[0:00] Now, I'd bet my life savings that if I
[0:02] told you that you could make one of the
[0:04] best pizzas in the world with nothing
[0:07] more than a pizza dough, pecarino
[0:09] cheese, and ice, you'd say, "You, Steve.
[0:13] Get the out of here, you lying."
[0:17] But today, I'm going to blow your mind
[0:19] and show you why ice on pizza is a
[0:21] genius level and technically sound way
[0:24] to turn this icon into a worldclass
[0:27] pizza. This is Kacho Pepe pizza. As you
[0:31] evolve as a bread baker, you start to
[0:33] realize for pizza, breads, whatever, a
[0:36] good starter is easy and actually good
[0:39] to have around. And if you use the right
[0:41] flour, you don't have to worry about
[0:42] this kind of volcanic bubbly crazy thing
[0:46] that is kept out and is super kind of
[0:49] hard to manage. So, if you don't have
[0:51] this in your fridge, here's what you
[0:53] could do. the day before or even a
[0:55] couple days before you want to start
[0:57] this, we're going to make a little
[0:58] starter. And in this recipe, I have more
[1:00] starter than I need. So, that residual
[1:03] starter that I don't use gets refed. And
[1:07] then you just keep it going. So, here I
[1:09] have 200 g of room temperature water.
[1:13] I've got some instant yeast. And I'm
[1:15] just going to add about half that
[1:16] package. Maybe about four grams. The
[1:19] more you add, the more bubbly and faster
[1:22] everything kind of happens. This is nice
[1:25] and loose, if you can tell. Bubbly and
[1:27] thick and creamy, but it's happened
[1:29] slowly because we're not using an
[1:32] incredible amount of yeast. We're not
[1:33] throwing the entire package in. And to
[1:35] that, we're going to follow up with an
[1:37] equal amount of the water we added. So,
[1:39] it's one part water, one part flour. So,
[1:41] that's going to be 200 g. We're using
[1:44] bread flour. Bread flour got more
[1:47] protein in it. 12.7%. That's the protein
[1:50] content. That extra protein sort of
[1:52] creates like a more firmer, maybe like a
[1:54] little bit more resilient dough. And so
[1:56] to this, we just stir. We want to
[1:58] hydrate the water and the flour.
[2:01] You want to just make sure it's really
[2:03] kind of worked in well. And how you'll
[2:05] know it's ready is that it's kind of
[2:07] sticky.
[2:08] That's kind of what you're looking for.
[2:10] Try and clean up the sides. Now, what
[2:12] you can do a couple days before you're
[2:14] making pizza, you can put a lid on this.
[2:16] Put a rubber band roughly where it is
[2:19] now. And then pop it in the fridge and
[2:21] it should roughly double. Although
[2:24] doesn't really matter. You just want to
[2:25] see a loose structure. If you kind of
[2:27] jiggle it, a lot of action, a lot of air
[2:30] bubbles. So if it's not doubled, that
[2:32] doesn't mean it's not good. It's a
[2:34] characteristic we're going for rather
[2:36] than a volume. There's only 400 g of
[2:39] ingredients in there. So it's always
[2:41] going to be 400 g, even if it fills up
[2:43] this entire container. Now, if you are
[2:45] making this tomorrow, what I like to do
[2:47] is just leave this out at room
[2:49] temperature and allow the warmth of the
[2:51] room to kind of get it kickarted, maybe
[2:53] about an hour or so, and then pop it
[2:55] into the fridge. Let that go overnight.
[2:57] And then that would give us this today.
[3:01] And like I said, you're looking for that
[3:03] sort of ooze, a lot of air action, like
[3:06] a lot of webbing when I pull it away.
