Posts Tagged ‘sicilian pizza’

September 15th Baking. Many Thanks to my Customers!

It’s the crackle that makes autumn my favorite season. The air, the crunchy leafs, the crust on a nice baguette and even the snap, crackle and pop of my old bones as I load up my bread booty makes me feel happy this time of year. Even though it’s a tough nut to bake for 12 hours straight with no break, it can be very rewarding to take traditional baking methods and practices and twist them like a patient in a staight jacket. My “take” on the traditional Pissaladiere starts with a Jackson Pollack melange of Asiago, provolone, anchovy and garlic roasted onions, Kalamata olives, capers and some wonderful cows-teat heirloom tomatoes. After cutting, I put some garlic-champagne vinegar and anchovy macerated Raddichio di Treviso (yes, I always say “Del Traviso”-my bad) and some more Peruvian anchovies marinated in herbs and Spanish olive oil.

Man, I love baking. Thanks to my customers, I feel I have the best job in the world!

 

This is our large 45-ounce “Flintstone Wheels” that fulfills any bread need for at least a week and the delicious mushroom pizza with fresh spinach, Parmiggiano Reggiano, Fontina, porcini, button, portobello, shiitake mushrooms all baked with thyme and roasted garlic and finished with black truffle oil…. Kinda makes you say “Amen” with every bite.

 

This time of year really brings out the wonderful yellow from the fruits of the land like this roasted butternut squash, Japanese eggplant, kale and carrot topped Pizza al Metro that Chef Patty Nally made with gruyere cheese, or my variation of Escalavada Catalana on an 80-hour pre-fermented ciabatta dough topped with manchego cheese, red, green and yellow sweet peppers, red onion, eggplant and Spanish Sherry vinegar.

 

More yellows arrive from everywhere to add sweetness to pizzas and schiacciata making the term “Agrodolce” ring especially true when Chef Nally skins and slices some mango to go on a great schiacciata with Gorgonzola and peaches. Our baking is quite a production and sometimes feels like the Ford assembly line.

 

Joel Fair, Avalanche General Manager, is also a great help in the far-off hours of the morning. He handles those dicey calls and deliveries after the bars close and forms numerous breads like the Afghani snowshoe na’an with horseradish, parmesan, dill, lemon zest and black sesame and the Asiago and Sea salt Fougasse.

By the time the nine a.m. hour arrives, I’m spazzed, spaced, horrified at the speed of time and excited at the possibility of  finishing on time. The final large Sicilian pizza al metro’s have proofed all night and are “crowning” out of the oven. The prominent smell of deep wheat in the crust reflects the three day retardation under refrigeration even though they are topped with Grande provolone, Stanislaus Valoroso tomatoes, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella.

 

My biggest concern now is remembering what is in the finished products. Luckily Chef Nally has the common sense to write things down so I don’t  have to hear, “Let me get this straight, you DON’T KNOW WHAT IS IN YOUR BREAD?” Despite all the hardships, burns, stress and lack of sleep, the most rewarding thing any small business owner can have is dedicated customers. I thank all of you for keeping me baking.

Here is another somewhat spacey video taken with almost everything we baked this last weekend for the Athens Farmers Market, one of the best farmers markets in the country.

So Much Baking, So Little Time!

I sincerely hope you forgive me for not blogging so much lately. My usual computer is down and I’ve been baking like crazy. I decided to turn you on to some baking that I’ve been doing. I could never do this alone and thank Chef Patty Nally for keeping me on track during this weekly, freaky baking frenzy which produces some wacked-out (but delicious) breads like our “Anchovy Heaven.” filled with Peruvian anchovies, roasted leeks, Moroccan oil-cured olives, almonds and garlic. Its adorned with some sugarloaf raddichio from Rik Vest at Vest Berries and I slit it like a Mafia snitch and stuffed it with an raddichio-achovy-roasted garlic slaw macerated with lemon juice and added Kalamatas, Valorosso tomato and more garlic. Yum!

                     

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been baking massive amounts of Asiago fougasse and sea salt and herb fougasse.

                             

Staring at hundreds of pounds of proofing dough tends to elicit a sigh of dread in me but once that dough starts to proof, it evolves from a gooey mass of nothing to a work of art capable of endless possibilities of culinary pleasure.

