Our new house in Italy came equipped with an outdoor pizza oven and a grill, but I have to admit I was a little intimidated by it! The idea is novel and romantic but how, pray tell, does someone actually use an outdoor pizza oven? I grew up with my mom making homemade pizza every week, I shouldn’t be so nervous, but Italians have this affect on me, they always make things seem complicated and make me second guess my cooking abilities. Could an outdoor pizza oven really be that complicated? Is Italian pizza dough really that different then my moms pizza in the electric oven? I was afraid to find out.
Right away we got busy using our outdoor grill, yes, a couple of Californians are quite comfortable with grilling outside. Still it took a little getting used to building a fire with wood and scooting the fire off to the side. Jeff got used to managing his fire and the flavor a real wood fire had on the meat was a beautiful thing to behold. But we still glanced sideways at the wood-fire pizza oven, not quite sure of what to do with it.
Finally, three weeks into living in our new house and three weeks into the full swing of summer, we finally decided it was time to put the pizza oven to use. We stopped by the local hardware store and asked where we could find a “pizza peel” in Italian it’s called a “buccia di pizza”. Well, actually, we didn’t know what it was called, so we walked in and made a gesture like we were shoving a pizza into an oven and said “dove pizza….,” while we thrust our arms like we were baking a pizza. They took us around the corner and handed us a baccia di pizza. Nearby we also found a wooden board with a little lip on it, they use this to lay on top of a table with the lip at the edge so you can roll out your pasta or pizza dough without the board scooting around on you. Genius.
A friend gave me a little jar with a yeast “starter” in it and showed me her outside pizza oven. She is Australian but has been married to an Italian for 30 years. She said they couldn’t quite ever figure out how to use a baccia di pizza so they always use a pizza pan. I guess there is quite the technique for using a pizza peel and not messing up your dough as you scoot under it. These are the things that intimidate us. A real Italian who has an outdoor pizza oven doesn’t know how to use a pizza peel? What hope do we have!?!
Other things intimidated us also, some told us the pizza oven has to be very hot and you must start it hours before you want to make the pizza. Yikes! Several hours? Who has that kind of time? I gotta be home for hours before I make the pizza? Another Italian told us you should not make pizza in the summer, it’s too hot. That sounded logical too. Others told us for true Neapolitan pizza the dough needs to rise for 72 hours. Wow! I gotta think three days beforehand when I want to make pizza? This is a lot of pressure!
No wonder we were afraid to start and always eyed the pizza oven with suspicion. But armed with our new pizza peel and cutting board we decided it was time to try. We had some visiting guests from South Carolina and they became our test subjects. To really stress ourselves out we decided to invite a couple of Italian friends and their visitors from Canada. Actually, these Italians are good friends who aren’t critical and Rita is a really good cook so they were a huge help on our maiden “pizza oven” voyage.
Three days before the event I added three cups of flour to my dough starter and set it on the counter to rise. Each day I lifted the towel and peeked in on the metamorphosis that was taking place as the yeast gobbled up the sugars from the flour, it rose very slowly and I doubted it was going to work. So the day of the pizza party I was shopping at Conad grocery store and I saw a whole stack of containers with yeast dough for pizza. They were only €1.50 each and said they had been rising for 72 hours. Good, now I had a back up plan in case the “yeast starter” failed me.
Once home, I got busy preparing the toppings, we had salami piccante (aka pepperoni but they don’t call it that because that is a red bell pepper in Italian) bacon (proscuitto), green bell peppers, jalapeños from the garden, anchovies, capers, regular salami, sausage and eggplant. Of course we also had a pizza sauce and plenty of fresh mozzarella.
Jeff and I armed ourselves with an arsenal of YouTube videos on how to make pizza in a wood fired oven. I thought Jaime Oliver was the most helpful with a technique for scooching the pizza off the peel and back on. He demonstrated it with jerky little motions and warned against being too lackadaisical about the motion. After all of the research Jeff decided to start the pizza oven fire an hour before the guests arrived. It turned out to be the perfect amount of time. Then he scooted the fire to the back of the oven and allowed the oven to temper. I was actually afraid of the dough that I had made with the starter, it was the consistency of thick glue and hard to work with. The dough I purchased at Conad was easier and I formed little balls the size of a softball and placed them on my new wood board dusted with flour. I covered the dough with a towel and let them rest.
