The foodwithlegs blog is still powered by the wordpress software but now is hosted outside of wordpress.com.  Seems like a distinction without a difference?  Here is a good page (produced by wordpress) that goes pretty far toward explaining the difference.  Coincidentally I have also adopted a theme for the blog (PrimePress) that maintains the aesthetic of the old site while allowing more functionality.

Foodwithlegs is growing and changing.  Almost all of the content has been moved over from the old site though some things (such as images) are still works in progress.  Please continue reading, comment on posts and get in touch with me at foodwithlegs@gmail.com.

Cheers!

Last weekend’s Globe and Mail has Joanne Kates’s take on the Black Hoof.  Like Ms. Kates, Kat and I enjoyed ourselves so much there that we took friends with us for a return visit last month and I’ve produced an update to my earlier review.

The Basil Fawlty

Chef Grant van Gameren gets a lot of (deserved) attention for his cooking but his partner, Jen Agg and her cocktails deserve as much praise.  I admit having a prejudice against cocktails because of the super-sweet, electric blue, hyphenated “tinis” that monopolise most cards. I’m pleased to see that the closest the Hoof comes to this is having memorable nicknames for the liquid creations but in a subtle (as in “Basil Fawlty”) instead of overtly sexual (as in “Red-headed Slut”) way.  I didn’t get to try them all but the table’s consensus was that the three we tried all tasted great.  Best of all these cocktails are actually served in traditional highball glasses instead of the annoyingly ubiquitous cone-shaped cocktail glasses.

The chalkboard menu

Between the Hoof having such a concise menu and an extra three diners to spread the choosing amongst we have now managed to try almost the entire menu.

An extraordinary charcuterie board

Highlights on this iteration of the must-have charcuterie board–large this time–were the lamb tongue, the snout-to-tail terrine and, of course, the whipped duck liver mousse.

The very excellent tongue on brioche sandwich with pickled celery

Kat and I agree that the veal tongue on brioche sandwich is amazing.  Black Hoof will test your limits but rest assured that this sandwich is not a recognisable piece of cow tongue served between two pieces of bread but rather a big pile of delicious, meat shaved wafer-thin, skewered between two brioche slices.  The plate features an amazing pickled celery that calmly asserts warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg that I would really like to try and reproduce at home.

Raw bison (substituted for horse) sandwich

“Daunting to look at, but delicious,” is how Kat describes the egg yolk on the tartare sandwich.  I guess if you’re ordering a sandwich filled with raw meat an egg yolk is not a big problem.  We didn’t have to deal with any qualms about consuming horse because they had run out of equine and substituted bison instead.  I managed to wrestle a bite of this sandwich from Kat and don’t at all regret the growling that inspired.  The spicy mayo in particular makes this a definite keeper.

Seared foie gras on brioche

The foie gras was perfectly seared and its richness was completely satisfying.  I’m not sure, though, that such a minimalist presentation fits the casual vibe.

Oysters perched on top of roasted marrow bones

The one mis-step, in my opinion, was pairing oysters with bone marrow.  I get the conceptual point that oysters are the essence of the sea (the ultimate “surf”) and bone marrow is the essence of beef (the ultimate “turf”) but placing raw oysters in the shell on top of hot marrow bones only serves to warm them above the ideal eating temperature.  I wonder, why not substitute something that is meant to be served warm and would benefit from the buttery richness of the bone marrow–like maybe seared scallops?

We’ll definitely be back to try the patio when it opens.

After the setback of  accumulated snow earlier in the week the weather has now become much sunnier and spring-like.

Tomato seedlings crowded two or three to a cell and starting to push out their first true leaves

The tomatoes germinated at a much better rate than expected.  This means that I face one of the tougher moments in the gardening year.  Two or three seedlings cannot co-exist in a single cell.  They will compete for nutrients and water and end up killing each other.  More to the point it is very difficult (at least for amateurs gardeners of my level) to separate the delicate root systems and transplant these tiny siamese seedlings into separate containers.  The only solution I can see is to use a pair of scissors to remove all but the strongest seedling in each cell.  It is a amazing that each of these little guys will produce at least ten pounds of tomatoes if given the right growing conditions but similarly difficult to willfully destroy the seedlings that have nothing obviously wrong with them.