[3:09] What this sort of gives me is a starter,
[3:12] right? I don't need to now add any more
[3:14] yeast into the dough. This is
[3:16] essentially going to be my natural
[3:17] version of that. And even if this gets
[3:19] down to kind of nothing, if you can kind
[3:22] of scrape all the gunk off the sides,
[3:24] add more flour and water to it. You
[3:26] never have to add yeast to this again,
[3:27] really. So, now on to the dough. I've
[3:29] spent years intimidated by ds. And if
[3:32] you haven't noticed, this year we're
[3:33] focusing a lot on them. You know, you've
[3:35] heard people say you can't make a Philly
[3:37] cheese steak at home if you don't have
[3:38] the right bread. And I got good bread
[3:41] around here, but not everyone does. So,
[3:43] I'd rather start to learn how to make
[3:44] these things, even if I don't do it
[3:46] often, but just have it in my rolodex.
[3:49] So, to start in our mixing bowl, because
[3:52] of my shoulder, I'm sort of like moving
[3:54] away from hand stuff for a little while
[3:57] and relying on equipment. Something I
[3:59] like to do on this show is teach
[4:00] everything how to do by hand, so you
[4:02] don't need an equipment. But sometimes
[4:04] life has different plans. So, we're
[4:06] going to adapt. on a scale. We're going
[4:08] to get our mixing bowl on. To the
[4:10] KitchenAid bowl, I'm going to add 220 g
[4:13] of the starter. Now, I have some room
[4:15] temperature water, about 345 g of it.
[4:19] That's going to go straight in with the
[4:20] starter. So, that's measured. We can set
[4:22] that off to the side. So, now with that
[4:25] starter and water, we can set up our
[4:27] KitchenAid. It's going to be my friend.
[4:30] Get the dough hook in. And then we're
[4:31] just going to start it on low and just
[4:33] sort of break up the starter into the
[4:35] water. Now I can go in with my sugar. We
[4:39] need 10 grams of sugar. We need 15 grams
[4:42] of olive oil. And I'm just going to add
[4:44] half of it now and then half of it a
[4:46] little bit later. And then I have 615
[4:49] more g of bread flour. So I'm just going
[4:52] to use a small little container. I'm
[4:55] going to scoop some out. Put a little
[4:57] bit in at a time. And we're going to
[4:59] just slowly work in the flour, allowing
[5:02] it to hydrate more evenly, a little
[5:04] faster. Make sure all the flour gets
[5:07] soaked in that yeasty, milky mixture.
[5:10] It's a similar concept to the way we
[5:12] roll out fresh pasta. That little well
[5:15] with the water or the egg in the center.
[5:17] Slowly, we just work the flour in from
[5:19] the sides until it becomes a dough. Once
[5:21] it starts to become less soupy, we can
[5:23] kind of add a little bit more speed to
[5:25] it.
[5:27] Rest of the flour goes in, that's when
[5:29] the rest of our oil goes in.
[5:35] Now all the ingredients have combined
[5:38] except for the salt.
[5:41] Now that dough is looking nice. All I'm
[5:42] going to do is shut the machine off.
[5:44] Cover the dough with a towel. You're
[5:46] just going to let it rest for 20
[5:47] minutes. That dough is going to calm
[5:48] down and then we're going to add the
[5:50] salt. And if you weren't going to use a
[5:51] machine, you would do a technique which
[5:52] is basically kind of slapping and
[5:54] folding. You're just kind of getting a
[5:56] shaggy dough like this. Then you're
[5:57] resting. Then you come back, you form it
[5:59] into a ball, put it back in, rest it for
[6:02] 20 minutes, come back, stretch it, fold
[6:04] it over itself, come back for 20
[6:06] minutes. You can just do the same kind
[6:07] of idea in a stand mixer without having
[6:10] to use your bad shoulder. 20 minutes
[6:13] have passed. Now, that dough before was
[6:15] tough, right? So, that machine was going
[6:17] to fight. Even now, you could see how
[6:20] much more elastic it is. Now, we're
[6:22] going to go back onto We're going to now
[6:24] add in that salt. It's going to start in
[6:27] like this ball and then it's just going
[6:28] to start to kind of unravel a little
[6:30] bit. And you'll see the the side of the
[6:32] bowl, all that gunk stuck to it starts
[6:35] to get pulled away and cleaned up. The
[6:38] salt is absorbed. And now we're going to
[6:40] let this run for 6 minutes.
