Since my visit to DiFara's last week I've been contemplating trying to create a home version of his square pizza. The following is my plan to start the experimentation. I hope people can chime in and help out with suggestions, criticism, advice or even just to point and laugh at my efforts
. I've ordered a 5 lb. repacked bag of Caputo 00 from pennmac.com and I am ready to start making the dough.
My plan:
The sauce:
I have no idea what Dom puts in his square pizza sauce. All I know is that it is pre-cooked. I did some research on this site and other sites about Sicilian sauce recipes and narrowed down ingredients that are, in my opinion, "must haves". This list also includes ingredients I saw laying around DiFara's. I going with the idea of simplicity so I have a base recipe that I could add ingredients little by little and control the variables as much as I can.
Whole Peeled Tomatoes - San Marzano preferred. Dom most likely uses Vantia.
Olive Oil - Berrio, either Mild or Extra Virgin. I saw bottles for both types. Will most likely use Extra Virgin for flavor.
Garlic - Fresh, chopped/minced.
Oregano - Fresh.
Basil - Fresh. Might only add this at the end of the cooking process. Also, I don't remember Dom adding fresh basil to the pizza while he was dressing it.
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
White Wine - I have no idea if Dom uses wine, however, white wine really wakes up the flavor of tomatoes; so I'm going to run with it. I've seen some recipes call for red wine, however, I have a gut feeling there wasn't any in the sauce I tasted. I use white wine in my spaghetti sauces and think it really adds depth to the sauce.
Will probably simmer the above ingredients for 1-2 hours. Comments?
The dough:
Many on this thread have done all the leg work for finding out how Dom makes his dough. I will have to assume Dom uses the same dough for both types of pizzas(until someone confirms othewise), so I plan to use the same ingredients (ie, a mix of Caputo and All Trumps, 65% hydration, etc.), but want to used a cold ferment for better flavor and crust characteristics. Dom's few hour same day rise most likely won't cut it in my home oven.
I'm wondering if I should use the 75% Caputo, 25% All Trumps ratio. It will be my first time using the Caputo, so I'm worried it might not work well in my home oven. Having said that, it looks like Peter was able to make a decent pizza with this ratio, especially with a 24-hour cold ferment with autolyse. I was thinking, to be on the safe side, to use a 60-40 or 65-35 ratio of Caputo to All Trumps. I'm also contemplating using some olive oil to help with the Caputo. Comments?
Dough Formulation:
100%, Flour
65%, Water
1.5% Salt
0.50% IDY
1%, Olive oil(maybe)
I am planning to start with the above dough formulation. It is Peter's recipe from the previous page which he seemed to like and had success using. The question is what thickness factor to use. Dom's round pizza is pretty thin at 0.086; I was thinking of making it a good 25% thicker which comes out to 0.1075. This still seems a tad on the thin side for a Sicilian pizza, but Dom's Sicilian was not exactly thick in the middle, although the edges seemed to be pretty thick. Thoughts?
After a cold ferment, I was planning on allowing the dough to reach room temperature, oil a square pan and shape the dough in the pan. Perhaps I should allow the dough to slightly rise in the pan before baking. I would then par-bake the dough at 550 degrees on my pizza stone with a little bit of sauce on top of the dough, excluding the edges. Dom par-baked his square doughs with a little bit of sauce and had significant charring on the edges of the dough. I'm planning to only slightly brown the crust and try to get it charred after the final topping(maybe using my broiler).
After the par-baking, I will add more olive oil to the bottom of the pan (Dom did this) and top with more sauce, fresh mozz, blocked whole milk mozz and olive oil. I will be trying to get a crisp, dark edge/crust, but yet a soft and chewy middle.
All comments would be appreciated.
Mike
