A Pizza Odyssey

I love pizza, I fell in love with it in the courtyard of a small pizzeria in Naples when I was 14. It was covered in vines hanging from the wooden beams above and had a wood burning pizza oven in the courtyard itself. I was on a school trip and we got to climb Mt Vesuvius, I still have a bit of rock I brought home from there even though you're not supposed to remove it. I guess I was a bad kid... Anyway! I've been trying to find places to recreate what I had in Naples my whole life, from takeaways, restaurants and even cooking myself.

Living in New York I'm surrounded by the stuff, however it's the NYC kind, it has a completely different style and taste to the Italian style, while I also chow down on it regularly it doesn't invoke memories like the Neapolitan does for me.

So with this in mind I set out to make myself a perfect Margherita. Now the Italians take their pizza very seriously. So much so they even have 'Vera Pizza Napoletana' to certify places that make it.

I decided to borrow as much as possible from that and try to make my own version at home.

I have a book called 'In search of perfection' by Heston Blumenthal.
In it he travels to Naples to sample San Marzano tomatoes and laments that he thinks that the rise in their use is probably more to do with the fact that the canning industry rose to prominence around the same time as the rise of pizza and san marzano's shape made them perfect for canning and shipping to pizzarias around the world. (Pizza had been brought back to the United States by GIs that had been stationed in Naples in WWII).

The Napolitana will have you believe that they're perfect for pizza because of the acidity levels due to the volcanic ashes in the soil there. For me, this was about creating what I had when I was 14 so went with the wisdom of the Italians and got myself some certified San Marzano Tomatoes for the sauce.

For the base i used refined white flour 1kg, 750g for the initial dough (most people will say use 00 flour for this but I think that's more likely because places that used to make pizza also made pasta and 00 flour is used for this purpose)

Pizza Week Monday: Irish Fatty's Neapolitan Margherita fail.

The cheese was a no brainer, buffalo mozzarella. Other ingredients for my Margherita included:

• pint water
• salt
• pepper
• yeast
• fresh basil
• Parmesan
• olive oil
• garlic

Lets get this baby started.

I started out by making the dough. to do this mix a pint of warm water with a sachet 7g yeast, teaspoon of salt and teaspoon of olive oil. let it rest until the yeast starts fermenting, you should see foam at the top.

Dump 750g flour out and make a well.


well well well...

Slowly mix in the yeast water gick until a dough starts to come together, your hands will get messy but warm tap water should clean them off.


Sir Mixalot.

knead for about 15-20 mins, its important to do this to get plenty of air into the dough.
Let rise for about an hour in a warm place, it should double in size. You can also let it rise overnight in the fridge.


I like my dough to reference what I'm making.


Michelangelo's bulging eyes mean lots of air pockets.

Punch the dough down and you should hear air leaving the dough like a fart.
Let it rise again until it's increased it's size by half again.
Your dough is now ready to fridge or freeze. I was using mine exclusively for pizza bases so I cut in 5 and froze.


pizza dough!

Now I was ready to make the pizza sauce.
Take the tomatoes put them in a pot, add salt and pepper to taste, i added 2 cloves garlic and some chopped fresh basil. Simmer on a low heat for a few minutes and mash the shit out of them with potato masher. You can also blend them but I don't have a blender here.


Smashy smashy.

Ok genius, now time to roll the dough, remember I used 750g of the 1kg bag of flour?
The other 250g is just enough for dusting with you take a rolling pin to the dough (or wine bottle in my case).


half way there, I was aiming for about 11" diameter.

Now, assemble and voila! I added a lot of shaved Parmesan and slices of buffalo mozzarella because everything tastes better with cheese.


Little did I know this would be the last time I would see this beautiful sight.

Now let me tell you about the oven. The VPN says that pizza should be cooked in ovens at a temperature of 370C+ 700F+. Mine only goes to 500F so I had to figure out a way to apply more direct heat to the pizza from the top and bottom. After reading more of Heston's science and a few pages on line I decided I would use my 23cm blue steel crepe pan to cook the pizza on and cook the pizza as high in the oven as possible.

Firstly heat rises to the top. So that's where your oven is the hottest unless it's a fan oven. secondly the top of the oven is going to be metal which will retain heat well and lastly, the direct contact heat from the pan will act like a pizza stone and crisp the base.