[6:44] Now, since we're doing a dough that's
[6:46] about 63% hydration, meaning 63% water
[6:51] compared to flour, that dough starts off
[6:54] sticky, which is why it sticks to the
[6:56] bowl. But as it needs, as it works, as
[6:59] the gluten starts to develop and the
[7:01] bread flour with all that protein and
[7:03] structure starts to get worked, it'll go
[7:05] from like sticky and hard to handle to
[7:08] tackier, but workable. And that's what
[7:10] we're looking for.
[7:16] 6 minutes up again. We're going to give
[7:18] it 5 minutes to rest.
[7:21] Another quick 5m minute break.
[7:24] Let it go for another 6 minutes. And
[7:27] then one more 5minute break. That's when
[7:29] we're going to do the window pane test.
[7:33] As you can see, the dough is much more
[7:34] relaxed. It looks very different, but
[7:37] it's all in the process.
[7:42] Then we're just going to cover it for a
[7:43] final five minutes. And then we're going
[7:45] to give it our window paint test. Less
[7:47] than 20 minutes of mixing, less than 20
[7:49] minutes of resting, and you're halfway
[7:50] to the finish line. So after that final
[7:53] rest, now we can take a look see. So I'm
[7:56] going to take the dough and stretch it.
[7:59] And you see how it's tearing? That means
[8:01] it needs a little bit more time. I
[8:03] really want good strength to the dough.
[8:05] So we're going to go another 5 minutes
[8:08] followed by another 5 minute rest. And
[8:10] we'll repeat that until the window pane
[8:12] has been achieved.
[8:16] Cover rest.
[8:19] Now let's take a look. You see how much
[8:21] more elastic it is? Now eventually it
[8:23] will tear. It's not infinitely
[8:26] extensible, but it should just feel
[8:28] really easy to work. And I just want to
[8:31] roll it onto the board. And then I'm
[8:33] just going to do a couple slap and
[8:34] folds, which is just basically picking
[8:37] it up, slapping it, and then folding it
[8:40] over itself like that, creating like
[8:43] tension to the dough. And then what I'm
[8:45] going to do is use my palms like that.
[8:48] And you're basically pushing up, over,
[8:51] back.
[8:53] Movements up, over, and then pull back.
[9:00] Trying to get under the dough with your
[9:01] fingers. Turn it again. Pull back.
[9:07] And then you got a beautiful dough. The
[9:09] bottom is nice and sealed. That's going
[9:11] to go into a bowl. Now we proceed to
[9:14] what is known as the bulk fermentation.
[9:17] Going to get it covered nice and tight.
[9:19] Then we're going to allow this to sit
[9:20] out at room temperature for about 3 to 4
[9:24] hours. We're looking for it to rise,
[9:26] right? But it's not about if it doubles
[9:28] or not. It's more about the type of
[9:30] consistency it is. Does it jiggle? Does
[9:33] it look airy? Are bubbles starting to
[9:36] form around the surface. That's what I'm
[9:38] looking for. And obviously some kind of
[9:40] rise. But, you know, it doesn't need to
[9:42] overproof or, you know, come out of the
[9:44] bowl. We're just kind of getting it
[9:46] started. And then we'll ball it, portion
[9:48] it, and it'll chill in the fridge
[9:50] overnight. There you go. It's been 4
[9:51] hours and we got where we want it. It's
[9:54] got a little jiggle. I can see little
[9:56] air bubbles kind of not going crazy, but
[9:59] you could see them forming. This is the
[10:01] sign of uh fermenting proofing dough,
[10:04] but it's not overproofed. That's what we
[10:06] want. So, we're going to get it out of
[10:07] the bowl.
[10:11] See there? You can really see the
[10:12] action.
[10:14] So, we're going for like 220 to 230 g
[10:18] dough balls. Let me take them and just
[10:20] sort of fold them on top of each other.
