Grandma Style Pan Pizza 2.0

After much trial and error I’ve landed on a Grandma style pan pizza dough formulation that I’m really happy with. The end result is a 75% hydration naturally leavened dough that yields a wonderfully light and thin pizza with crispy edges. It’s a higher hydration pizza dough but because there really is no shaping involved it’s very easy to work with. The fermentation time is very flexible; from 20 hrs up to 36 hrs once it goes into the refrigerator. In my opinion, the key things for a Grandma pie are 1) lots of garlic 2) a classic red sauce on top of the cheese 3) a thin, crispy edged dough baked in a pan vs directly on a stone.

The Dough

Ingredients

533 grams Type 0 Manitoba Flour

400 grams Water

96 grams Active Starter

10 grams Salt

These quantities are designed for 2 X 11” x 14” pans.

1. Mix together the water and the flour and set to autolyse for one hour up to six hours.  At about 7 pm add the salt and active sourdough starter and start working into the dough with your hands or with a rubber spatula until more or less homogenous. Let rest for 45 minutes.

2. You’ll want to fold the dough two more times (with your hands) over the course of the next 1 - 2 hours to develop the gluten. By the end the dough should be very smooth and should not stick to your hands while folding. Cover and rest overnight at room temperature.

3. In the morning (approximately 7am) divide the dough and keep in air tight containers. Transfer to the refrigerator and take out 30 minutes before you’ll be making your pizza. If making pizza that evening you’re looking at about 12 hours of room temperature fermentation followed by about 10 hours of cold fermentation. I’ve kept the dough in the fridge until the next day and still have been very pleased with the results. If baking early in the day, there’s no need to put it into the fridge. You can transfer directly to your baking pan from the bulk ferment container.

Classic Grandma Recipe

Ingredients

Olive Oil

Red Sauce (see recipe for red sauce here)

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Thinly sliced garlic (2 -3 cloves)

Grated parmesan

Basil

Instructions

1. Set oven to 425F.

2. Slice 2-3 cloves of garlic as thin as you can. Cover them with enough olive oil so they are completely submerged in a small bowl.

3. After the dough has come to room temperature, dump it out into a well oiled pan. Spread the dough out so it has a uniform thickness. Use the tips of your fingers to press down into dough to push it into the edges of the pan. Pop any large bubbles. Grandma is a generally thinner pie, so it should be worked into the pan fairly well. Drizzle a little more olive oil on top.

4. Cover the entire surface of the dough with shredded cheese.

5. Ladle on the tomato sauce generously on top of the cheese. For Grandma style pies I like to ladle on dollops of sauce evenly, but leave a little cheese exposed for visual effect.

6. Spoon on the thinly sliced garlic over the surface along with some of the oil.

7. Sprinkle freshly grated parmesan or pecorino on top.

8. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes and serve.

9. Garnish with fresh basil.

Other Variations

Using this dough recipe as a foundation, the possibilities are endless. Here are a few of my favorites so far.

Marinated artichoke, prosciutto, pickled pepperoncini peppers, mozzarella, grated cacciocavallo, basil.

Nduja, Broccoli rabe, red onion, mozzarella, red sauce base.

Morel mushrooms, ramp oil, pecorino.

Homemade Zeppole (Sfingi)

Zeppole, also called sfingi in Sicily, are typically associated with celebration, whether on Christmas or St. Joseph’s Day. They’re also perfect for quarantine cooking. It is the Italians’ answer to the donut and some versions can be quite elaborate, filled with ricotta cream and topped with candied fruits. This version from my Nonna is super simple. They’re light, airy, and relatively quick and easy to make with only six common ingredients. If you don’t have 00 Flour, regular all purpose will do the trick. Watch the whole process in a fun kid hosted cooking below.

Ingredients

1 cup of 00 Flour

1 cup of water

4 eggs

6 tablespoons of butter

Lemon or orange zest

Confectioners sugar

Canola oil

1. Bring water to a boil. Add butter, and a little bit of salt. Stir in the flour and mix thoroughly, and quickly. Remove from heat and let cool at room temperature.

2. Add eggs one at a time, mixing with your hands. Add in lemon or orange zest. The consistency should be smooth, thicker than pancake batter, but thinner than a bread dough. Let rest for a few more minutes. 

