Mozza Pizza Stretching Video

[tinroofrusted]

Hi all,

We went to Mozza for dinner tonight, and we were able to sit at the bar in front of the kitchen so we could watch the pizzaiolos at work. Great fun. I made a short video of one of the guys stretching a couple of pizza skins. They put olive oil around the edge of the dough to get the edges browned and crisp.  You can see some good technique and their great, extensible dough.  I asked the guy how many pizzas he makes a night and he said around 200 or so.  So he's had a lot of practice!  Here's the link to the video:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZT9cbrp_U" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZT9cbrp_U</a>

I also took a couple of pictures of two of our pizzas: (1) Brussels sprouts with pancetta, red onions, panna and mozzarella; (2) Goat cheese, leeks scallions, garlic & bacon. Both were great. 

Regards,

TinRoof

[jeff v]

Thumbs up for puffy rims! I've been brushing the rims of my pizza w oil for the past year or so and really like what it does. It looks like he's sprinkling a little salt on there-I wonder why you would need to do that if the dough was salted correctly? Maybe certain topping combos get the extra salt.

Mozza and Bianco are probably the two places I am looking forward to visiting most at this point. Thanks posting.

[TXCraig1]

TinRoof, what do you think the ball size is? 300g? more? Are the pies 12" or 13"?

Jeff,

[jeff v]

Jeff,

Yes?

[TXCraig1]

Not sure where I was going with that.

[Jackie Tran]

The doughballs could be as low as 250gm if the dough is a moderately to high hydration dough.  These doughs tend to puff up quite a bit in a hot oven.   Anyone shooting to replicate this crust should probably work towards a puffy but light and tender crumb and not just a big bready chewy dense rim. 

I live down the street from NYPD pizza here in Albuquerque and they too paint their rims with oil.  I asked one of the guys why they do that and he said it is to prevent the crust from drying out.  Apparently they open, sauce, and cheese their pies ahead of time on pizza pans, so the pre made pizzas sit for awhile before actually getting baked.  Painting the rims also makes them a bit crispier giving them a fried dough texture.  I've since adopted this and do like it.

Jeff if Mozza's bake times are in line with Bianco's their crust may also very well have a very similar texture.  Their dough, when opened looks to me just a bit stronger than Bianco's dough.  I think Bianco's is definitely worth stopping by if you happen to be in the neighborhood.  His crust has a really great texture to it. 

Chau

[bfguilford]

TRR: That's a serious amount of oil that they are applying. I've been spraying a little EVOO on my rims to boost the browning, and will give this a try on one of tonight's Glutenboy pies (I think I'll do the first one in case we really like it).

Chau: How do they keep the sauce from soaking through the skin if they apply it so far in advance? The only time I did that (it was a mistake... I had forgotten to shred the cheese), my pie welded to the stone (I think I might have been a steel then).

Barry

[Jackie Tran]

Barry, I haven't timed them so I don't know how long these premade pies are actually sitting until they get baked.  They may just be making enough of them to help buffer the dinner rush IDK.  It could be that their sauce is a not too wet either.  Their NY dough likely has a good a mount of oil in it.  That also helps with the sauce not soaking through the skin.

Anyways, sorry for getting off topic talking about NYPD.  This is the Mozza stretching video thread. 

[TXCraig1]

The doughballs could be as low as 250gm if the dough is a moderately to high hydration dough.  These doughs tend to puff up quite a bit in a hot oven. 

I was talking about the look of the ball pre-bake, and looked bigger than 250g to me. I use 260g, and that ball looks 50% bigger than mine and perhaps not as risen.

[Jackie Tran]

I was talking about the look of the ball pre-bake, and looked bigger than 250g to me. I use 260g, and that ball looks 50% bigger than mine and perhaps not as risen.

