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ccollins

I've been following Jeff's pizza advice for about 1.5 years. It's great! A few notes:

0) crank your oven up as much as possible, and let it preheat for at least 20 minutes.

1) dough is super important - a slow rise in the fridge > 1 1/2 hour rise > 1 hour rise > store-bought dough.

2) Tomatoes in a can are always better than fresh tomatoes because they have already been cooked (trust me).

3) use the best mozzarella you can find, preferably mozzarella di bufala (made from water buffalo milk)

4) for the dough, use King Arthur Flour and bottled water - it makes a noticeable difference.

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"Tomatoes in a can are always better than fresh tomatoes because they have already been cooked (trust me)."

Completely true, but not just because they've been cooked: tomatoes in a can were usually picked ripe, so they actually taste like, you know, tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes from a grocery, even "vine ripened" ones, aren't truly ripe and will almost always be lacking in flavor.

I make my own salsa, and I typically use a mix of fresh and canned (diced) tomatoes: the fresh ones for the proper texture, the canned ones for flavor. It's not ideal, but it's better than either alone. The ideal solution would be to grow my own, but I inherited my mother's black thumb.

Completely true, unless you can guarantee that the tomatoes were picked fresh. My parents live near a little organic farm that we've been buying from for about a decade. We can drive to the farm stand and buy a bag of ripe, delicious tomatoes that was literally picked an hour before. Those made some of the best tomato sauce and salsa I've ever had.

According to The Food Lab[1], the water type doesn't make a difference.

    Lesson learned? As far as pizza goes, use whatever water you want. (...)
    Clearly, the small differences that arise naturally in the course of
    making a good pizza by hand far outweigh the minor differences that
    water could make.

[1]: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/01/does-nyc-water...

Where I live, the tab water tastes as good as bottled water, but I've been to other places where the water contains notable doses of chlorine. I think it's those cases where bottled water is the better alternative.

Same rule applies to water as to wine. If you'd drink it you can cook with it. If you wouldn't, don't.

Slow rising is a great tip and it works wonders for bread as well. A great first bread recipe is the no knead one from the nytimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

Letting dough sit overnight works wonderfully and people have been doing it with pizza dough as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/dining/19pizza.html

Funny you mentioned. I've been doing the no knead bread for 4 years, between once and 6 times a month.

I tried it for pizza. It worked mostly fine, with one issue worth mentioning: the crust becomes too hard for pizza. I fixed that by reducing the baking time and the amount of water. Later on I bought Jim Lahey's book (the guy that created the no knead method) and hiss pizza dough recipe deviates from the no knead method in the same direction.

I've been following his advice as well and getting great results. As my over can't get that hot (max 550f) I have found I get the best results if I do a 1 hour rise after preparation and then put them in the fridge for 2 days. Then I make sure to let the dough get back to room temp prior to baking.

Slightly confused by #4, he seems to mention repeatedly that the flour doesn't matter near as much as the technique.

Why bottled water? What does not having fluoride do?

I think the problem is not fluride but chlorine. Where I live (Philadelphia) the tap water tastes strongly of chlorine, I can imagine it imparting a flavour on food.

(http://www.phila.gov/water/Fact_Sheets.html#fact17)

Perhaps, but remember that chlorine is meant to kill germs, so it must also have a negative impact on the fermentation process; yeast are just good germs, after all.

You can fill a pitcher with water, and let it sit out overnight in the refrigerator. All the dissolved chlorine will evaporate out.

Yes, that is true about Philly water-- until recently I worked there, and I'm about 20 min. S of you over the DE State line.

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