3. Bring canola or peanut oil in a dutch oven or deep fryer to 350 F.

4. Using a spoon, drop globs of batter into the hot oil. The trick here is to let the zeppole alone, as they begin to form a golden brown crispy shell. As they cook, they will expand, burst open, and roll over all on their own without any additional help. Once fully browned, remove the zeppole with a slotted spoon and let rest in on a baking rack or in a bowl with paper towels to absorb the excess oil.

5. Once they have cooled a bit, liberally dust with confectioners sugar and enjoy. They should be light and airy.

Meatball Sub (With Venison)

This sandwich was inspired by Daniel Uditi, the chef over at Pizzana. My spin on the classic meatball sub was to swap out the beef with freshly ground venison from this year’s harvest. Since the venison is so lean I cut the blend with 50% ground pork to add some fat back into the equation. The meatballs were packed into homemade sesame rolls and finished off in a wood fired oven. Video showing the entire process below.

The Meatballs

1 pound ground venison (or substitute with beef)

1 pound ground pork

2 cloves of garlic (finely minced)

¼ cup chopped parsley

1 cup of torn stale bread pieces, soaked in buttermilk*

¾ cup grated parmesan

Dried chili flakes (to your liking)

1 Egg

Salt and Pepper

Buttermilk

*I like to use any stale homemade sourdough bread I have laying around, but store bought works just as well. I like larger torn pieces as they give the meatball some airiness that you won’t get with the store-bought breadcrumbs. But if the pieces are too big, the meatball might begin to fall apart.

Stale bread soaking in buttermilk

I brown my meatballs in a wood fired oven to give it a little smokey flavor but this can easily be done in a cast iron skillet. Brown all sides of each meatball and set aside as they cook. Once all the meatballs are browned, transfer them over to your simmering pot of red sauce and continue simmering (on low) for another 30 - 45 minutes until the meatballs are cooked all the way through.

This is my Nonna’s classic red sauce that I rarely deviate from. 

Stewed whole San Marzano tomatoes

Garlic

Yellow onion

Basil

Parmesan Rind

Salt

Pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

The key here is simplicity, and good ingredients (especially the tomatoes). Lightly puree the tomatoes in a processor or with a stick blender. Be careful not to aerate the tomatoes too much. For a chunkier sauce you can simply crush the tomatoes by hand. Set aside in a bowl. Peel and dice three to five cloves of garlic and set aside. Peel and chop the onion in half. By cooking the entire halves you will impart the flavor of the onion and the sauce won’t have chunks of onion in it. 

Heat a generous pour of EVOO in your saucepan at medium to low heat. Add your garlic and onion halves and let simmer for a few minutes. Be careful not to burn anything. Add a piece of parmesan rind into the hot oil, and let it simmer for another minute. The oils from the cheese will add depth to the sauce. Add your tomatoes to the pan, and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. My Nonna would often use a pinch of white granulated sugar just to add a little more sweetness but if you’re using good quality tomatoes this step is not necessary. Add some chopped basil, stir, and set on medium/low. You want your sauce to simmer for about 30 - 45 minutes. Stir frequently to make sure it's not sticking to the bottom.

Finishing Touches

I serve the meatballs (and sauce) on homemade sesame rolls that I’ve been iterating on this for the past year. That recipe can be found here. Slice each roll and open up like a book and set into a skillet or pan. Fill the entire surface with meatballs and ladle on a generous helping of sauce. Top with good quality buffalo mozzarella. Put the entire skillet back into the wood fire (or in your oven) until the cheese is completely melted. Remove from the heat, garnish with some fresh basil and your sandwich is ready to go.

Porchetta sandwich with salsa verde

This was my first trial of an oven roasted porchetta sandwich with salsa verde, grated caciocavallo, on a sourdough sesame roll. Local cheese from Jersey Cheese and pork sourced from NK Prime Meats. There are definitely a few tweaks to be made on future iterations but overall pretty satisfied with version 1.0.

You’ll find countless porchetta recipes that all use different cuts of pork (from pork shoulder to pork belly) but the traditional method uses a large section of pork belly with the ribs removed and the loin still attached. If you can’t find a butcher who can prepare this more specialized cut for you, a compromise would be taking a skin-on cut of pork belly and a piece of pork loin, and working backwards to recreate the original cut. In the video below, you can watch the exact process of how the meat was broken down and rolled together with a blend of aromatics.