[10:22] Start to create like a little bit of a
[10:24] dough ball.
[10:28] You should get about five balls. You can
[10:31] do the same thing we did with the big
[10:32] batch to create the ball. Bring your
[10:35] hand around then pull back to keep it
[10:37] tight. There you go. I got one that's a
[10:39] little bit bigger. I'm going to use that
[10:41] for a different thing. I like to have
[10:43] differentiz balls when I make dough. It
[10:45] gives you kind of some options. You can
[10:46] get them into some containers. Cover
[10:49] them. And these go into the fridge
[10:51] overnight, 24 hours. You can go couple
[10:54] few more days, but 24 hours should work
[10:57] fine for you. We take it out, let it
[10:59] temper, and we make pizza. Now, today is
[11:02] day two, unless you didn't have a
[11:05] starter already. Tried to make this not
[11:07] a crazy long fermentation. Just 24
[11:10] hours. I'm going to pull out two of our
[11:12] doughs. Let that come up to room
[11:14] temperature. I told you we were making
[11:16] kaco e pepe pizza which would be the
[11:20] dough pecarino cheese and I've also got
[11:22] a little bit of parmesan mixed in maybe
[11:24] like a 2:1 pecarino to parm ratio and
[11:27] black pepper but just like in the four
[11:29] Roman pastas if we took kacho pepe and
[11:32] added guanchal we have alaga which we
[11:35] can easily do by the addition of some
[11:37] diced guanchal which I'm just going to
[11:38] get into a pot we're going to get that
[11:40] onto mediumigh heat and we're just going
[11:43] to slowly render out that fat and crisp
[11:45] up that guanchchala. That's going to be
[11:48] like the topping to turn it into greca.
[11:51] While that happens, I'm going to spill
[11:52] the beans. This is a technique you may
[11:54] have seen in my Sunday supper series.
[11:56] Chef Fausto, the pizza chef at the
[11:58] stand, a man from Naples, I might add,
[12:01] started playing around with ice on pizza
[12:04] during some downtime before the event.
[12:06] Now, he's a man of few words. So, as I
[12:08] watched, it all began to click to me.
[12:10] rolled a bit smaller to emphasize the
[12:13] cornachon or the crust of the pizza. Ice
[12:16] is placed in the center which does two
[12:19] main things. It prevents the center from
[12:21] puffing up just like a sauce and cheese
[12:24] might do. But it also does one other
[12:26] magical thing. It creates pasta water
[12:29] just like cooking pasta in a pot of
[12:31] water turns water into that gold that
[12:34] emulsifies iconic sauces like kachoi
[12:37] pepe. That pizza dough with all the
[12:39] flour dusted on top of it mixed with
[12:41] that ice does the exact same thing. Once
[12:44] the dough is cooked, the ice is now a
[12:47] pool of pasta water held in by that
[12:49] puffy crust. And with a simple addition
[12:51] of some pecarino cheese, a bit of
[12:54] agitation to form the emulsion. You've
[12:56] got a truly authentic way to make a
[12:58] kachoi pepe pizza while following all
[13:01] the same rules. Now, while this is
[13:03] almost crispy, mind you, I've had my
[13:05] oven preheated to 550 or the highest it
[13:09] goes with my pizza steel about halfway
[13:12] right in the center of my oven. That's
[13:15] been preheating for like 3 hours. With
[13:17] something like a pizza steel, when
[13:19] you're making pizza, you really want to
[13:21] give your oven all the time it needs. A
[13:23] woodf fired oven needs to be started
[13:24] like hours before you want to cook to
[13:26] get the base of the pizza oven up to
[13:30] temperature and retaining its heat so
[13:32] that every time you put a pizza on
[13:34] there, it doesn't cool down to a point
[13:36] where it can't recover. And if
[13:38] everything goes well, we're going to get
[13:40] a puffy crust holding in a bunch of ice.