So I let the oven heat up and then tried to move the pizza to the.... oh shit, wtf, how am I going to do this? I don't have a pizza peel/shovel and my spatula is tiny. The only thing for it was to try quickly move the pizza to the pan with spatula and hands combo...and bake for 15-20 mins.


FAIL.

Moving the dough had created a faultline down the dough and ruined my perfect pizza. I ate it anyway and figured out how I could attack it again following next day.
The new plan was assemble the pizza in the pan (slighly greased with olive oil). I also rubbed olive oil along perimeter of the dough base to get it to char a little more...

Pizza Week Tuesday: Irish Fatty's Neapolitan Margherita.


Success!

All your crispy base.

Now by success I mean I accomplished making what i consider to be a delicious pizza at home. It was however no match for the pizza I had 14 years ago in Naples.
This raised an interesting question. I still have 3 dough balls left... That's where things got a bit strange...

Pizza Week Wednesday: Irish Fatty's Mexican taco pizza!

I bought Dave's Ultimate Insanity Hot sauce a few weeks ago and I have been looking for an excuse to put it in something. I also had chilli in a can in the kitchen. Could I make pizza that would blow my head off using what I had learned the previous day?

Why, yes... Yes I could.
If I was going to melt my face off with the hot sauce why not add Tabasco, and some chilli flakes, and peppers, and cheddar cheese! For science!



If you can't stand the heat.

The result?


That doesn't look very Mexican...

That's better!

To say this thing was fantastic is an understatement, it was honestly one of the best pizza's I've ever had. Anyone who knows me knows I'm sucker for mexican and for pizza, but any I had tried always came up short, this however, Mind Blown.


Pizza Week Thursday: Irish Fatty's Irish Fryup.

Next up I decided to experiment with some traditional Irish foods.
Superquinn sausages smuggled into the US at Christmas, Irish bacon stolen from the good people in my local Irish pub, black and white pudding, and a fried egg.


Come to Fatty.

This doesn't look like pizza.

Oh dear god.

This one was actually pretty weak, not that I don't love all the components on it, it just doesn't work and the tomato sauce base kinda overtook the flavours of everything else. I still love my Fried breakfasts, just probably best to keep them off a pizza!

Pizza Week Friday: Irish Fatty's wtf special.

When I had the idea for this it was because I was sick of eating pizza.
I'll just let the pictures do that talking on this one.


No!

Please!

What are you doing?

This is so wrong.

Is that ketchup?!

Wow. Just wow.

Fatty Pac-Man

One slice was enough, the rest went in the bin, and I went to the pub for a well earned pint.

Dublin Coddle

You know that scene in Ratatouille where the Critic takes a taste of the dish and is instantly transported back to childhood? For me that dish is Coddle. We didn't call it "Dublin Coddle" because I was from a long line of Dubs. For me coddle is my Ma's recipe that I'll outline below.

It's my favourite winter meal and I'm actually eating some of the leftovers for breakfast as I type this. That's how much I love it. That said it may not be to everyone's taste. Previous attempts to explain what it is have been met by responses of "yes but what are those willies doing in there?"

Ingredients:

• 10 Irish style pork sausages
• Cubed Ham. (sometimes substituted for bacon rashers if money is tight)
  
• 4 Large boiling potatoes (peeled, quartered)
  
• 1 large onion. (cut in quarters)
  
• carrots (optional)
• Curly Parsley.
• Barley. (I used quarter of the bag)
  
• Salt
• Pepper

The technique is very simple. Lash everything into a big pot, add water, bring to boil, season, turn down to simmer, cover, and leave for about an hour. That's it. Serves 5.





Willies.





If you forget the barley you're doing it WRONG. It adds a considerable amount of starch which thickens the broth.












It's not going to win any awards for it's looks but I can tell you it'll blow you away taste wise. I season mine with extra salt and pepper after to turn it into a spicy soupy stew.
I literally just noticed the green white and orange in there too. See? Awesome! :D

This makes me want coddle.

I came across this guy's amazing videos. The Drunken Cook.

I will be putting up my own coddle recipe here quite soon since this is nothing like how coddle should be made, yet it's still brilliant and may have to try his recipe myself! :)

Bill's Bar and Burger, Best Burger in NYC?