The filling:

Finely dice fennel fronds, rosemary, sage, and garlic and mix together in a medium size mixing bowl. Add dried & crushed hot chili flakes to taste. Add zest of one lemon. Add 2 teaspoons of dried fennel seed powder, salt and pepper. Add oil oil so the entire mixture comes together like a thick paste. 

Remove the skin from the belly and set aside for later. Next cut the loin to the exact size of the belly and butterfly it open to maximize the surface area of the meat. Set the loin piece aside and spread the aromatic filling all over the surface of the pork belly, fat side down. Lay in the butterflied loin piece and generously spread more of the filling all over the meat. Carefully roll up the belly and loin and position with fat side facing up. Rub more paste all over the top before laying on the piece of skin that was previously removed. 

Using butcher's twine, you want to carefully truss the porchetta every few inches so that the whole piece is secure during cooking. Using a sharp boning knife, make small punctures all over the surface of the skin so that the fat renders out during cooking. Wrap porchetta and refrigerate for 6 hours to overnight. Allow to sit out at room temperature before putting it into the oven to allow the meat to relax, yielding a more tender piece of meat.

Roasting:

Set porchetta into a roasting pan with rack to keep the meat elevated during cooking. Cook for 40 minutes at 475F before lowering the temperature down to 300F for another 2 - 4 hours until the internal temperature reads 155F. The skin should puff up as it cooks and result in an airy, crispy texture. If skin still feels rubbery, use the broiler (with a very careful eye not to burn it) to finish off the skin before removing from the oven. Allow the meat to rest 30 minutes before slicing. 

Salsa Verde:

Using a food processor, blend together two bunches of parsley, garlic, a few spoonfuls of capers, 3 fillets of anchovies, juice of one lemon, a few splashes of white vinegar, and a few glugs of olive oil.

Porchetta Sandwich:

Slice porchetta in thin slices and set aside some of the crispy skin. Layer meat on a freshly baked sourdough sesame roll (recipe here) and top with salsa verde and freshly grated caciocavallo cheese (or provolone).  

Friar's Beard Bucatini

Agretti, also known as Salsola Soda, saltwort, friar’s beard or “land seaweed” has a high salt tolerance and has been traditionally cultivated in coastal areas of the Mediterranean. It also has a notoriously poor germination rate. I was lucky to get three plants out the 24 seeds that I sowed. So this dish of sautéed agretti, fresh garlic, twisted together with bucatini and topped with cayenne salt cured egg yolks and breadcrumbs was completely savored. It’s always fun experimenting with new varieties in the garden.

For the cured egg yolk, I used a common recipe found online which involves curing the yolks in a mix of sugar and salt for up to one week in the refrigerator. After a week you remove the yolks, gently rince them off with cold water, and place them on a wire rack and back them at a very low temperature (150 F) in the oven for 1.5 hours. That’t it, super easy. Where I modified the recipe was with the introduction of hot cayenne powder in the mix, which really infused a spicy flavor to the yolks.

Homemade Cavatelli with Wild Ramp Pesto

Ramp season is fleeting. Next year I plan on making a few extra batches of pesto to keep in the freezer to extend the season a little longer.

Ramp pesto is so simple and tasty. I puree the ramp leaves (stems removed and bulbs left in the ground) with good extra virgin olive oil, toasted pine nuts, salt, and pepper. If using right away I’ll finish it by incorporating a healthy amount of grated parmesan and a little melted butter to make it creamy. If freezing, I’ll leave out the cheese and butter and add this in fresh after it is defrosted. I garnished this plate with fresh chive blossoms and more toasted pine nuts. The pasta was a handmade semolina cavatelli which are deceptively easy to make. See video below for the whole process.

The Sunday Pie: Meatballs and Ricotta

A few months ago I came across an article about an outdoor cookware company looking to contract a small group of bakers and home cooks to become “Official Pizza Taste Testers”. And if there is one thing I’m good at, it’s eating pizza. So I applied along with over 5,000 other people. Fast forward a few months and I get notified that I was officially selected. A years-long obsession with being able to make proper wood fired pizzas became a reality. It’s an unusual opportunity but one that I’m excited to explore. So over the course of the next few months I’ll be developing and testing recipes, and making short videos about the process - some of which you can find over at @oonihq. This first video is an homage to my family of Sicilian immigrants and to the women who orchestrated our Sunday suppers.