The Brick Oven Project

The Brick Oven Project

Home

News

Books

FAQ

Guestbook

Construction

Pictures

Recipes

Here's how I set up for a pizza party. You can, of course, make it simpler or more complicated than this. Here are the steps I go through:

Early AM, make sponge (see instructions below)
Shop for ingredients
Prepare toppings (slicing, carmelizing, etc)
2 1/2 hours before pizza time, light fire
Finish making dough, set aside to rise
Clean up, put out snacks & drinks as guests arrive
20 minutes before pizza time: push coals to back of oven with hoe, remove ashes from oven floor with scuffle (a damp cloth through an eye hook on the end of a stick).
Pizza time: prepare dough for guests to top, one at a time.

Dough Recipe

This recipe is adapted from the pizza dough recipe in the Greens Cookbook. Quantities are given to make 8 or 12 12" pizzas, enough to serve 8 or 12 people.

Ingredients	For 8	For 12
Water, body temp	1 1/2 c	2 1/4 c
Sugar	2 tsp	3 tsp
Yeast, dry	1 pkg	1 1/2 pkg
Unbleached white flour	1 1/2 c	2 1/4 c
Milk, body temp	1 1/2 c	2 1/4 c
Olive oil	1/2 c	3/4 c
Salt	2 tsp	1 Tbl
Rye flour	1/2 c	3/4 c
Whole wheat flour	1 c	1 1/2 c
Unbleached white flour	4 c	5 1/2 c
Olive oil	2 Tbl	2 Tbl

Steps:

Sponge: Mix the water (warm but no warmer than body temperature), sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Stir until creamy, then blend in the flour. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature to ferment, at least 3 hours and up to 24 hours. (If 24 hours elapse, refrigerate the sponge and let it return to room temperature before continuing).
Beat in the warm milk, olive oil and salt. Add the rye and whole wheat flours, then the unbleached flour. Stir until dough forms. If dough is very sticky, add more unbleached flour as necessary. The dough should still be very moist.
Turn onto a floured board or work surface and knead for 5 minutes.
Form dough into a ball. Oil a large bowl with 2 Tbl olive oil. Put dough into bowl and roll to coat with oil.
Cover the bowl with a towel or platic wrap and set in a warm place (say, 80°F or 27°C) to rise until double in bulk, about 60 minutes.
Punch the dough down. Tear into 8 or 12 balls of equal size. Place the dough balls on a parchment or plastic-wrap lined tray and bring out to the oven area, or cover tightly and place in refrigerator until ready to cook.

Toppings

Here are the toppings and quantities that I recently set out for a dinner for 10 people:

1/2	small japanese eggplant (a long, thin aubergine), peeled and thinly sliced
1/2	small zucchini (courgette), thinly sliced
1	medium red onion, sliced, soaked in warm water 5 minutes and drained
2	medium yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced, cooked slowly with some olive oil until carmelized (about 30 minutes)
6	green onions (scallions), thinly sliced including some of the green
1 c	cherry tomatoes, sliced into thirds
1	handful sun-dried tomatoes, refreshed in boiling water for 2 minutes, then drained, sliced, and marinated with some sliced garlic and extra virgin olive oil
12	common mushrooms, raw, thinly sliced
6	shiitaki mushrooms, sliced and briefly sauteed in butter
1/2 jar	roasted sweet red peppers, drained and sliced
1 ear	corn, raw, kernels sliced from the cob
2 c	basil leaves
2 c	arugula (rocket) leaves
1/2	small head of radicchio leaves, core removed and torn into shreds
1/2 c	pine nuts (pignoli), toasted in a dry skillet to a light tan color
1 lb	fresh mozzarella or mozzarella di buffala (no substitute), in 1/4" thick slices
1/2 lb	smoked mozzarella or scamorza, sliced
1/2 lb	good quality mozzarella and/or provolone cheese, shredded
6	thin slices prosciutto
1 c	roasted duck meat and sliced skin from a Chinese deli/BBQ
4 oz	goat cheese (chevre), broken into small bits
4 oz	blue cheese, crumbled
1 c	high-quality tomato pasta sauce from a jar, thinned with a few Tbl. water or red wine
1/2 c	Basil pesto (Pound 2 big handfuls basil leaves, 1 large garlic clove and 1/4 c olive oil into a paste in a mortar or blender, then add 1/4 c grated parmesan cheese)
1/2 c	Hoisin sauce (available in jars in Chinese markets)
1/2 c	extra virgin olive oil, with a brush
	flour for rolling dough
	corn meal to sprinkle on pans and peel before baking

As you can see, I go light on the cheese and meat. Only about half of this will end up on pizzas. The leftovers (excluding the cheeses and Hoisin sauce) go into a pot the next day to become an amazing pasta sauce.

Pizza Dinner

Besides pizza, you just need a large green salad, beverages and a dessert. You can make a fruit pie or galettes in the oven after the pizzas for dessert if you're feeling adventurous. For a pie, rake out the coals, put the pie on a metal baking pan, and close the oven up. I've cooked gallettes on a metal baking sheet with the coals still in the oven and the door open.

