4 Levels of Pizza: Amateur to Food Scientist

[sauce simmering]

[crunching]

[upbeat music]

I'm Stephen, and I'm a level one chef.

I'm Beth, and I'm a level two chef.

I'm Sim Cass, and I've been a baker since 1973.

[upbeat music]

So I came up with this recipe basically

anytime my friends would come over

and they said, let's spend money.

And I'm like, absolutely not.

We're gonna make our own, and it's gonna cost under $10.

It's a really special recipe

because this recipe has my mother-in-law's sauce.

Sadie came all the way from Sciacca, Sicily,

and this recipe is an homage to her.

This pizza has a soft, airy interior

with a nice crusty shell on it and a lot of flavor.

[sound of sword sliding out of sheath]

[chimes]

We're going to start with the dough.

This is my store-bought dough, which is nice and ready.

The dough has to rise,

so I'm gonna use some active dry

yeast, Yeast

to our water, and we're gonna let that dissolve.

This is a three-day dough, and this is the first day.

Then we're gonna add our flour.

I'm gonna mix this together.

The scraper, easiest thing to use.

I'm gonna put my mixer on low.

I only have flour in the mixer right now.

I'm gonna add some salt,

I'm gonna slowly pour in some olive oil,

add the yeast mixture, and the dough

is just gonna come together in a sticky mess.

It's not really gonna come together.

It's gonna be very scruffy.

You can tell that it's very, very sticky,

and that's exactly what you want.

I'm gonna cover the dough, put it in the fridge overnight.

And this gets left outside, not in the refrigerator,

for 12 to 17 hours.

This is gonna develop flavor, and,

when we add it to our dough tomorrow,

it's gonna add a lot of nice holes in our pizza.

Now we're gonna make our main dough

with flour, water, salt, and yeast.

Then, we're gonna add the preferment,

[speaks in foreign language] in Italian.

This is the same preferment that I made earlier,

only this one is 24 hours old.

It's now developed and has these nice, big holes in it

and lots of flavor.

Lastly, I'm gonna add some starter.

This particular one has been around for about three years.

This will add a lot of flavor.

This dough will be wet.

I turn it onto the table, turn it onto itself

to get it going, and you're gonna push this forwards

and backwards on the table.

Now I'm gonna start pulling it into itself.

Look, now I got a pizza dough right here.

I'm gonna oil my bowl here.

We're gonna cover it, and we're gonna leave it

in the refrigerator overnight,

and that's gonna be yet another way

to introduce even more flavor into our dough.

So now we're gonna get started on the sauce.

This is a store-bought sauce.

This is a tomato basil.

This gives it a little bit of the aroma

that we're looking for.

[plopping in the bowl]

First of all, get your pan hot.

Then you're gonna get some good olive oil in there.

The oil is coming up to temperature.

I just cut my garlic right into the pan.

You want your onions.

I'm just getting a little color on my onions,

and then I put my garlic into that little space.

I'm now smelling this garlic.

There's no better smell.

I'm gonna strain the crushed tomatoes

'cause I really don't like the taste of the seeds.

In goes my whole tomatoes; that's good.

And now I add about half that amount of puree.

I put a little oregano in, two or three bay leaves.

I also like to add a little bit of Worchestershire sauce,

a good gloopy goo in there, all right?

Fresh ground pepper, Pepper,

same amount of salt, salt,

and about 10 leaves

of fresh basil. basil,

and I'm just gonna be Italian about it

and just throw it in like that.

Now I'm gonna reduce temperature.

When it's nice and thick, you know it's done.

The idea of cooking the sauce for three or four hours

is to take the acidity out of the tomatoes.

If we put a little sugar in, we can reduce the cook time

to about an hour, hour and a half.

[Beth] You could see that the sauce has reduced.

The tomatoes have disappeared,

and it's ready to go on the top of our pizza.

Next step is preparing the cheese.

I like to use Mozzarell. Mozzarella.

Part skim so it's a little bit on the healthier side.

I only use whole milk Mozzarell.

I really don't think that, if you're eating pizza,

you need to worry about a diet,

and it tastes so much better.

The Mozzarella I'm gonna slice it.

I think it should be round like a pizza.

I like to put grated Parmesan at the bottom of the pizza.

I think that the Pecorino Romano

has a better taste than the Parmesan.

And I like to put the peeled Parmesan in the center.

Then I like to put some Bel Paese,

a very, very creamy cheese.