Only the strongest tomato seedlings avoid the trimming scissors

The strongest seedlings are left to continue growing.  This is often the tallest but sometimes can be the seedling furthest towards producing true leaves.  Every tomato seed produces a shoot that opens into two seed leaves.  From the union of these seed leaves the plant puts out its new growth and the first leaves that look distinctly like tomato plants.

Lettuce thrives in the cool sunny spring weather

In the backyard greenhouse the lettuce is continuing its strong growth.  I’ve scattered some more seeds amongst the existing plants for a second crop and will harvest some of the first leaves soon for an early spring salad.   The radish and spinach seeds are germinating at a very good rate.

Radish seedlings break free from the seed coats and start the germination process

The warmer weather means that the lettuce seems to be consuming more water.  This is another shift in the gardening year that I find needs conscious effort as I move from delicately spraying single cells to remembering to pour much greater quantities of water directly into the lettuce container.

Hot pepper seeds went into the germination tray this weekend.  Like last year I will be growing Red Cayenne and Hungarian Hot Wax varieties.  Hopefully, by changing the seeding mix from last year (no under-matured compost this time) I will avoid also growing a swamp maple weed.

Green fading to a golden brown is a positive sign that fermentation is at work

Apparently there are eastern European recipes for making sauerkraut with whole heads of cabbage immersed in large barrels of brine.  I don’t think our small cellar-like cupboard could handle a barrel of fermenting heads of cabbage–to say nothing of Kat’s olfactory sensibilities–but I still want to experiment with this type of sauerkraut recipe, just on a smaller scale.

What better method than by using nature’s scaled-down version of the cabbage, the brussels sprout, I wondered.  They have many of the same sweet-mustardy flavours that cabbages do just in a smaller, more concentrated format.  So that the finished product will stay where it belongs when served on top of sausage on a toasted bun I have included some of the traditional shredded cabbage in this recipe.  This was also done to hedge against the possibility that because brussels sprouts are stronger-flavoured than cabbage they might be less palatable after a month of fermentation.

Almost all sources for sauerkraut recipes make it seem like adding extra brine is the exception to the rule.  They confidently state that freshly-picked cabbage, when salted to this degree, will exude enough water in twenty-four hours to mix with the salt and serve as a natural brine.  Admittedly, I’m using cabbage that was probably picked five months ago but even when I made sauerkraut in October the cabbage didn’t produce more than about twenty percent of the water needed.  Unless you’re using cabbage fresh enough that you picked it yourself or bought it within sight of the field in which it grew I bet you will also have to add water to keep all of the cabbage submerged.  And submerged it must be, because as anyone who has made sauerkraut can tell you bad things (blue-black and very rank) happen to cabbage that is exposed to the air.

The three best sources I have found for sauerkraut recipes–Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz (Chelsea Green Publishing), The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich (Harvard Common Press), and Stocking Up by Carol Hupping (Rodale Press) –all call for the same ratio of cabbage to salt: 5 pounds to 3 tablespoons.  Some don’t even go as far as to specify kosher (the best option in my opinion, coarse sea salt is second) but even then brands of kosher salt vary enough that this measurement should really be given by weight.  On my scale with my brand of kosher salt each tablespoon weighs 18 grams or 0.7 ounces.  So, for every two-and-a-quarter kilograms (five pounds) of cabbage you need 54 grams or 2.1 ounces of (kosher) salt.

Homemade Sauersprouts

• 10 medium brussels sprouts (about 300 g or 2 / 3 lb.), halved from the tip through the stem and the woodiest part of the stem removed
• half a head of white cabbage (about 450 g or 1 lb.), shredded finely with a chef’s knife, a mandoline, or a handheld food slicer
• 18g kosher salt
• 1 L Mason jar, very clean