I have seen so many places labelled as the best burger in New York City I was understandably trepidatious when Citysearch's resident Burgerholic Josh Ozersky named Bill's Bar and Burger as the best burger in NYC. I'd read a lot about the different methods used in making burgers in the US. Bill's was using Pat LaFrieda beef mix, the same stuff my previous favourite NYC burger place uses, Shake Shack:

Shack Burger, picture by A Hamburger Today.

In addition to that, they were using the smash technique for cooking the burgers that Smashburger and In-n-Out burger. Smash technique basically means you slap the fresh mince/ground beef down with a spatula, making as much surface area hit the pan creating a thin burger with a nice charred crust but it also means you have to be very careful not to overcook the mince.

So on to the review, Bill's took us a while to find as it had only opened the night before and I don't think they had a sign up. Once inside we were greeted by very friendly staff who informed us there would be a thirty minute wait. No problem we said and and so we hit the bar.

After about 5 minutes the host said that someone had not turned up for their table and it was the best table in the house, at the corner, by the big windows, great for people watching.

On to the menu, it's VERY simple, and as was explained later, they were going for that approach deliberately. I had no problem with this, so for the review I figured I'd need a control, and since In-n-Out and shake shack both use lettuce and tomato with a special sauce I figured it made sense to try the Sunset and Vine which is a clear reference to the West Coast chain In-n-Out (which I always make a trip to when on the west coast).

Sunset and Vine.

After tasting the burger I felt that something was missing and half way through I realized what it was, pickles! So after adding the pickles I tried to be blown away and I simply wasn't, I'm not saying that this is a bad burger, but best in New York? No. Better than shake shack? No. Better than In-n-Out? definately not. The patty was too thin, not juicy enough, and I got a chunk of gristle in mine.
The burger also looks like grey brain matter as you can see in the autopsy shot below, I like my burgers to show a little pink:

Where's the beef?

I know it's a thin burger but to me it felt overcooked with not enough flavour. It was also quite messy and had me wondering since both The Feedbag and AHT had raved about it, maybe those advance tastings meant the chefs were under less pressure and could season and cook the meat better, also, there is no way the burger was 1/3lb of beef.

My friends ordered the Bill's classic with cheese and The Bill's classic with Cheese and Bacon. They said it was one of the best burgers they had eaten but they havn't had shake shack or smashburger.

Bill's Classic with cheese.

Bill's Classic with bacon and cheese.

The sides were the real star for me, I ordered the deep fried vegetables which we all said were delicious, and the french fries were skin on thin cut which were also delicious. Both well seasoned and the former a great way to get some greens into your diet, albeit battered and deep fried!




Overall it's a fine attempt at a burger, the atmosphere is great and the waiting staff are very friendly and put you at ease instantly, but it's going to need a bit more refinement before they can produce well cooked and seasoned burger and deliver it consistantly. Until then, I'll be queuing at the Shake Shack when I want New York's finest.

22 9 Ave, New York, NY 10014
(212) 604-0092


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Fatty likes his Burgers.

New York City has it's perks. One of which is instant gratification. You can get everything from a 3 course meal to fast food delivered to your door pretty much 24 hours a day.

The happy medium between the two are diners. They're everywhere, they're affordable, and If you find the right one you can get a nice meal at a reasonable price. I'm not saying these diners ever use the best ingredients, what I'm saying is that when you're hungover, and couldn't bear to feel even more disgusting by eating fast food... They're an option which can hit, or miss.

About a week ago I ordered eggs benedict for delivery from a local diner, and it was FANTASTIC, eggs poached to perfection, hashbrowns nicely browned, suffice to say I really enjoyed it. So much so I didn't even think to blog about it. Maybe next time:)

So I decided a few days later while nursing a rotten hangover to order a cheeseburger and chips with a drink from the same place to see if maybe they could hit the bulls eye twice and make my hangover go away in the process.

My order arrived as usual, some poor immigrant guy biked a few blocks to my place, I gave him the obligatory decent tip and a smile since these guys usually wash dishes AND do deliveries and get paid jack shit.

I opened up the wrapping and I was faced with this.



Now before I even tasted a chip (french fry whatever). You can actually see in the picture what the problem is, and one of the main reasons I decided to write this. The chips were soggy. In the history of man necessity has always driven innovation, and I think it's about time someone did something about the necessity to have decent chips delivered. I mean they're basically impinging my human rights giving me these chips. I almost rang the Samaritans. I was not only hungover, I was now depressed.

