00

That little, unassuming bag to the left there is the secret weapon.  The mysterious “00” flour that, we believe, holds the secret to great pizza, Roman style or Neapolitan.  The kids, who’ve been watching Bond movies as a project, looked at the double-O and instantly realized that this would be pizza…licensed to kill.

There’s a lot of mystery about what this stuff is.  High protein?  Low protein?  In fact, if you do the research, you find out that it’s the size of the grain–very, very small.  In general, 00 flour is higher protein, which produces more gluten and thus more chewy crumb, but from what I’ve heard the really critical bit is that this flour is more powdery, and thus absorbs water more easily, than American bread or all-purpose flour.  That sort of makes sense–more absorption means a wetter dough that’s still workable, which should mean a bigger rise, etc., etc.

I followed Serious Eats’ recipe for 00 pizza dough, in particular the hydration ratio, which checked in at a decent, though not overly intimidating, 60%.  I went a bit heavier on the salt and threw in a teaspoon of diastatic malt powder for extra yeasty power and some sugar for good caramelization.  The result was a pretty plastic dough, a lot like what you typically see behind a pizza counter.  I kneaded it for a good ten minutes and let it stew in the fridge overnight–it took some effort to stretch it out this afternoon, but the result seemed robust and gluten-y.  Super-promsing.

And, in fact, super.  I blind-baked the crusts for eight minutes, washed them with olive oil and topped them, and then broiled them for a minute or two until they started to char (the basil went on after they came out of the broiler).  These were superb, maybe not quite thick enough, but the crusts were crackly on the outside, chewy on the inside, and they stood up to the tomatoes, etc., that went on top of them, unlike the low-protein crust experiment last week.  For the record?  Backyard basil, local tomatoes in and on the sauce, and (*ahem*) homemade ricotta salata, which was as good as it sounded.  This one was mine–the boy got his usual pepperoni and mozzarella, and the girl, bless her heart, got leftover mashed potatoes on hers.  Three 8″ pizzas, no leftovers to speak of.  The boy, who used to leave his crusts?  No longer.  He’s a bones-and-all pizza eating machine these days.  “Pizza licensed to kill,” he said, turning to an imaginary camera “with flavor!”

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