A Bad Stretch

When I was growing-up carry-out pizza from a real pizza parlor was a treat.  A very rare treat.  As a matter of fact I have an acquaintance that once told me he never had pizza until he was in high school or college or some such thing.

Since we got our brick oven, pizza around here has been raised to an art-form.  For the spring semester I'm teaching another round of pizza-making classes.

Admittedly, I have become a pizza snob. 

In the 1960s there was a time that this culinary hideousness found its way under our roof.

Just like those ancient times before kettle grills there was burnt and ash-covered chicken.  Frequently raw in the center.  For pizza it was a particularly bad stretch.

 

Indoor Pizza

Most of you readers know that we use our wood-fired brick oven to cook outdoors during the more pleasant months of the year.  This time of year we'll fire it up if we score a day above freezing and especially during daylight hours.  Baking or roasting in the dark at 20F is not appealing at all.

Recently we hosted guests for the weekend and one of the requests was for homemade pizzas.

So I prepared a batch of sourdough crust balls to undergo a cold fermentation in the garage fridge and prepped everything else with the exception of the firing the forno.  Too dang cold and I was disinclined to be traipsing from oven to house and back in the dark while balancing a pizza peel. 

So I used the new GE Profile range that I've been becoming accustomed-to .  

The bottom oven has a pizza stone and I can preheat it to 550F which will bake a fresh pizza in about 10 minutes - give or take.

And I never had to leave the comfort of my own kitchen.

Pizza!  Pizza!

Let There Be Bread

Having weekend guests we naturally tossed pizzas in the Forno followed the Packer game.

This morning I bid our travelers an early adieu.

Good thing I put the door back on the oven before bedtime as the temp was still north of 400f (called a dying oven) and I had a couple of 375g sourdough balls from yesterday.

So I baked bread.

Cheesy boules topped with tarragon plucked from the garden.

 

Brick Oven

From an old neighborhood friend there is this...

Pizza! Pizza!

Tossed some pies in the Forno last night with some pals.

After a dalliance with instant dry yeast, 2024 has been witness to the return of sourdough leavening.

An altogether superior bake.

Bonus was tomatoes and sweet peppers from the garden….
 

The Next Morning

Sometimes you have to toss a pie in the Forno at the end of the day.

Thursday evening I fed my sourdough starters and figured I'd use some of the discard to make pizza dough for the holiday weekend.

Last night I made a couple of pizzas.  CSMOs to be exact. For the uninitiated that acronym stands for: cheese, sausage, mushroom and onion.  In the pizza world that is commonly known as The Milwaukee Special.  We ate one and par-baked the second - freezing it for a quick meal down the road.

Pro Tip - Not wanting to waste any BTUs, upon rising this morning the oven had cooled to 375F.  So I baked Door County cherry scones.  

Of course, you can bake bread, cinnamon rolls or cookies too.  Forno be like a big ole battery retaining heat for hours.....

Gathering Of The Clan

Another weekend of family eating, drinking and frivolity is in the record books.  Three generations of our immediate tribe gathering outside of a holiday, wedding, funeral or other family event.   And the monsoons paused just long enough to smoke chicken and ribs on Friday and make a batch of brick oven pizzas Saturday.  Today dawned sunny and bright.

It can stop with the rain now.

Anyway, now that the dog hair has been swept, bedding laundered, garbage bagged; some evidence worth sharing....

 

 

Gentlemen - Start Your Ovens

First bake of the season....

 

Pizza Man

Attempted an experiment a week ago for the backyard brick oven.  

 

Homemade, cold fermentation dough, garlic alfredo, fresh basil, sliced whole milk mozz, fresh mushrooms, sweet onions and shrimp. 

 

 

Two minute bake in the Forno.

 

Drizzle of EVO before serving.

 

Yummy result. 

 

After discussing this with my sidekick spouse we concur that chicken would work too. 

 

I’d also consider substituting chopped scallions for the sweet onion.  Rather than put them on before the bake I'd sprinkle them on with the drizzle of EVO before serving.

 

Crushed red pepper would also amp-up the flavor profile.

 

Underrated

I've never made these before and cannot recall eating them.  Although I have been told they are delicious.

Beef short ribs.

Inspired by one of my favorite YouTube channels I decided to make these in the forno for friends recently.  Moreover, I sourced grass-fed beef short ribs from a local farmer.

Bringing the forno online

Mise en place

Searing

Mirepoix

Making it come together - starting with a 375 F "falling-away" oven for a four hour braise

Served with seared brick oven asparagus and duck-fat-fried crashed potatoes  

A resounding success - score another dish from the brick oven.  Our guests declared these among the best they've dined-upon either at home or in a restaurant.  Beef short ribs are seriously underrated.  I'll make these again

And if you're looking for naturally-raised, locally-sourced meats you can learn more about Sunset Farms here.

Instructions below

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Brick oven delivers the goods. 

 

 

Poulet méditerranéen al forno.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner!

 

 

 

Cooking With Fire

With the arrival of spring the wood-fired brick oven has been put to use.

The Forno has been accessorized with a cast iron Tuscan Grill thereby casting its net beyond mere pizza, calzones, bread baking and cast iron pan roasting.