You can't get too much cheese on a pizza.

So now we're gonna get our toppings ready.

With have some fresh pepper.

We're gonna use about half of each.

This is just so we can add a little bit of color.

If you're a pro like myself, you know that you

wanna keep your fingers out of the way.

Okay, that was close.

I try to include the seeds in there.

It looks ready, so now we're gonna get

to the mushrooms. Mushrooms,

precooked; most toppings I precook.

Watch your fingers.

I feel like somewhere there's a chef that's squeaming.

All I put on the pizza is basil.

My husband Ritchie doesn't like anything on his pizza,

so this pizza I'm making for him.

Kalamata olives.

Make sure there's no pips in there.

The sausages, put them in the oven, cook them through.

I like 'em fairly thin and sorta long.

Now we're gonna put our pizza together.

Here's our dough.

It waited for us 24 hours.

All we have to do is pinch off a piece.

Then I put a lot of flour Flour

on the table.

to make the dough less sticky.

And it's really, really easy to roll out.

[laughs] Okay, it's not working.

Please do not add as much flour as I did.

Then I'm gonna push down with my fingers,

and you should be getting air bubbles at this stage.

I like to just let gravity do the job, basically.

I wanna get my pizza up off the counter

and right onto my stone.

So I purposely shape this in the shape

of a Christmas stocking.

It doesn't need to look like a perfect rectangle

or a perfect circle.

All it has to do is taste really, really good.

That looks good.

I never put oil in my dough.

I always put oil on the dough.

I go with Parmesan onto my dough.

I like to start with the Mozz instead of the sauce

because the sauce makes the middle

of the pizza a little mushy if it goes on first.

Now we wanna add the sauce.

People make a mistake here,

and they put too much sauce on.

We don't wanna be too stingy with the sauce.

I don't really spread it out; I leave it in blobs.

That looks good.

[Beth] I like to leave an edge.

Now we add the cheese.

Pecorino Romano.

Parmesan in the middle for my first bite,

then I'm gonna put my Mozzarella,

and then I'm gonna put some Bel Paese.

Bel Paese melts like cream.

God, I'm getting quite hungry thinking about it.

If you're feeling fancy, you can do yourself a favor

and stuff some of the cheese into the crust

so, when you bite into the crust,

there's a little surprise inside.

Now we wanna grab our mixed vegetables,

throw in on the pizza.

Basil, a little bit of pepper.

[pepper grinder cracking pepper]

I'm not gonna cut the mushrooms.

I'm gonna leave them in big pieces.

A couple of olives, the sausages just like this.

Then I like to go back in, oil on the edge.

The olive oil around the edges

are gonna make the edges nice and crispy.

That look professionally done.

I think we're ready to put it in the oven.

We're gonna put it in at 450 degrees Fahrenheit

for about 10 to 12 minutes,

and we'll see if it's ready to rock and roll.

And this is my pizza, 500-degree oven,

12 minutes, and it's perfect.

So our pizza is fresh out the oven.

I put it in for a extra three minutes just

so the crust could get a little bit crispier to my liking.

Mmm.

This oven here mimics a wood-fire oven.

Three minutes later, approximately,

we're gonna take this pizza out.

I'm a big fan of a lot of color on a pizza.

I don't like 'em too bland looking.

This one's a little dark around the edges; that's fine.

Let's top it off with the arugula,

a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

Oil on the outside, pepper,

a little bit more salt, basil.

Break it on there so it's first thing you smell

when it gets to table.

Only sauce, cheese, and basil on this pizza

because that's Ritchie's favorite,

so here's a pizza for my Ritchie.

[bright, chiming music]

It looks good. [camera shutter clicks]

I think it looks delicious,

and I know it tastes delicious.

[camera shutter clicks]

Looks good, if I say so myself.

[camera shutter clicks]

Now I'm actually gonna taste this.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm, that's good.

That's good. Yeah, good.

Does have the characteristics of a wood-fired oven.

Sadie's sauce, good dough; you can't beat it.

This is gonna be my Tinder profile, just this pizza.

[pointer hits board]

We saw three different chefs make three different pizzas.

[heavy drums]

[pointer hits board]

Making pizza dough involves a fermentation reaction.

This is a series of chemical reactions

that takes the sugars naturally found in flour

and converts them into carbon dioxide,

ethyl alcohol, and flavoring compounds.

All pizza doughs are leavened with yeast.