1. Halve the brussels sprouts and shred the cabbage.  Disperse  the brussels sprouts throughout the cabbage in a large bowl and sprinkle with the salt as you go along.  The goal is to evenly distribute salt throughout.  Be somewhat gentle about the mixing so that the brussels sprout have maintain their integrity.
2. Pack the cabbage and brussels sprouts into the mason jar, trying to keep the halves of brussels sprouts evenly distributed.  Pack tightly with a wooden spoon, another sturdy kitchen tool or just your clean hands.  To keep the cabbage pressed tightly and submerged use a jar small enough that it fits into the mouth of the Mason jar.  Extra weight (I’m using a bottle of vodka) on top will help press water out of the cabbage.
3. After 24 hours check the jar for the level of the liquid.  Top up with water and kosher salt.  Also look for any air bubbles and try to shake them free.
4. Let jar stand in a dark, cool (between ten and sixteen degrees celsius is ideal) place for four to six weeks.  Skim any scum that forms on top of the brine and test the flavour of the sauersprouts periodically.

Note: This is a test batch and I have listed the quantities that I used.  If you are more adventurous, have a bushel of brussels sprouts on your hands, or can’t bear to only have about two pounds of sauersprouts after a month of waiting feel free to scale the recipe up.  Just maintain the ratio of 18 g of salt for every xxx g of cabbage mix.

Another Note: If you want to tweak the flavours of the finished product go ahead and add herbs and/or spices to your mix.  Juniper berries, carraway seeds, mustard seeds, and black peppercorns are all obvious and traditional choices.  Unless you really know what you’re doing  avoid anything animal based, or that alters the sweetness (honey, maple syrup), acidity (vinegar), or saltiness (soy sauce) because I would be worried about potential (possibly dangerous) affects on the fermentation environment.

I understand that these are not ideal conditions for a greenhouse

We’ve now had our April snow for the year.  The date is now the 7th of April and there is a pretty significat accumulation of snow on the ground.

This return of winter weather really highlights why it is important to pay attention to the average last frost date for your area.  This spring we have had a few days where the temperature hit double digits (in celsius) during the day and managed to stay above freezing over night.  But gardeners who jumped the gun and planted anything but the hardiest plants will find their plantings killed by this blast of winter.

Along with average last frost date the other important metric for the spring gardener is growing degree days (GDD).  As the wikipedia article explains GDD can be calculated by adding a particular day’s minimum temperature to its maximum, dividing the result by two, and (in most cases) subtracting ten from this.  (Any temperatures below ten are set to ten and the maximum is capped at thirty.)  Basically this means that, speaking broadly, once daytime highs creep above ten degrees celsius plants will start to think that it is time for a new year’s growth.

The Weather Network’s online lawn and garden forecast includes daily information for GDD and though it currently predicts zero GDD over the next week we have already had half a dozen days with values between 1 and 2.5.  The wikipedia article provides a table of how many GDDs, accumulated since the winter low, it takes for certain garden events to occur (like trees flowering).  It is this genetic requirement for a minimum amount of warm weather that helps trees and other plants avoid exposing delicate flowers and new growth to April winter weather.

Packets of spinach and radish seeds

Today, April 4, I sowed a packet of spinach seeds (Bloomsdale Long Standing) and a row of radish seeds (Cherry Belle).  They both went into the same type of rectangular black plastic container that houses the lettuce seedlings.

Radishes are supposed to be one of the easiest crops to grow.  They are widely recommended as the perfect way to introduce young children to gardening.  Maybe it was just that I took them for granted but my first round of radishes last summer were far from perfect.  I didn’t learn until well into the season that it is essential to sow radish seeds in a slightly raised ridge and only barely covered in soil. The container looks like it can fit a single row of radishes and following package directions I aimed to have the seeds spaced one centimeter apart.  Eventually I’ll thin them to 4 centimeters apart.

Once the soil level was topped up the radish seeds went into a ridge on the right

The ridge stays warmer than the rest of the garden (or container) and therefore helps with faster growth and even germination.  If small-type radishes–with the familiar round ball shape versus the elongated missile shape of french breakfast and eastern european radishes–take more than four weeks in the ground to mature they will probably be woodier and hotter than is ideal.  Seeds of small round radish cultivars need to be sown close to the surface because if sown any deeper than a few millimeters they will struggle to produce round evenly-shaped (edible) roots.

