From Mozza , Nancy Silverton

Started by Serial Griller, June 23, 2014, 05:54:25 PM

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Serial Griller

From her pizzaria in San Diego and book Mozza Two of Nacy Silverton's pies
One ,tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil and one with whipped cream ,fennel sausage and scalions.
Loved the whipped cream fennel combination.
Baked on the Big Green Egg

norma427

Duke,

Great job on your two pies!  ;D

Norma

TXCraig1

They look a lot like Mozza pies. Nice.
"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, baker's yeast when we must, but always great pizza."  
Craig's Neapolitan Garage

woodmakesitgood

Nice looking pies griller,
how do you get browning on the top without burning the bottom in your BGE?
Charles

Serial Griller

#4
Quote from: woodmakesitgood on June 23, 2014, 08:04:58 PM
Nice looking pies griller,
how do you get browning on the top without burning the bottom in your BGE?
Thanks, Nancy's dough has rye flour, wheat germ, and honey.That might affect the browning a bit.
The Egg gets a ceramic plate setter then fire bricks and then a pizza stone.All of that protects the pie from excessive heat.it also puts the pie higher in the dome so there is good heat reflection on top of the pie.
Hope you can view the photo bucket shots   click on the links below   All that ceramic gets preheated for 45 minutes
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj75/wings55_album/P1010089.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj75/wings55_album/P1010093.jpg

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Serial Griller


jsaras

The recipe in Nancy's book, as well as the pizza class that is offered there periodically, is not what they serve at the restaurant. 

The book recipe is basically a 4-hour dough.  The "real" dough probably has the small amounts of wheat germ and rye flour as described in the book; it's standard breadmaker's technique to impart some rustic flavor.  However, the dough's fermentation is considerably longer.  I recall being told in the class that it takes them three days.  I'd also bet that a natural starter is used, perhaps supplemented with dry yeast.

I think that your best bet to emulating this dough at home would be to use Jerry Mac's formulation (8-hour same day dough) which uses a preferment, and substitute 1.92% of the flour with dark rye flour and subsitute 0.96% of the flour with wheat germ.   Or, if you want to keep it simpler, just substitute 10% whole wheat flour.  You're just trying to get a slight earthy note into the dough.

Just offering some different ideas to get you there.

Things have never been more like today than they are right now.

tinroofrusted

I think you could use the recipe in her book but preferment a portion of the flour and water (maybe 10-15%)  at 100% hydration with a very small amount of yeast at room temperature for 12 hours or so, then mix the dough with maybe another small addition of yeast.  I disagree with JSaras about the natural starter; I think they only use yeast at Mozza (maybe cake yeast). It's a pretty wet dough too, probably up to as much as 70% hydration.  They use a lot of bench flour when they press out the skins.  Very difficult to recreate Nancy's pizza though.  It's unique. 

jsaras

The two variations I've seen of her dough formulation were at 84% and 78.6%.   I took a guess at the hybrid yeast approach.  Nancy uses it for some of her breads.  I think that may account for the "monster" rims on Mozza's pizzas.
Things have never been more like today than they are right now.

mitchjg

In 2012, Nancy Silverton did a few videos for Serious Eats.  In this video:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/03/video-ask-nancy-silverton-week-2.html
she indicates her inspiration having come from Chris Bianco and also a bakery in Italy.  She talks about more of a bread baker's approach and that she is not simulating the wetter style from Naples  This would seem to corroborate her oven temperature is not super high and her baking time is not short.

In this video:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/02/video-ask-nancy-silverton-pizza-crust-bread-la-brea-mozza-osteria.html
she indicates that the wheat germ addition is for the book version of the pizza recipe but that wheat germ is not used in the restaurant version.  No sourdough starter, baker's yeast.  Rye flour, barley malt, white flour, salt and water are the only ingredients.

I have never tried her recipe because the hydration level seems so high that it would be a PITA to me.  I would be very interested in the experience of others.  Her pizza looks delicious.

- Mitch
Mitch

"We hate math," says 4 in 10 – a majority of Americans

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tinroofrusted

Quote from: mitchjg on July 07, 2014, 10:07:24 AM
In 2012, Nancy Silverton did a few videos for Serious Eats.  In this video:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/03/video-ask-nancy-silverton-week-2.html
she indicates her inspiration having come from Chris Bianco and also a bakery in Italy.  She talks about more of a bread baker's approach and that she is not simulating the wetter style from Naples  This would seem to corroborate her oven temperature is not super high and her baking time is not short.

In this video:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/02/video-ask-nancy-silverton-pizza-crust-bread-la-brea-mozza-osteria.html
she indicates that the wheat germ addition is for the book version of the pizza recipe but that wheat germ is not used in the restaurant version.  No sourdough starter, baker's yeast.  Rye flour, barley malt, white flour, salt and water are the only ingredients.

I have never tried her recipe because the hydration level seems so high that it would be a PITA to me.  I would be very interested in the experience of others.  Her pizza looks delicious.

- Mitch

Regarding the wheat germ: probably if there is any then it is ground up pretty fine; you can't see it in the dough or in the finished pizza. I use wheat germ in my own crusts frequently and you can easily see it in the dough and in the finished pizza.  I sometimes wonder if the wheat germ doesn't fight with extensibility a bit since it may tend to "cut" the gluten stands a bit.  One other data point is that I went to the pizza class at Mozza in L.A. a year or so before Nancy's book came out. The recipe that they used and handed out at the class was pretty much the same recipe that they used in the book.  They showed us how to mix up the dough using the recipe they gave out.  Tellingly, they made a couple of pizzas using a risen version of the dough they made at the class, but then when it came time to make pizzas for everyone to try, they used the real recipe.  They made 8 or 10 of the greatest pizzas I've ever tasted, all using the "real" Mozza dough recipe.  After the class, I asked the chef who made the pizzas for us what changes he would recommend in order to emulate the real recipe, and he said to add a bit of barley malt (which wasn't in the recipe that they gave us at the class but did appear in the book) and do an overnight preferment. 

