Greg’s been working on his pizza dough recipe for a while now, and we think it’s pretty good. But when Sam Sifton’s article “A Little Pizza Homework” came out in the New York Times, he was still eager to try it.
The recipe comes from Roberta’s, the famous pizza place in Bushwick. (Our SCF visit is here: Pizza at Roberta’s. And we also tried the pizza again at the next summer: Madison Square Eats.)
The pizza is outrageous, and the recipe comes real close.
The big difference, Greg says, is the amount of AP flour. Greg was using all 00 flour, which is very finely milled and gives you a very light texture. The AP flour gives you more gluten, and so more chew. Greg also made the dough 36 hours ahead, which was 12 hours longer even than called for in the recipe. The resting time relaxes the gluten and allows the dough to do what’s called cold fermentation. As Greg says, “it gives everything a chance to munge together.”
And it was a huge success. Darn near the best pizza he’s ever made, I’d say.
We’ll be working this recipe for a while, and once we get one that’s truly ours, we’ll post it. In the meantime, here’s what Sam Sifton has for us.
Roberta’s Pizza Dough.
Pizza Margherita.
Cheeses Pie.
The Green and White.
We tried all of them, and the only one we wouldn’t recommend was the Cheeses. It just didn’t have the pop of flavor that the others did. The others? Terrific. Just terrific.