These chips truely were minging, and reminded my of the chips you get delivered from Chinese places in Dublin. They made me pine for Leo Burdocks and Beshoffs, for drizzles of salt and fountains of vinegar... ok maybe not, but you get the idea.

So... I'm calling on all you great minds out there on the internet to devise a method of transporting chips from one location to another, without the steam ruining them.
I've had this problem with other foods too, like wings, spring rolls, pretty much anything that should be crispy, but the one I think we can all identify with is the chips issue. Mizzoni garlic bread I'm staring right at you.

There are people claiming to have solved this issue, but until I get proof and not waffle like this load of old bollocks, I'm going to consider it very high on the list of problems man has yet to conquer. Man on moon, check, chip problem......... unsolved:(

However the burger was very tasty, cooked medium rare as requested, juicy and grilled so it had a nice char. Bun was soft, tomatoes and lettuce and onion all were in the right quantities so nothing slipped or fell out. It was a little greasy but I can't really can't fault it for that considering it's a CHEESEBURGER.

The only issue I had to apply the ketchup myself and I don't like pulling apart a burger after the cheese has melted but that's a minor quibble. I like the word quibble. Quibble.

Burger porn below.



Autopsy shot:



Highline Cafe, 360 9th Ave, New York, NY, 10001.

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Falafel in Pita with a Salsa Verde.

I've always liked middle eastern food, and from when I was first introduced to falafel I've always enjoyed the mix of spices, soft inside with a crispy exterior against a backdrop of salad and chili.

One thing that has always struck me though is how hit and miss they can be. So I undertook the job of making them for myself to figure out why that is.

I decided to make it from another recipe posted here.
However I experimented with this to include a mexican style salsa verde, lettuce, hummus, tahini and chili.

The Ingredients:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried chickpeas or 16 oz. can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans.
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 tablespoons flour
• Salt
• Pepper
• Oil for frying
• pita
• Tahini-Hummus.
• fresh tomatoes
• iceberg lettuce
• chilli (adapt number for heat, mine's very hot)
  

I went for the tinned chickpeas since I didn't want to have to soak the chickpeas for a day and I wanted my falafel now damn it.

Drained them off:


And stuck them in a pot to boil for 5 minutes then simmer for 40 mins, since these are tinned you don't have to boil for the full hour.


Now to make the salsa verde:

I wanted to use a fresh tomato base so I used a trick I've seen on tv where you stick the tomato in boiling water for 30 seconds and the skin comes right off. Then mashed it up into a pulp and removed the excess.



Then I added olive oil, balsamic, lime juice, salt, pepper, garlic, coriander, parsley, 3 Serrano chilli peppers and onion very finely julienned then diced. Mix that all together in a bowl and then leave to one side.



Now that was done it was time to enjoy my wine and admire the state I had left the kitchen in.


Now I just had to cut up some tomatoes and lettuce, spread the tahini hummus mix inside the pita and add the veggies, don't add the salsa until the last minute or it'll go soggy and crap.



Now for the bit I had been waiting to try, the actual falafel.
Get the chickpeas and drain them. Then cut up 3 tablespoons of parsley and 1 tablespoon of coriander.


In a bowl add the chickpeas, cumin, coriander, parsley, salt, pepper and flour.



I mashed it up with a fork until it took on a consistency not dissimilar to pastry dough.



Now you can add water here if you like to get it a bit more pliable, but I didn't because I'm not a retard. Voila, falafel.


Get at least an inch deep of oil going in the pan, I used veg oil as it'll go to higher temperatures before it smokes. Get it super hot, then dump your balls in it.


Leave them sit for a while until they're sealed and the oil stops going mental, then roll them around until they're done all over, then remove your balls from the piping hot oil.



Then add them to the pita, and mash them down for ultimate crunchy/soft contrast and enjoy one of the best sandwiches you will ever make.




The recipe on about.com makes approx 6 falafels.
The parsley and cumin are both essential, it really gives it the overall middleastern flavour.

My falafels came out perfectly crispy and tasty, I didn't get an answer to why some you get on the street or at festivals are shit except that maybe they're buying in crap ingredients or more likely, reheating pre cooked balls.