You'll need lots of room: room for all those toppings, room to roll out the dough, and room to assemble and cut pizzas. You'll want the following accessories near the oven:

Fireplace poker
Scuffle (damp rag on a stick) to clean the floor before baking
Several pizza pans, to build pizzas and receive cooked pizzas
Pizza cutter wheel
Peel (pizza-width spatula with a 3 foot handle)
Container of flour
Container of cornmeal
Toppings

Some of my favorite combinations are:

Tomato sauce, scamorza and prosciutto
Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil
Tomato sauce, red onions, pine nuts and blue cheese
Hoisin sauce, duck meat, green onions and shredded mozzarella with duck skin on top
Tomato sauce, goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts, topped with arugula after baking
Pesto, corn and mushrooms

I like to let each guest top and share one pizza. The slices will seem small, but one pizza per person will work out just right. The basic pizzamaking cycle is as follows.

Host:

Put one of the dough balls onto a floured board and roll with a rolling pin to about 12" in diameter. Roll from the center of the dough out. You can also stretch the dough by hand: rough it out with the rolling pin, then put your fists together, put the dough over your fists, and stretch the dough out from underneath with your knuckles (this will make sense when you try it!). Don't let the dough get thinner than 1/8".

Sprinkle some corn meal onto a metal pizza pan and transfer the dough to the pan. Give the pan to a guest to decorate.

Guest:

Brush the dough with olive oil.

If you're using tomato sauce, spread a scant few tablespoons thinly over the dough.

Add toppings. Go easy, though. Thin pizza can't hold much weight. My suggestion is to make each pizza very different. Choose just a few toppings so that the flavors will be distinct. That's the reason for the small amounts of a large number of items.

Add cheese last, as it will hold the other ingredients onto the pizza. However, toppings that you want to get crispy, such as the duck skin I mentioned earlier, can go over the cheese.

Host:

Sprinkle some corn meal on the peel. Hold the pan above the peel and tilt it downwards to touch the peel. Hang onto the dough where it touches and slip the pan out from under the pizza. The pizza should drop onto the peel. Rearrange and reshape the pizza as necessary.

Reach the peel into the oven and let its front edge touch the brick floor. Snap the peel out from under the pizza.

Leave the pizza alone for at least 30 seconds so that the bottom of the dough can set. Then, you can readjust its position. You must rotate the pizza a few times during baking, otherwise the back edge nearest the fire will burn.

When the crust edges are a nice tan color, the pizza's done. Remove the pizza with the peel, slide it onto a pizza pan or cake rack, and set it aside to cool.

Roll out the next round of dough. Give it to another guest to decorate.

Cut the cooled pizza into slices and give to the guest who decorated it.

Guest:

Pass your pizza around, extoling its virtues and subtleties, as you lobby for the vote of "best pizza of the day."

Tips:

Toss a log into the back of the oven every now and then, to keep the a flame going. This helps cook the tops of the pizzas.

Don't prepare the pizzas more than a minute or two ahead of baking them, or else they'll stick to the pan and you'll have a mess on your hands.

Don't get distracted! After few glasses of wine, it's easy to forget that there's a pizza in the oven, but they can go from perfectly done to hopelessly burned in half a minute.

If you want to be able to mix with your guests, hire or train someone else to handle the dough and baking! It's a full-time job during the hour or so that pizzas are being made.

Host:	Put one of the dough balls onto a floured board and roll with a rolling pin to about 12" in diameter. Roll from the center of the dough out. You can also stretch the dough by hand: rough it out with the rolling pin, then put your fists together, put the dough over your fists, and stretch the dough out from underneath with your knuckles (this will make sense when you try it!). Don't let the dough get thinner than 1/8". Sprinkle some corn meal onto a metal pizza pan and transfer the dough to the pan. Give the pan to a guest to decorate.
Guest:	Brush the dough with olive oil. If you're using tomato sauce, spread a scant few tablespoons thinly over the dough. Add toppings. Go easy, though. Thin pizza can't hold much weight. My suggestion is to make each pizza very different. Choose just a few toppings so that the flavors will be distinct. That's the reason for the small amounts of a large number of items. Add cheese last, as it will hold the other ingredients onto the pizza. However, toppings that you want to get crispy, such as the duck skin I mentioned earlier, can go over the cheese.
Host:	Sprinkle some corn meal on the peel. Hold the pan above the peel and tilt it downwards to touch the peel. Hang onto the dough where it touches and slip the pan out from under the pizza. The pizza should drop onto the peel. Rearrange and reshape the pizza as necessary. Reach the peel into the oven and let its front edge touch the brick floor. Snap the peel out from under the pizza. Leave the pizza alone for at least 30 seconds so that the bottom of the dough can set. Then, you can readjust its position. You must rotate the pizza a few times during baking, otherwise the back edge nearest the fire will burn. When the crust edges are a nice tan color, the pizza's done. Remove the pizza with the peel, slide it onto a pizza pan or cake rack, and set it aside to cool. Roll out the next round of dough. Give it to another guest to decorate. Cut the cooled pizza into slices and give to the guest who decorated it.
Guest:	Pass your pizza around, extoling its virtues and subtleties, as you lobby for the vote of "best pizza of the day."
Tips:	Toss a log into the back of the oven every now and then, to keep the a flame going. This helps cook the tops of the pizzas. Don't prepare the pizzas more than a minute or two ahead of baking them, or else they'll stick to the pan and you'll have a mess on your hands. Don't get distracted! After few glasses of wine, it's easy to forget that there's a pizza in the oven, but they can go from perfectly done to hopelessly burned in half a minute. If you want to be able to mix with your guests, hire or train someone else to handle the dough and baking! It's a full-time job during the hour or so that pizzas are being made.