Spinach is supposed to be another easy-to-grow hardy crop, ideal for extending the growing season on both ends.  This is my first year with spinach so we’ll see.  The spinach went into its own black plastic container.  Because its by itself in there and I think it unlikely that it will need any weeding I didn’t bother with rows and instead just broadcast the seeds, trying to stick to the package’s directed two and a half centimeters (one inch) spacing.

The container waiting for soil and broadcasted spinach seeds

Like other crops grown for their leaves–like lettuce and many herbs–spinach leaves become less palatable when the plants go to seed or “bolt” and therefore the longer this can be put off the better.   Unfortunately, the farmers who develop new cultivars of spinach have done such a good job that unless very specific conditions happen to materialise in the fall spinach seed can be hard to come by.  So, if you see a packet of a desirable cultivar (like this Bloomsdale Long Standing) snap it up.

Hopefully the radishes will be ready to eat in three or four weeks (before the end of April) and the spinach will be ready for some selective picking a couple weeks later (in the middle of May).

Kat has a great sense of style and we both love entertaining.  When we had her family over for dinner recently she had the idea of decorating the table with whole limes.  It looked great but what are we to do with ten limes?  (At 1/4 of a lime and 2 – 3 oz of gin per G & T that’s a lot of Bombay Saphire.)  As usual my motto is “when life hands you limes make some sort of preserve”.

For inspiration I turned to The Paupered Chef’s recipe for preserved meyer lemons.  Taking into account that limes are smaller than lemons but lemons have more substantial amounts of pith and peel, a bit of guess work was called for in terms of proportioning the lime sections to lime juice to salt.  Luckily the ratio of five limes to the juice of five other limes worked perfectly to fill a 500mL Mason jar.  I won’t know if I got the salt right (1/3 cup, kosher) until these guys are ready for tasting in a week.  Also added to the mix were coriander seeds and a bay leaf to provide exotic complexity.

As I was making this recipe I briefly considered whether this would be made better by replacing some or all of the salt with sugar?  I decided against this because: 1.) limes are already pretty sweet already (compared to other citrus); 2.) they have a natural affinity for salt, see margaritas; and 3.) I think we’re probably most likely to use these in ethnic (Mexican, Thai) savoury applications.  Some time in the future I’d like to try candying citrus, though.

Preserved Limes

Adapted from the Paupered Chef recipe for preserved meyer lemons

• 10 limes, half juiced and half for slicing (normally I’d give a quantity by weight for ingredient like this but limes (at least the ones I’ve seen here in Toronto) have all seemed to be exactly the same size.  Also, I forgot to record their weight.
• 75 g (1/3 cup) kosher salt
• 1 / 8 cup olive oil
• 1 500 ml Mason jar

Cut each lime into eight wedges longitudinally (each cut passes through the poles of the lime) and remove the white pith from the centre of the lime.  At this point also discard the seeds, thankfully lime seeds are considerably less numerous than lemon seeds.

Limes tossed with kosher salt

In a bowl toss the lime wedges with the kosher salt to coat them evenly.  Put the bay leaf and coriander seeds into the jar, pack with lime wedges and cover with lime juice from the other five limes.  You should have a few extra tablespoons of lime juice, save this because the wedges will soak up juice (mainly the skins, I assume) and therefore the level of juice will need to be replenished to keep the wedges submerged.

Close the jar tightly and shake it like a paint can being mixed–just much less vigorously  Let the jar of limes mature at room temperature over five days.  Check the level of juice after the first day or so and replenish with the reserved juice, if needed.  After the five days have passed top the jar with the olive oil, close tightly, and refrigerate.

Our arsenal of kitchen knives

Foodies tend to have a strong impulse to acquire more and fancier kitchen tools.  I have found, primarily through the heeding the advice of Alton Brown, that less is more and simple is better.  There are enough useful kitchen tools–wooden spoons, spatulas, whisks–to fill several drawers that everyone who cooks will eventually acquire on their own.  I’m going to take a look at four tools that I wouldn’t cook without but that I don’t think are natural acquisitions.  I use at least one of these everyday that I cook but I’d be willing to wager that no more than one in four or five of all home kitchens have all four.  In my opinion the most important of these is a good chef’s knife.

