Pizza Dough Technique Recipe - Cooking Index
Pizza Dough Technique Recipe - Cooking Index
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I worked in a pizzeria in New York during High School, and this is how we did it there. I make pizza about once a month.
What usually messes people up is that their dough is not round to begin with, and is not of uniform density throughout. If the dough is not uniformly dense, you end up with it stretching easier in some directions than others, and you end up with a lot of holes and thin spots. Not good.
The key to success is a procedure called (amazingly enough) "rounding" the dough. I do this after the first rise, when I divide my large dough up into two individual dough balls (my pizzas are always born in pairs, it's easier that way and you have a backup in case you mess one up).
So you take your dough out of its warm place and dump it on the counter and pat off all the excess olive oil. It will have a rough texture from the gasses that have built up, and it will be puffy. Punch it down on the counter to get all the gas out of it, and divide it in half. Use a scale, and if one is too big, just cut a little piece off and jam it into the cut part of the other piece. Your goal is to try to keep the outside surface of the dough intact and smooth, so you don't want to stick random pieces of dough to it.
Push the dough down on the counter and incorporate any little pieces you've glued on to bring it up to weight. Then, keeping the outside surface up at all times, gently fold the dough over on itself in a downward direction. Pretend your stroking the top of an upright mushroom, with the heel of your hand at the very top and your fingers pointing down. As you stroke, the gluten sheet at the top will stretch and relax. Curve the stuff that comes down with your fingers like you're shoving it up into the base of the mushroom. Rotate 45Fand repeat, being careful not to tear the gluten sheet. So it's pull/shove/rotate/pull.
Once you've gone around a few times and the dough is a nice tight little ball, scrunch the bottom together into a sort of nipple shape, so that it holds together. If it doesn't hold together, your dough is too oily, pat some off and try again.
What you should end up with is a nice firm ball of dough with a round top and a slightly flat bottom that doesn't unravel when you put it on the counter. Let it sit for a couple of minutes, and then oil a small bowl, plop the dough top down into the bowl so the top gets oily, then flip it over so the bottom gets oily, and then with the flat part of your fingers push the dough ball down into the bottom of the bowl so it's like a pancake. Cover with saran wrap and allow to rise.
By the way, the only cookbook I've seen that describes this procedure well is "The Italian Baker" by Carol Field. Excellent book, highly recommended.
When you're ready to make the 'za, dump the dough out onto a floured surface and pat off the olive oil. Push it down into a pancake and flour both sides. It should be perfectly round at this point. The trick is to keep it that way.
Push it down with the flat of your hand like the hands of a clock, keeping it round as you go in circles. It will spread out as much as it can this way, and should remain circular if your surface is will floured (don't be afraid of too much flour at this point, you can always bang it off later).
Cup your left hand around the edge of the dough so that your little finger is parallel to the edge, and with the fingertips of your right hand push down into the edge making a trench about 1/2" from the edge. This will be your crust. Go all the way around as evenly as possible.
Pick the dough up by this trench and put your fists under the dough so that it's hanging on the knuckles of the back of your hands. Pull you hands ever so gently apart, and inch or two at most. This, combined with the weight of the dough, will cause it to stretch. Give the dough a little toss clockwise and do the same thing. Here again it helps if everything is well floured.
Pull, flip, pull, flip, very gently. It helps to have a light source in back of you so you can see thin spots developing. Avoid holes, stay away from thin spots if you can. Once it's to the size you want, flop it down on your peel or screen or pan and tug it into shape. If you've done everything uniformly around the circumference of the dough, you should have a perfectly round pizza with about the thickness of a bedsheet. Once you get good at it this all takes about 20 seconds start to finish.
Flipping pizza is a good show, but in my opinion doesn't do much, so don't worry about it. It's not hard, but you occasionally tear a dough, so unless you really trust your dough I wouldn't advise it.
Source:
Robert Reichel
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