Gravy's Cooking Thread

mkopec said:

Honestly I dialed it in a bit more since that picture. That picture is a few years old and only one on phone I had. I dont usually take pictures of food, even though I want to but always forget, lol.

About the preference thing, yeah, toeach their own. Like I said my kids and wife would not like the burnt shit on the dough you had in your pictures.

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That is called leoparding and it is charred, not burned. Burned spots would be bitter and ashy which is no good, charring tastes smokey and a little sweet from the caramelized sugars. It is analogous to a steak wher you want the surface to be crusty with some charring but not burned.

Denaut said:

Your families' are probably used to American style pizza where the bread isn't highlighted and therefore downplayed in the dish. For example, your spinach pizza looks good, but it has absolutely no cornicione, which is an indication of a more cracker-like dough. Some people prefer that I suppose, but I like I said before I consider pizza a bread dish where that kind of crust just can't compare to an airy, chewy, flavorful Neapolitan style one. At this point I am pretty spoiled it.

I started off making bread before pizza, and my pizza dough recipe is adapted from my sourdough, so I am also biased in that direction as well.

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Nah man, everything on the pizza in that picture is burnt.

Khane said:

Nah man, everything on the pizza in that picture is burnt.

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Incorrect. Only the onions are burnt, and they are one of the few foods that are sometimes burned intentionally for their distinctive flavor (although I didn't do it intentionally). The crust is charred and those are aroma mushrooms which are dark to begin with and were partially dry roasted on low heat to crank up their nutty, umami flavor. The mushrooms were pretty perfect actually.

Tomato, Tomahhto.

You call it "charred" I call it burned and dry. The crust looks like cardboard, not "light, airy and chewy". And some of the mushrooms look fine but some of them are burnt to hell and back.

That picture is not an example of the maillard effect.

If that's the kind of pizza that's "spoiled" you, you can keep it.

Khane said:

Tomato, Tomahhto.

You call it "charred" I call it burned and dry. The crust looks like cardboard, not "light, airy and chewy". And some of the mushrooms look fine but some of them are burnt to hell and back.

That picture is not an example of the maillard effect.

If that's the kind of pizza that's "spoiled" you, you can keep it.

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Have you never had a Neapolitan pizza before? It is one thing to say you don't like them as a preference, people like what they like, but it is another to be flat out objectively wrong about things that are evident right from the picture.

The crust was not even close to being dry (I use an 80% dough hydration to prevent that), those bubbles are visible evidence of the gluten strength and therefore chewiness, the cornicione is nice and puffy indicating lots of air from fermentation, and none of the mushrooms are even close to being black, only bits of onion are black. Those spots are charred since they weren't acrid but a thin stretch of dough that added a hint of smokiness and a bit of sweetness to contrast the rest of it.

And I also ate a piece, so I also know that none of those things are true. I have messed pizzas before, this wasn't one of them.

Hey all I can do is judge from the picture man, and the picture may not do it justice. Just telling you what it looks like to me.

Khane said:

Hey all I can do is judge from the picture man, and the picture may not do it justice. Just telling you what it looks like to me.

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You are right in that it is a little hard to see since the picture is super close in low light of only a slice (rather than the whole pizza), but I promise you it isn't burned.

For comparison these pizzas a pretty clearly burned:

Yea "Artisan wood fired" pizzas. Those dont just look like the crust is burnt, it is. Pizza like that sucks and is not neapolitan, its hipster, pretend crap.

You were just talking about cracker crusts, look at how thin those are. Bleh.

Khane said:

Yea "Artisan wood fired" pizzas. Those dont just look like the crust is burnt, it is. Pizza like that sucks and is not neapolitan, its hipster, pretend crap.

You were just talking about cracker crusts, look at how thin those are. Bleh.

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I just grabbed some photos off Google. I don't think they are trying to be Neapolitan style, the first one looks like a small thin crust from a short fermentation dough. The second is too large, it looks more like a NY style pizza to me. Both are obviously quite burnt since they aren't spotted with bits of char but entire sections of the cornicione are totally blackened. This is much different than the picture I posted.

That second picture is not NY style. The "puffy" spots on the outer crust are just air pockets of dough bubbling and getting burned, you can tell because some of the outer crust looks bigger and some of it looks cracker thin.

Anyway, I get it. You think you make pizza the way they do in Naples, following the strict rules and regulations of the AVPN.

mkopec said:

In the end make what you like, but again, my family would be all "you burned that shit, im not eating it". Call them noobs, pizza hut lovers, little caesars connoisseures, whatevs... They have entire forums dedicated to this shit so it must be a thing....

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It's fine, no one has to like that kind of pizza, but it still isn't burnt. Burning is unintentional, ruining food with chalky texture and overwhelming bitterness. Charring is intentionally over-caramelizing something and stopping before carbonization. I frequently char food, especially veggies to add flavor (which will probably give me cancer), so I don't think it is likely that my kid will complain when that time comes.

Funnily enough I did come across stories of American tourists in southern Italy complaining about burnt pizza.

Khane said:

That second picture is not NY style. The "puffy" spots on the outer crust are just air pockets of dough bubbling and getting burned, you can tell because some of the outer crust looks bigger and some of it looks cracker thin.

Anyway, I get it. You think you make pizza the way they do in Naples, following the strict rules and regulations of the AVPN.

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I think it is more NY style than Neapolitan style given the size and cornicione/crust ratio, although calling it a hybrid would be fair. Plenty of NY pizzas also have a slightly puffy and charred crust as well. If pressed I'd probably just call it an artisanal pizza.

Yes, after trying lots of different kinds of pizza I prefer the way they do it in Naples, which is just a preference. However, you don't need to follow the rules strictly, and it would be impossible to do so with just a home oven.

My only objection was calling the pizza, which clearly wasn't, burnt. There is a difference between a burnt pizza and a properly charred Neapolitan style pizza. They are totally different things.

Lanx said:

anyone have pellet wood advice? or are pellets just pellets? like why this 20lb traeger bag is 18bucks and menards sells a 40lb bag for 4bucks?

i mean, i guess obviously i'll just use the trager bag since it's here, but thats a big disparity.

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I've never used pellets but my guess is that it is similar to other kinds of smoking. Cheap pellets are probably low quality soft wood bulked out with additives and very expensive pellets made entirely of flavorful wood (like apple) with little to no additives. There is probably a range in the middle with cheaper hard woods that burn well but don't have as much as the pricey wood.

Is cornicione the word of the day or something?

Alex said:

Is cornicione the word of the day or something?

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It's the name of the puffy rim of a pizza, the crust is the part underneath the toppings. All pizza's have a crust, but not all have a cornicione.