Are you sure their prebaked ball is not quite as risen as yours?  They look full of air to me.  When then are full of air like that, it can be deceiving how much the balls actually weigh.  You can see how much air is in them when he goes to push down to create the rim.  Their dough is well risen to me, but 300gm sounds like a good number. 

[tinroofrusted]

Thanks for all the comments.  They put a pinch of salt on every pizza skin without exception. And I would say that if there is a knock on Mozza's pizzas (my favorite pizza except maybe for Bianco and Pepe's in New Haven) it is that they are a bit on the salty side. That is probably them looking for maximum flavor. My daughter remarked to that just about every dessert featured salt as well.  So they are not afraid of salt.  And they do put a pretty healthy slug of oil on there too.  But it all comes out tasting amazing.  

The ovens are kept at about 575F; they have a thermometer monitoring both the floor and the dome so you can look and see the temperature while sitting at the bar.  Bake time is a leisurely five minutes or so.  Nancy Silverton is really after a more bread-like pizza, so a longer bake time is consistent with that.

 The pizzas are between 9 and 10 inches across.  I'm not sure exactly how big the dough balls are.  I think they are probably about 200-225 grams each. The base of the pizzas is very thin, but then it thickens up quite a bit at the edges.  And they use very copious amounts of bench flour. They do seem to get most of it off by the time the pizza skin is stretched, but you can see white spots on the bottom where the flour stuck to the crust. Strangely it does not seem to adversely affect the taste of the pizzas, maybe because the oven temps are lower.  I am normally pretty sensitive to excess bench flour (especially on my own pizzas) but it is no problem at all at Mozza.  

Anyway, back on the diet!  I'm down 15 lbs on my way to losing 25 or so. I deny myself homemade pizza as a motivational device.  

TinRoof

[jeff v]

I would have guessed the y were smaller considering they're cut into 1/4...and it's LA/Newport Beach. FWIW (maybe not much) the Mozza cookbook call for roughly 7oz dough balls in their recipe...200g or so.

The temp and the bake time are interesting. The best pizza I've ever had was at Great Lake in Chicago and had a long bake. It was THE best of bread and pizza. Nancys bread background also why I want to try Mozza so much. Weird realizing while I do love it, Neapolitan pizza is not my absolute favorite style.

[jeffereynelson]

Craig- From my experience eating there I don't think the dough balls are coming out to 300g. Definitely less

Chau- I haven't eaten Biancos, but Mozza's bake time is actually quite slow for this style of place. I remember asking my waitress how long it took to bake and she said "oh really fast, it bakes in 8 or 9 minutes." I thought that was funny and knew it wasn't true, so I timed it to just over 2.5 minutes.

[bakeshack]

Craig- From my experience eating there I don't think the dough balls are coming out to 300g. Definitely less

Chau- I haven't eaten Biancos, but Mozza's bake time is actually quite slow for this style of place. I remember asking my waitress how long it took to bake and she said "oh really fast, it bakes in 8 or 9 minutes." I thought that was funny and knew it wasn't true, so I timed it to just over 2.5 minutes.

I have been here 3x and the bake times were all between 7-8 mins.  Nowhere near 2.5 mins.  They need to run the oven at least 700-750F to bake 2.5 mins like Bianco and I would imagine their olive oil on the crust will not taste as good at that temp.  Here is a video of Mozza where they said the bake time is at 8 mins at 520-530F with the floor at 500F -

<a href="http://vimeo.com/42892557" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://vimeo.com/42892557</a>

[Tscarborough]

He looks to be opening those skins to 12" to me.

[jeffereynelson]

I have been here 3x and the bake times were all between 7-8 mins.  Nowhere near 2.5 mins.  They need to run the oven at least 700-750F to bake 2.5 mins like Bianco and I would imagine their olive oil on the crust will not taste as good at that temp.  Here is a video of Mozza where they said the bake time is at 8 mins at 520-530F with the floor at 500F - http://vimeo.com/42892557

Thanks for the correction, I guess I timed the wrong pizza coming out haha.