VPN Americas - Verace Pizza Napoletana

Happy Belated National Pizza Day

To celebrate, I posted some sexy pics of the best pizza I have ever made.

Dough recipe

I'm following a recipe published on Slice (the gold-standard for pizza blogs) written by Jeff Varasano.

Keep in mind when planning your pizza party, the dough takes 2-3 days to rise in the fridge.
These measurements should makes enough dough for 3 pizzas.


You'll need the following ingredients:
90 grams sourdough culture
(see post below for activation instructions)
345 grams bread flour
I haven't tried lower protein flour, but I'll give it a try and compare
6 grams salt
220 grams water


You'll also need the following tools:
Mixer (I use a kitchen aid, Jeff Varasano swears by the Electrolux DLX)
Digital Scale

Using the digital scale measure out approximately 75% of the flour, all of the salt, the culture and water.

Combine the ingredients in the mixer.
Mix on lowest speed for 1-2 minutes. Cover the mixing bowl with a moist towel for 20 minutes.

Resume mixing on low for 8 minutes.
After 5 minutes, begin adding the remaining flour slowly.
Increase the speed slightly for the final 2 minutes.
The dough should form a ball on the dough hook, but it should be wet enough to fall off the hook when the mixer stops.
When this happens, cover again for another 20 minutes.
Separate the dough equally into 3 Tupperware containers.
Put the dough in the fridge for 3 days. The sourdough flavors will really start to develop with this slow of a rise.

Sourdough Culture Activation

Ingredients:
3/4 cup All-purpose flour
1 cup Water
Sourdough culture mix (bought online at sourdo.com)

Combine ingredients into a 1qt canning jar
Mix till it's a smooth batter


Keep it warmed to 90 degrees for 12 hours.

Use a styrofoam cooler (I found this one on the street)
Put the jar of culture under the cooler with a 25 watt light bulb. (bought a 25 watt party bulb at Meijer)

Monitor the temperature over the next 12 hours to ensure it's maintained at 90 degrees
After 12 hours check to see that the culture has risen to near the top of the jar.
Now your sourdough culture is active and ready to make some amazingly delicious doughs.

Fire at the Taco Bell

Since your birth in 2005, you've brought joy to lonely trips in the car
Occasionally causing great distress.

Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito, always two at a time
Two at a time, I thanked you for nourishment at a discount price

But now we must part ways
20 grams of fat is way too much
$1.29 is just too much

Don't try calling

RED GREEN WHITE

A new pizza party menu to honor Italian pizza

RED PIZZA - tomato pie, no cheese

WHITE PIZZA - goat cheese, mozzarella, olive oil, wild mushrooms, shallots

GREEN PIZZA - pesto, mozzarella, tomato slices

Wild Mushroom - Shallot - Goat CheesePizza

Bread Experiment #2

3.5 cups bread flour
1 cup water
1 cup active sourdough culture
2 tsp fine sea salt

Combine Ingredients and knead.
Proof for 5 hours
Punch down and form a ball
Proof for 3 more hours

Preheat oven with stone to 450 degrees bake for 15 minutes
spray the oven with cold water every 5 minutes (humidity in the oven helps form a crust)
reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake another 45 minutes

Let cool for a half hour.




This one definitely had the best form. The dough was firm, easy to shape and rose much higher than the previous one. I had used all-purpose flour on my first attempt, and my culture was more active this time.
Flavor-wise, this one was fairly bland compared to the first one, which had a deliciously strong sourdough flavor.

Homemade Bread experiment 1

How Peter Thiel foresaw the economic crisis

41 year old Peter Thiel:
hedge fund manager
venture capitalist
PayPal co-founder and CEO
global macro hedge fund president
early investor in the popular social-networking site Facebook


Apparently he foresaw the economic crisis.

Paul Krugman... super smart

Prionailurus viverrinus

The Fishing Cat

"A species can't be declared nearly extinct
until it has been declared totally cute"

Prionailurus viverrinus (Fishing Cat) has been declared endangered by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature.
And it has just been declared totally cute.

Neopolitan Pizza on the Grill

Is a bad idea:

1. You'll burn the house down.
2. You'll break your pizza stone.
3. You'll burn the pizza.

It's a good idea:

1. You just might make a great pizza that you can't make in the oven.

Pizza on the Grill

In late June I thought I had a major pizza-making breakthrough. I began cooking Pizza on the grill. My initial results were quite good. I fumbled around following several different recipes that called for grilling the dough first and then adding toppings. this ended up being far too dry, and definitely not the type of pizza I'm trying to make.

I then began identifying the keys to a successful pizza on the grill.

1. Get the coals as hot as possible. I mean really friggin' hot.
-Use a crap-ton of coals and keep the lid closed for 15-20 minutes before sliding the pizza on. If cooking multiple pizzas, have coals started on a chimney on the side and toss them on top in between pizzas.

-Open the lid just enough to slide the pizza in, and then close immediately .

I don't have the kind of thermometer that can measure the actual heat in my cheap-o grill. i'm holding out till I allow myself to buy the Electronic Specialties ESIEST 65 - Laser Guided Infrared Thermometer. I'm sure the temperature isn't nearly as hot as my goal of 800 degrees, but it has to be hotter than the 500 degree oven I had been using.