Serial Griller

Quote from: hotsawce on July 06, 2014, 09:24:05 PM
I'm very happy I found this thread. I am back to making pizza at home and I really enjoyed Mozza when I ate there; I was really able to appreciate it for what it was and honestly loved it. Crispy, airy, blistered...very satisfying.

Is this the recipe from Nancy's book? I think it might be very possible to replicate Mozza close to perfectly in a home oven...I think their wood oven runs around 550 and cooks a pie in 8 to 10 minutes. With a baking steel, I could probably get close. I also understand the chefs brush olive oil on the crust before baking to get it golden brown.

I used the recipe from the book. I remember having to add a lot of flour because the dough was so wet.
Her book recipe uses a sponge that sits for 15 minutes. I followed the recipe and I started mixed the dough at 1:30 and didn't bake until 6PM.A  lot of hands on. More than most dough recipes I've used.
I like the way the crust came out airy and crisp on the bottom.I baked it on the egg @550' for 8 minutes.

Serial Griller

Not sure who your question is for but..
I used bread flour. I don't have the book in front of me as I checked it out from the library and don't know the bakers % for the barley malt.
I didn't have barley malt and used a tablespoon of honey.I used Bob's Red Mill Wheat germ.

Pete-zza

Barley malt comes in two forms--diastatic and nondiastatic. Most domestic white flours in the U.S. are malted at the miller's facility with about 0.1-0.2% diastatic barley malt. The diastatic malt is an enzyme that converts damaged starch in the flour to natural sugars to feed the yeast and for contributing to crust coloration.

Nondiastatic barley malt is a sweetener and has no enzyme functionality. It adds taste and color to the finished crust. If you remember the Sbarro pizzas of old, they used nondiastatic barley malt. It comes in dry or liquid form. I would say that about 2% by weight of flour might be a good starting point. Even at that value, you might detect a tannish coloration to the crumb. If the Mozza crumb has little or no color, then they either use no nondiastatic malt or only a small amount. However, it sounds like Mozza does not use any sweetener in their dough, and nondiastatic malt is a sweetener.

Mozza might add diastatic barley malt to its flour if it was an unmalted flour to begin with. But you can't overdo the use of diastatic barley malt. You can end up with a sticky and clammy dough.

Peter

Tampa

Quote from: tinroofrusted on July 07, 2014, 10:55:44 AM
Regarding the wheat germ: probably if there is any then it is ground up pretty fine; you can't see it in the dough or in the finished pizza. I use wheat germ in my own crusts frequently and you can easily see it in the dough and in the finished pizza.  I sometimes wonder if the wheat germ doesn't fight with extensibility a bit since it may tend to "cut" the gluten stands a bit.  One other data point is that I went to the pizza class at Mozza in L.A. a year or so before Nancy's book came out. The recipe that they used and handed out at the class was pretty much the same recipe that they used in the book.  They showed us how to mix up the dough using the recipe they gave out.  Tellingly, they made a couple of pizzas using a risen version of the dough they made at the class, but then when it came time to make pizzas for everyone to try, they used the real recipe.  They made 8 or 10 of the greatest pizzas I've ever tasted, all using the "real" Mozza dough recipe.  After the class, I asked the chef who made the pizzas for us what changes he would recommend in order to emulate the real recipe, and he said to add a bit of barley malt (which wasn't in the recipe that they gave us at the class but did appear in the book) and do an overnight preferment.
Great story Tin.
Dave

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Pete-zza

Lou,

You can see the crumb coloration I mentioned in the Sbarro clone pizza that I described at Reply 56 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=2061.msg40413#msg40413 . I used 2.2% barley malt syrup (part of which is water) but a smaller amount and a long slow bake can yield an overall golden crust color without having a noticeably darkened crumb.

Peter

Pete-zza

It seemed to me that a few years ago another member asked for help with a Mozza clone. I did a search and found this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=12556.0 . That thread did not mention Mozza until Reply 41. But there are links to material that seems to bear on the matter of replicating the Mozza pizza. In one of the articles mentioned, the Milquetoast article, there is even a photo of Norma. The woman gets around.

Peter

Pete-zza

On the matter of the wheat germ and its lack of visibility in the Mozza crust, I should mention that there are commercial versions of wheat germ that are ground finely so that it is like flour. I learned this a few years ago when Norma and I were attempting to reverse engineer and clone a Mellow Mushroom dough that at one point included wheat germ (they later stopped using it). My research on wheat germ ultimately took me to companies that specialized in wheat germ products. What I learned is discussed in Reply 92 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=3940.msg153689;topicseen#msg153689 . It's actually quite interesting stuff.

Peter

tinroofrusted

Peter thanks for the information about wheat germ and the links. I have just purchased a good quality blender so I may try to "mill" the wheat germ down to a smaller size. 

Omidz

Hi everyone. Does anyone know if Mozza ever refrigerates their dough? They go through so much I am wondering how they would keep their dough at room temp the entire time without problems. I know they I see LA Brea bakery for making their dough but that still seems to be very impressive if they never refrigerate

Ps I am having miller milling send me a couple samples of Mello Judith now that they have aquired the brand front conagra. Will try it out and see if the same

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