Jeff Varasano's famous NY pizza recipe

[Jenise]

I was scanning the net for a pizza recipe using a starter or poolish, since I made up a batch of poolish last weekend and neither of the two books I own that I was certain would contain such a recipe actually did.

And I found Jeff Varasano's site. His pictures look like exactly what I dream of making, even without the kind of oven he obviously has (he's baking at 800+ degrees). Very interesting stuff, worth a read for those into pizza baking.

Here's a link: http://jvpizza.sliceny.com/

Wow! Thanks for posting that, Jenise.

Now I am jonesin' for pizza and I just made it last weekend.


Tesuque Village Market was recently sold, and they have built an outdoor wood-fired pizza oven. They fire it up mid-morning and it's finally hot enough to bake pizzas by dinner time. They look just like this guy's pies! And they are Worth Living For!

Great site! I can't say I'm the purist that Varasano is, but I admire his tenacity in working out the recipe.

Now I just need to get out there and build myself a pizza oven....


Mike

Mike, once you've perfected the technique, drop 'round and build me one too, ok?

I was scanning the net for a pizza recipe using a starter or poolish, since I made up a batch of poolish last weekend

That's funny, you don't look poolish......

Jenise wrote:(he's baking at 800+ degrees).

Must be using a Kamado!

[James Roscoe]

Jenise wrote:(he's baking at 800+ degrees).

Must be using a Kamado!

Can you bake a pizza in that thing Bob?

Jenise, I'm wondering how much the quality comes from the poolish and how much from the 800F oven.

My Viking gets to 750F+ using a stone, and I haven't been able to taste a difference with and without starter when cooking at that heat.

Poolish made a significant difference when I cooked pizza at 550F or so.

Any opinion?

Thanks, Bob

Can you bake a pizza in that thing Bob?[/quote]

Absolutely darn tooting James. Check out the picture.
http://www.kamado.com/images/cookingpics/cookp16.jpg

I even without the kind of oven he obviously has (he's baking at 800+ degrees).

Off-topic, but this reminds me of that story in one of Jeffrey Steingarten's books where he decided the problem with a home stove and pizza was it just wasn't hot enough, and tried to bypass the locking system on the self-cleaning cycle. Hilarious.