                

I mixed this pre-fermented, 32 ounce blob with roasted garlic, rosemary, Kalamata’s and Morrocan olives.  I Retarded the growth for 50 hours, re-kneaded it, formed and proofed for another four hours then baked it.

     

Can you imagine the smell of these beautiful couronnes as they cool down? This is as close to a perfect bread as they come.

               

Simply finding the room to proof these ciabatta and our infamous “Flintstone Wheels” is an art form in itself.

                  

The adolescent stages for this wonderful naturally leavened monster are an indication of what it’s gonna grow up to be…

                                 …and luckily for one of my customers, this guy never wanted to grow up to be a fireman.

                           

Chef Nally has become an expert at the art of Pide, (Pi-DAY.) This is the style of the ancient Turkish boatlike bread. This large version is like spinach dip in bread with ricotta, parmesan, red onion and topped with Athens Own aged cheddar and tomato.

           

She’s also the creator if this wonderful Stilton-pear pizza that we top with fresh arugula and balsamic glaze. (I just drooled) So, if you know her, she now wants to called “Patty McStilton” (you must use an English accent…)

                                                             

One of the most daring bread adventures I’ve cooked up in the last weeks was the Chicago hot-dog bread. It was…aaa…cool like a nice breeze coming in from Gary Indiana. I made the bread with sport peppers, Genoa Salami, bella rosa tomato, whole grain mustard, (yes, kneading was like world war one,) and a generous dose of celery seeds and dill pickles. I eggwashed it after proofing and created a bunlike trough all the time thinking of late nights at the Weiners Circle on Clark Street in Chi-Town. Then I cut hot dog like bread sticks off and wrapped them in salami served with a few more sport peppers.

 

Some other great stuff we’ve offered included an Asian to-go box with sesame tahini na’an and kombu-pressed local vegetables, curried kimchi, dashi pickles and miso-pressed tofu. This included a miso-tahini-cilantro sauce with a little thai chili.

   

Other specialties that we have a consistant market for are the arugula fougasse (left) Hey what else could I do with 47 pounds of arugula that the Amish just drop off…) We make it  with roasted garlic and tomato. On the right is a shared tray of Italian sausage ladder bread and leek-a-choke fougasse.

         

The Italian sausage laddar bread is delightful to smell after the oven because of the onions, green peppers and poppy combination. A newer style fougasse was just introduced after I got hold of some great Szechuan peppercorns and added mango, fresh basil and three types of pork- Prosciutto di Parma, Lardo and local King Family Farms bacon. Man, this was zesty, sweet and utterly fun to eat so we called it “Szecuan Pork Paradise.”

          

One of our most popular couronnes is the local spelt couronne with cherries and walnuts. Thanks to Shagbark Milling Company, we are able to still get local spelt for our breads and pizza crust.

        

Every week, we never know what crazy combo will come from our baking frenzy like the “Purple People Eater,” (Left.) It is another Turkish-style pide with Peruvian Purple Potatoes, salt-roasted beets and braised raddichio with Maytag blue cheese, walnuts and cheddar. On the right, Chef Nally made a wonderful local vegetable schiacciata with broccoli, kale, chard, zucchini and tomato with Fontina and Mozzarella.

                 

And finally, our always-popular summer schiacciata with fresh basil, fresh mozzarella and early summer grape tomatoes on a dough that endured a 90-hour extended fermentation that exposed as much flavor and crunch as possible.

 

At least now you can accept my apologies for not blogging since you now know I wasn’t drunk in some alley or jacked up on a 3 week binge of Mortal Combat.

Or if you really wanna get red hot, check out this video. in order of appearance is mushroom pizza, Corsican basil bread, Potato disc, curry ladder bread, kombu pressed veg in Asian box, leek a choke, stilton with pear and spinach, Schiacciata, Sicilian pizza, garlic pudding stuffed fougasse, Turkish pide with spinach, olive-rosemary-garlic couronne, spelt couronne, Italian sausage bread ladder bread, cilantro and chorizo fougasse with blueberries, super mushroom disc and the super-red hot Beelzebub Pizza and the Asiago fougasse finally the goon with his Scooby Dooo shirt.

I hope you keep checking on the goon or sign up for my RSS feed for more entries from a real pizza guy.

Vive la…Pizza!    God save the Goon!