Chef’s knives work well for almost every kitchen cutting task–chopping, mincing, slicing, or dicing–as well for some unusual applications.  Cloves of garlic can be crushed and freed from their skins by laying the cloves on the counter, placing the flat side of the knife against the garlic and sharply (but carefully) hitting the other flat side of the knife with the heel of your hand or a closed fist.  No other knife works nearly as well at performing the best trick for getting the pit out of an avocado: Hold the half avocado in a folded kitchen towel; sharply sink the heel of the blade into the pit so that it sticks on the knife as you pull the avocado away with a slight twist; and remove the pit by squeezing it from behind the dull side of the knife until it pops off.

Ten inch chef's knife by Victorinox

My favourite is a Victorinox–the same company that makes Swiss Army knives–with a Fibrox handle and a ten inch blade (twenty-five centimeters to be exact). It was recommended in Cook’s Illustrated (along with the Wusthof Grand Prix II) and is great value for the money at somewhere between about $38 and $44.  I like the plastic handle because it is easier to clean than rosewood (though no knife sharper than a butter knife should ever go in the dishwasher) and feels a bit “grippier”.  Knife reviews in Cook’s Illustrated can be confusing for Canadian (and I assume European) readers because they often refer to “Forschner by Victorinox” knives.  As far as I can tell this is a subsidiary brand of Victorinox marketed only in the States and the only difference is that they are made in inch-denominated lengths and have ”Forschner” printed on the blade.  Here are the relevant sites to compare: Victorinox’s US line and Victorinox’s European line.  In typical Canadian fashion, the main Victorinox site sends Canadian’s to the US version but I have only found the European line of their knives available in Canadian stores (Nikolaou Restaurant Equipment on Queen is my favourite for buying knives).  The only thing I might change is the length of the blade.  I’m used to and comfortable with this version but I can understand why if you’re trading-up from using one of those steak knife meets paring knife meets “utility” knife for most of your cutting tasks you might go with a smaller version.

Once you’ve acquired a chef’s knife it is absolutely essential that you take proper care of it.  My preference for storing knives is on a wall-mounted knife magnet (pictured at the top of this post).  They look cool, will keep your knives dry and clean, and are safer (for your hands and the cutting edges alike) than a drawer. 

With use the blade of a knife will dull.  Mildly dull knives can be repaired by honing them with a steel so that the sharp (and therefore very narrow) edge is pushed back into line with the rest of the blade.  This youtube clip of Alton Brown demonstrates the honing process quite clearly.  Gordon Ramsay looks more impressive during those Hell’s Kitchen cut-scene shots when he is honing his knife off the board in the air but if like me you’re not particularly coordinated and don’t have your own tv show I recommend the more sedate steel-on-the-board method. 

I understand that professional cooks will hone their knives at least once per service and as often as every time they need to perform a very precise cut.  Home cooks should probably aim to hone their knives once every one to two weeks.   This necessary maintenance will only go so far until a knife will need to be sharpened.  Unlike honing, sharpening actually grinds metal from the blade so that a new, sharper edge is formed.  You can do this at home with a whetsone,or a manual or electric knife sharpener.  Cook’s Illustrated has reviewed the latter two devices and state that they work well but I have never tried home sharpening.  Instead I take my knives, once a year, to Nella Cucina at Bathurst and Bloor and for less than five dollars a blade they send them off to be sharpened.

Check back later in the week for my reviews of and guides to using my other essential kitchen tools.

On Saturday night dog-sitting duties found us walking in the heart of Leslieville / Riverville / South Riverdale in search of a decent spot for dinner.  Reliable Fish & Chips closes at the ridiculously early hour of 7 PM on Saturdays and it was obvious that a reservation was a must to get a table at the trendy (and apparently excellent) Table 17.   Indecision and the warm weather led us as far as Dangerous Dan’s hoping for a good burger and a look at what the neighbourhood was like before Rowe Farms and the Leslieville Cheese Market set up shop.  Dangerous Dan’s is right across the street from a seedy “gentlmen’s club” (Jilly’s) and doesn’t look like much from the outside but I have read on Chowhound and heard from friends that it’s a good place to get a straightforward burger at a decent price.