Jeff was the first to form a pizza and add the sauce and cheese and slide it in the oven with the jerky motions Jaime Oliver said to use. To my delight the pizza started bubbling up right away and charring on the edges. Even the cheese on the top was sizzling and dancing the happy cheese dance! A few turns of the pizza peel by the now semi-professional-pizza-man, Jeff, and it was done in a matter of minutes. He pulled it out of the oven and we sampled its delicious simplicity. Pizza perfection!
I prepared a little workspace outside and poured the Spritz in order to greet our arriving guests. Tony and Rita arrived with their visiting niece and friend from Canada. Tony and Rita had lived in Brooklyn, NY for eight years when they were first married, they returned to Italy to raise their two sons thirty years ago and have been here ever since. They were impressed with our boldness to try out the pizza oven and Tony was delighted when I handed him an icy Spritz. He said “I feel like I am back in America with all of this ice!” Italians only use ice for a Spritz, no other drink, and it’s a full time job to keep making ice with the little ice trays. No ice maker on the refrigerator door and no bags of ice available at the grocery store. Niente. If you want ice you gotta make it, cube by cube.
As they guests arrived they got right to work rolling out the dough, spooning on the sauce and topping each pizza with Mozzerella and other toppings before sliding into into the oven. We ate them as fast as they came out, savoring each morsel.
So my only advice for using a wood fired oven is: don’t be afraid, it’s not that hard. You only need to start the fire with a medium size log of wood and some kindling an hour before the guests arrive. Scoot the fire to the back of the oven and sweep the ashes back to clean the surface. When the oven is 500 degrees Fahrenheit, slide in the pizza, allow to cook a few seconds until slightly charred on the side nearest to the flame then turn it with the pizza peel to cook the other side. Your pizza will be done in a few minutes flat.
If you don’t have a wood fired pizza you can still use this recipe. Just get your oven nice and hot (500 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake for about 10 minutes, you will know when it’s done.
The dough recipe is my moms, I will use it next time I make pizzas because I can tell it’s not as much of a science as I feared. The Conad pizza dough turned out better the the dough we used the yeast starter on. So happy pizza making! Now you can have your own pizza making party at home!
Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
- 3 cups of flour
- 1 1/4 cup of warm water (the temperature you would use to give a baby a bath)
- 1 package or scant tablespoon of dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- olive oil
Instructions:
- Add the yeast to the warm water, allow a few minutes for it to start to bloom
- add three cups of flour and salt
- stir until it is too stiff then start to knead with your hands, adding extra flour to your hands and surface if it’s sticky or more water if it’s too stiff.
- keep kneading for 3-5 minutes, the dough should be elastic, meaning it will spring back after you poke it.
- Pour olive oil into the bowl, the bowl should be big enough for the dough to double in size. Turn the dough over to coat completely with oil.
- cover the dough and allow to rise about 1-2 hours
Pizza Sauce
Ingredients:
- 1 can of tomato sauce (8 ounces for two large pizzas)
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed and minced
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- several leaves of fresh basil or 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions:
- Heat oil, add garlic, cook until fragrant
- add tomato sauce and all other ingredients
- cook on a light bubble for 5 minutes, remove from heat
Pizza Toppings:
- 4 baseball size balls of fresh Mozzerella or 2 (8 ounce balls) Mozzerella for shredding
- Pepperoni (salami piccante)
- Salami
- sausage
- Onions
- Bell peppers
- anchovies
- capers
- eggplant
- olives
- Jalapeños
Instructions:
- Form balls of dough for your pizzas. To bake in a normal oven, devise the dough in half and make two large pizzas. For a wood fired pizza oven, divide the dough into eight balls. Allow the dough balls to rest a few minutes. Then roll out on a floured surface
- Top with tomato sauce, cheese and toppings.
- Bake in a hot oven (450-500 degrees F) for 10 minutes then alternate racks. You may need to bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the bottom of the pizza is crisp and the top is lightly brown and bubbly.
- For a wood fire oven, read the instructions above.
If you liked this recipe, try another from our Recipe Index:
Pesto Genovese (published September 21, 2018
Saltimbocca (Roman Style Veal Scallopini) (Published February 18, 2018)
Steamed Mussels and Fettuccine (Cozze e Fettuccine) Published May 4, 2019)
Shrimp Risotto (Risotto alla Gamberi) Published June 2, 2018)
Pasta Carbonara (Published May 12, 2018)
Lasagna Bolognese (Published Aug 3, 2018)
Eggplant Parmesan (Published August 29, 2018)
Cacio e Pepe (Published August 28, 2018)