 

We had some neighbors over for drinks and dinner recently and experimented with Vietnamese sticky chicken.

 

 

The grill is a terrific expansion of the repertoire.

 

Because everyone knows the universal truth:

 

Real men cook with fire…..

Pizza Margherita

A gloomy, on-again, off-again, rain means brick oven cooking. 

Pizza Margherita - the simplest Neapolitan pizza. 

 

The Italian city of Naples is generally-accepted as the home to the creation story of pizza.  Founded in the 16th century the urban peasants of Naples were quite impoverished and thus it was that pizza - a flatbread with toppings - easy to make and could be eaten for any meal that affordably fed the working class of Naples.   

The popular interpretation of the origin of this particular pie is an account from 1889 and a visit by King Umberto I and Queen Margherita to Naples. The Queen summoned the famed pizza-maker Raffaele Esposito to bake three pizzas for her. The first two - an anchovy followed by a marinara were uninspiring to the Queen.  The third - featuring the green, white and red colors of the Italian flag - met with the Queen's approval.  Esposito named his pie for Queen Margherita and requested of her a Royal Seal.  But I digress - I watch to many Stanley Tucci Italian cooking shows on streaming television.

This pie features a long cold fermentation dough, sauce, whole milk mozz, fresh garden basil, salt, and a drizzle of EVO. 

Also broke-in a new professional peel for ease of oven entry and egress….

Home Baked Bread

It has been awhile since I made this.

Homemade cranberry walnut loaf.

Included in this was an entire heaping cup each of toasted walnuts and craisins (dried cranberries).

Very yummy with butter or cream cheese and makes a kick-ass french toast.

 Gonna make this again - maybe with dried, Door County tart cherries.

Can't wait to unlimber the Forno for the season.....

Random Forno Report

Once and awhile I get asked - Hey Tom, how often do you actually use your wood fired oven?

To which I might explain that it is difficult to determine inasmuch as I don't keep a calendar or journal.  Maybe I should.  At least for now I can pretty much keep straight in my head what works really well (pizza) and what needs more work (bakery).  And what remains to be attempted - braised meats and more complicated main dishes.  

Tuesday I baked a couple of rustic Belgian loaves for a Brussels Lions raffle. 

Today I tried baguettes. They’re not much to look at yet the crumb (classic holes and chew) is pretty close. It’s a fussy recipe and I think I need to take the bake up an additional 100F. 

Made starter for calzones this weekend. 

It's been an edible journey so far…..

Typical Saturday

Busy day yesterday.

Walked the dog.  Fetched gas and diesel. Reinstalled hazards to navigation along the north property line to keep nocturnal road hunters from driving onto the property from the dead-end town road to poach deer.  

This was accomplished by means of returning the oversized boulders to the ditch that the logger had moved.  I also moved a bunch of larger ash pulp bolts to the mix like ginormous pixie stix.  Sure, a determined violator will persist in poaching a deer - my point is simply to provide a deterrent to any easy mark.  Thank the Lord for a bucket on the tractor and high-pressure hydraulics.

There is also a high probability I'll hide a trail camera along the edge of the road to record license plate data.  If there is criminal behavior I'll have something for the warden to follow-up on.

After this I swept and vacuumed the machine shed, gassed-up both 4-wheelers and Jill and I covered the boat.  

Whew!

Cold beers on the porch followed while I fired-up the Forno.

 

At 900 F after only two minutes there was New York-style, cracker-thin pizza for dinner.  Yum!

And there was sufficient dough and toppings to par-bake two additional pies to freeze for easy meals down the road.

Looking forward to clearing the chore list of autumn tasks in the next week as the pre-rut has commenced.

And I saw plenty of deer out in the woods yesterday during daylight.

There is some serious hunting to be done.....

Daily Bread

Actually a couple of days worth of bread.

Today dawned, dank, damp, overcast and cold.  46F when I finally got around to firing the Forno around noon.  

I had previously prepared a large batch of signature French Boule bread dough yesterday and it had been proofing for about 24 hours already.  I was either going to bake a traditional Boule in the kitchen range - or was going to bake hard rolls in the old-school wood oven out back.

As you correctly concluded it was old school today.

The fire built in the oven was considerably smaller than what I would have started if planning to bake pizzas.  I was looking to charge the brick interior not at 900F but something on the order of 450F.  Bread-baking temp.

With the oven heating, I measured-out my dough into eight basically equal portions and formed balls to further proof on a pan lined with parchment paper and corn meal.

The clouds parted and the sun emerged about the time the fire had died-down and pushing the embers to the back, I inserted my pan of rolls, gave the dome a healthy spritz of water from a spray bottle to establish a steamy-hot atmosphere and closed the oven door.

This was my first foray into hard roll baking with a wood oven and it wasn't long before the back yard smelled of fresh-baked bread.  I likely messed with the oven temp with more frequent checking but it's a learning curve after-ll.

I rotated the pan and the 20 minute mark - gave the dome another spritz and closed the door.

20-25 minutes later there was this...

 

Eight crusty hard rolls made the old school way.