The Big Kahuna burger at Dangerous Dan's. (Photo by Kat)

First, for the operators of hamburger joints and aspiring diners I have two suggestions that they hopefully don’t need to hear from me:

1. Turn your deep-fryer up to the proper temperature and clean the oil regularly; and
2. Throw out your microwave.

The suspect fries (Photo by Kat)

Frozen fries are bad.  Frozen fries cooked in obviously tepid, dirty oil are inedible.   The onion rings were only marginally better.

Small onion rings

Kat observed (with mild horror) our burgers being led on a bizarre dance from grill to microwave and back to grill.   They’re close to two inches thick so I assume this is supposed to preserve the “charbroiled flavour” while ensuring that absolutely nothing is under-cooked–or  moist.  If size is the make-or-break for you (and the burgers at Dangerous Dan’s are 8 oz.) you’d be better off at McDonald’s getting two quarter-pounders.

Putting bacon and pineapple on a burger and calling it “Big Kahuna” is a good (though unoriginal) idea.  I hope that I don’t lose my citizenship for saying this but if a menu offers “bacon” I definitely don’t expect peameal.  The cornmeal-covered pork loin that this city is known for makes a great sandwich on its own and roasting or grilling a whole hunk is one of my favourite easy meals but on a burger it brings not nearly enough of the smoky saltiness of regular streaky bacon.  As well, I find that condiment bacon is much harder to render inedible than condiment peameal which DD’s cooks all the way to “chews like leather” status.

Service is rushed without reason: Staff run from the kitchen to the tables but move at a much more sedate pace when cooking behind the counter.  Placing an order and paying at the counter is fine with me and at $22 for two burgers, small fries, small onion rings, and a Diet Pepsi the prices were reasonable.

I suppose they have at least hit a bull’s-eye on the decor front.  This is dingy diner at its most authentic.  A sign on the wall announces that “vegetarian” is just the local word for bad hunter and the chairs are strikingly remiscient of the seats on a Greyhound bus.  If you’re hungry keep to McDonald’s (or one of the neighbourhood’s up-and-coming restaurants); if you want authentic olde tyme South Riverdale you’re better off at Jilly’s.

Pizza cooking on the bottom of cast iron pan

Two days to make pizza calls for two days of blog posts.  Seems fair to me.  Yesterday I went over the process I used to make what I consider the ultimate pizza dough.  When we left off the dough was relaxing, fermenting, and possibly rising a very little bit in the refridgerator.  After its overnight stay there it has to be left to stand at room temperature for two hours (three is probably better if, like our apartment, you keep your kitchen around 17 degrees celsius).

I actually find this more annoying than having to make the dough the night before.  It seems more reasonable to expect me to predict, on Thursday say, that we are going to want to make pizza sometime over the weekend (remember that the dough can stay in the fridge for up to three days) than it is to expect me to have the forethought to pull the dough out three hours before we want to eat.  Ultimate recipes are hardly ever the most convenient though.

Marinated peppers ready to top a pizza

While the dough warms I turned my attention to toppings.  I have never been particularly enamoured with tomato sauce on pizza.  I’m just as happy with a healthy splash of olive oil and some caramelised onions but if the fancy for red sauce strikes (and it did for us) a can of tomatoes–whole make a marginally tastier sauce but take longer to cook, diced or even crushed are better for weekday meals–gently simmered with chopped garlic and oregano (or a good-quality italian herb blend) will definitely satisfy.

Other than the sauce I doubt I have to offer much direction on how to dress a pizza.  I guess the best advice is that when you go to this much trouble with the dough and the cooking process don’t overload your pizza with superfluous toppings.  Heed this advice if for no other reason than because a heavily-weighted pizza will be harder to slip off the peel and into the oven.  My only real breakthrough on this front was that thinly sliced peppers dressed with vinegar and lightly-crushed fennel seeds and left to marinate for twenty or so minutes tastes excellent on pizza.

