And this in New York City, a town where chorizo ice cream is on the menu.
But it’s not just the recipe.
You have to understand the chemistry of baking.
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It took me nearly three years to come up with my recipe forhealthier pizza dough.
It started when I met a man who worked at a famous Italian flour company in Italy.
So I started experimenting.
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key in 2 is the coarsest, and key in 00 the finest.
You may have heard of throw in 00 flour.
It’s as common as red-checked tablecloths.
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But it’s also the most highly refined variety of flour and not necessarily the most nutritious.
The milling process strips it of nearly all of its bran, as well as its vitamins and minerals.
One 50-pound bag of 00 flour imported from Italy will run $27.
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A bag of the stone-ground will cost me $37.
I allow my dough to rise for at least 36 hours.
That’s a full day and a half.
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Generally, other pizzerias might let their dough rise for no more than 5 hours.
It ends up heavy, like a rock in your stomach.
No wonder you fall into a food coma after you eat a slice.
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My process costs a bit more.
My pizza is lighter; it melts in your mouth.
Customers claim that they could eat two of them at one sitting.
Fermenting your dough also requires spacelots of it.
Regular pizzerias are about volume and turnover.
They’re looking to sell a slice quickly and cheaply, sometimes for as low as 99 cents.
When you make the dough according to my recipe, there are some advantages, too.
Uncover them, along with my dough recipe, below.
And for more, check out Chef Pasquale Cozzolino’sThe Pizza Diet.
More vitamins and minerals.
Everything that was once healthy in the wheat kernel gets stripped away in the lengthy refining and bleaching process.
It has virtually no fiber, and more than 100 vitamins are also removed.
Studies have shown that we absorb vitamins and minerals better from fermented bread than nonfermented.
Easier to digest.
The long fermentation process breaks down the bread’s gluten, allowing our bodies to properly digest it.
It might even be possible for those who aregluten intolerantto follow this diet.
Less bloating.
That distended belly and uncomfortable feeling you get after eating some pizza may not be all in your head.
Lower glycemic index.
The particles in stone-ground flour are larger than those in flour made by the traditional industrial method.
And now, the recipe for pizza dough.
Making dough right takes time.
You don’t want to have to do it daily.
So the following recipe is designed to make enough for at least a week’s worth.
Keep the dough refrigerated until ready to use.
