves a public celebration
or parade
combining some elements
of a circus,
mask and public street party. People often dress up
ormasquerade
during the celebrations,
which mark an overturning of daily life.
Blood Orange Panna Cotta
Blood Orange Panna Cotta
After years
of complaining about restaurants adding flavors to the
classic panna cotta,
a northern Italian dessert that is literally “cooked
cream”,
this week I finally changed my mind and made a batch of
panna cotta with some blood oranges that are in season
right now.
The result was a fantastic mix of sweet cream and
citrus flavors with a drizzle of acacia honey.
I should of tried it sooner. If you want the "classic"
recipe, just omit the orange juice and zest.