Gently stretching pizza dough -- let it go where gravity wants to take it

Transforming the dough from a ball to a round was actually quite easy.  Flour your hands generously, form your fingers and thumbs into a point (like Italians do when they are going to kiss their fingers or as like a close-mouthed sock puppet),  pick the dough up and manipulate it so that it stretches evenly into a round.  The all white flour dough of the first time just started stretching itself amazingly quickly and all I had to do was rotate it a bit to keep it even.  The part wholewheat dough needed only slightly more encouragement.  Tossing the dough in the air is optional.  Don’t stress over getting a perfect circle because it is likely that you won’t be able to keep it that way when it is going into the oven.  Once you’re happy with your dough round put it on a wooden peel or inverted sheet pan that has been generously dusted with cornmeal.

Alright, now for the real meat of this process.  I got the idea for this amped-up pizza technique from the Paupered Chef and from their postat Serious Eats.  Its pretty straight foward: heat a 12″ cast iron skillet on high; meanwhile set your broiler to pre-heat on high; once the pan has been pre-heated on the stove (to a temperature closer to the ideal 800 degress F) the idea is that it gets flipped over, briefly heated, bottom side up, under the broiler; and the pizza is slid on top of the pan’s bottom side and then cooked under the broiler in less than ten minutes.  They do a better job of explaining things and I have not modified their technique very much at all so I strongly suggest you take a look at their posts.  They credit Chef Heston Blumenthal with developing the process.  The process is pretty unusual and I’ve now experimented with it twice so here are my suggestions and hints:

• Your kitchen will become quite smoky while pre-heating the pan. The first time around find some way to get your girlfriend, or any roommates, out of the kitchen.  By the second time they’ll know that the suffering is worth it and will complain less.  Also, open a window.
• The smoke is caused (I believe) by cure breaking down and smoking. If you are lucky enough to have one this is a good time to use your backup cast-iron skillet.
• A dough this wet will desperately want to stick to your wooden pizza peel or inverted sheet pan. Sprinkling corn meal–the yellower and coarser the better, I find–on your delivery device helps.  Be generous with it, concentrate it particularly near the delivery edge, and replenish after each pizza goes in the oven.  There are a couple pictures in the first pizza post that might give a good idea of how much cornmeal to use.

Hanging over the side of the cast iron pan

• An upside-down cast iron pan is a small (and blazing hot) target. About half the time some pizza hung over the edges of the pan.  This was bad because it scattered toppings on the oven floor so I would recommend placing a sheet pan on another rack to catch anything that falls.  Also, keep your pizzas on the small side to be safe.  On the other hand this overhang unintentionally created “shoulders” near the edges of the poorly-aimed pies that were crispy and extremely tasty.  If you think you can accurately hang an inch over the sides without spilling toppings go for it.
• The original recipe appears to use a drawer-style gas burner. I have never encountered one of these and have only ever used an electric top-of-the-oven broiler.  The recipe definitely works with this equipment but it will take slightly longer than the the minute and a half of the original.  Think in the six to ten minute range.  Pay close attention (don’t walk away) and check the bottom of the crust before removing from the oven.
• The relevant oven rack should be set in the second position from the top. The top position is closer to the heat but in my oven this left only millimeters of clearance between bubbling cheese and a red-hot electric element–too close, trust me.

Ultimate Pizza Napoletana

Adapted from the Paupered Chef/Serious Eats post about broiling pizza

• 3 balls of Ultimate Dough from my earlier post
• sauce and toppings for three pizzas

Finished Pizza

1. Remove the plate of dough from the fridge 2 – 3 hours before you want to eat.
2. Turn the broiler on to high and heat for 20 minutes.  Heat a 12 inch cast iron skillet on medium-high to high for 8 – 10 minutes.
3. Stretch the dough into a round using the tips of your fingers to hold it up off the counter and place it on a pizza peel or inverted sheet pan dusted with cornmeal.  Leave the other remaining dough covered while you stretch, top, and bake the first pizza.  Top the first pizza.
4. Put the pan upside down under the broiler, on an oven rack in the position second from the top, to finish pre-heating for two minutes.  Put a sheet pan on a lower to catch any fallen toppings.
5. Once the pan is fully heated and the pizza is topped carefully slide the onto the bottom of the pan and under the broiler.  Bake for 6  – 10 minutes.  You want the cheese to bubble and the bottom of the crust to be dark-golden brown.