The carbon dioxide produced by the yeast helps

to leaven the pizza dough while it's baking.

Stephen used a store-bought pizza dough

that had yeast in its ingredients.

Oh my God.

[Food Scientist] Beth made a homemade pizza dough

and mixed in dry active yeast.

[mixer whirring] The yeast

looks nice and bubbly to me.

By adding water to the dry yeast,

you can hydrate it and mix in some flour

to start the fermentation reaction.

Sim used prefermented starters in his pizza dough.

Well, see, if you could put more preferment in,

you're gonna get a lot more flavor

Prefermented starters start the fermentation process

before they're mixed in with the pizza dough ingredients.

Starting this process early develops flavor compounds

in the starter, and this can be done

over a period of years, like we saw in Sim's starter.

This particular one has been around for about three years.

We can add that back into the pizza dough

to provide a complex flavor profile.

Protein provides viscoelasticity to bread dough.

Using a high-protein flour like Sim did

will give the dough stretch and rise when it bakes.

The flour should be high-gluten flour

and will give us a nice, stretchy dough.

Using a moderate protein flour like Beth did

will not provide as much elasticity in the bread dough

and will not create as much puffiness

or air bubbles in the final product.

What I like about this recipe

is that the dough doesn't spring back.

[sauce plopping into bowl] [heavy drums]

[pointer hits board]

All of our chefs used a tomato-based sauce on their pizza.

Stephen used a jarred sauce.

[sniffs] Hmm.

Beth and Sim both made homemade tomato sauce

with canned tomatoes.

Canned tomatoes are picked at peak ripeness.

This means that the starches in the tomatoes

have been converted into sugars,

and the tomatoes in our cans are quite sweet.

Fresh tomatoes in your grocery store

may not be at peak ripeness, which means they ultimately

might not be as sweet.

[heavy drums]

[pointer hits board]

Stephen used pre-shredded, low-fat Mozzarella on his pizza.

Pre-shredded cheeses are coated in an anti-caking agent.

This helps to ensure that, in storage,

they don't clump together or cake together.

When this heated in an oven, the cheese will hold its shape

and won't create a uniform layer over the pizza.

Stephen chose a low-fat cheese to top his pizza.

Part skim so it's a little bit on the healthier side.

Lower-fat Mozzarellas separate more easily when exposed

to heat, creating an oily layer on the top of the pizza.

[makes guttural throat sound]

Beth used whole milk Mozzarella and grated it by hand.

I only use whole milk Mozzarell.

These two factors improve the meltability

of the cheese over the pizza.

She also added Pecorino, which will add another layer

of flavor.

You can't get too much cheese on a pizza.

Sim intentionally staggered three different cheeses

over his pizza.

This will provide a unique eating experience

by tasting different cheeses as you eat a slice.

I'm thinking about the future a little bit

all the time when you're doing this stuff.

[heavy drums]

[pointer hits board]

When you roll the pizza dough,

the elastic nature of the gluten in the dough pulls it back

to its original form, creating a thicker crust.

Nobody likes thin crust pizza; it's a myth.

[Food Scientist] When you stretch the pizza dough,

we can stretch out the gluten and create a thinner crust.

The reason why this is so stretchy

is because of all that high-gluten flour

and all the gluten that we developed in there

on the table like this.

[heavy drums]

[pointer hits board]

When adding toppings to the dough,

we want to prevent sogginess.

One way of doing this is by adding a layer of cheese

before adding the sauce like Beth and Sim did.

Sauce makes the middle of the pizza a little mushy

if it goes on first.

Another way to do this is by precooking the toppings,

like Sim did.

Most toppings I precook.

Precooking your topping draws out some

of the moisture, creating a nice, crisp crust.

Using raw toppings, like Stephen did, can allow the moisture

to seep out and create a soggy crust.

Okay, that was close.

[heavy drums]

[pointer hits board]

Stephen and Beth used the highest temperature setting

on their oven to create a crisp pizza cooked

over a longer period of time.

It's about 500 screaming degrees.

Sim used a specialized pizza oven

that has a much higher temperature than a home oven

and can cook the pizza in just minutes

to create a really crispy crust.

This oven here mimics a wood-fire oven.

Everybody has their own preference when making pizza.

Whether it's a thin or thick crust,

using different toppings or cheeses,

there's a lot to learn from the pizza-making methods.

[bright, bouncy instrumental music]