[13:43] It's going to look like it was made in a
[13:45] professional pizzeria. Now we're nice
[13:46] and crisp. We're just going to run that
[13:50] through a strainer. Catch the fat cuz
[13:52] you need it to make the gichca. Top it
[13:55] at the end with our gonchal. Drizzle
[13:57] with our guanchale fat. We'll get greca.
[14:00] Now let's make a pizza. First up, I've
[14:03] got my pizza peel. I've got some flour.
[14:05] Hit it with some cornmeal. Just going to
[14:07] get roll that right onto the board for
[14:10] me. I'd use semolina. I just don't have
[14:12] it. Now, our dough looks beautiful. That
[14:15] smells like beautiful New York pizza
[14:16] dough mixed with a little margarita.
[14:18] This Steviey's new pizza dough. I'm
[14:20] telling you, this thing's money. I got a
[14:22] scraper. Put a little flour on the
[14:23] scraper. Put a little flour on the
[14:25] board. So, I'm going to take the
[14:26] scraper, put a little flour kind of
[14:29] around the edges, and then scrape the
[14:31] dough under. Get it onto the board.
[14:34] Now, you see this? This is the bottom of
[14:36] the dough, which is actually going to be
[14:38] the top of the dough. That imperfection
[14:40] is perfect to create the base on, while
[14:42] that nice smooth side can create a nice
[14:45] crust below. We're going to flip it. Get
[14:47] both sides coated. And then we're going
[14:49] to begin to sort of set the corn. So,
[14:51] I'm going to press in strongly.
[14:57] Rotate it. Set the crust.
[15:00] Set that edge. Set the rim with my
[15:03] fingertips. Just like that. Now,
[15:05] remember that's the bottom. Flip it.
[15:08] Do the same thing. Choking off the crust
[15:11] from the rest of the dough so that it
[15:13] puffs up nicely.
[15:16] Move the flower off to the side
[15:19] and just start to work it out a bit.
[15:24] Then start pressing out the center. And
[15:27] then we can take our palm, place it kind
[15:29] of in the center, stretch it,
[15:34] and then turn it. Don't have to do it
[15:36] fast
[15:39] and sort of stretch to the size you want
[15:41] it.
[15:44] Get our dough onto the peel. Make sure
[15:47] it moves. Then I've got these little ice
[15:49] cubes, these little balls of ice, almost
[15:52] like little cubes of mozzarella. I got
[15:54] it on Amazon. Our oven's preheated.
[15:58] We're going to get ice into the center.
[16:00] Fill it up just like uh you would
[16:02] mozzarella. We want a nice pool of water
[16:04] in there. Then we're going to pop it
[16:06] into the oven. We're going to give about
[16:07] 1 to two minutes and allow that crust to
[16:10] puff up, create that sort of cradle for
[16:13] the pasta water while the ice melts.
[16:15] Once that crust starts to puff, we're
[16:18] going to transition to the broiler and
[16:20] recreate the same environment of a pizza
[16:22] oven. Of course, the broiler is not
[16:23] working, you would do the broiler. We're
[16:25] going to make it work.
[16:27] Rotate it. And we're trying to brown it
[16:29] nice and evenly.
[16:41] It's a little bit of evaporation that
[16:42] happened. So, I want to make sure I have
[16:44] enough pasta water in there just like I
[16:46] would with the kachoy pepe to form the
[16:49] cream. Otherwise, it's just kind of
[16:50] bunch of grated cheese on top. Cheese
[16:52] mix.
[16:56] Making the cream. Keep going.
[16:59] So, we're going to create kind of like a
[17:01] creamy bottom.
[17:05] You're going to really want a good
[17:06] amount on there. Fresh cracked black
[17:08] pepper and you've got kachoi pepe pizza.
[17:11] Transform it to grecia. A little bit of
[17:13] that guanchal fat.
[17:16] Top with the crispy guanchal.
[17:27] You see that cream in there? The little
[17:30] dusting on top just like you would
[17:31] pasta.
[17:34] I mean, it's a really beautiful dough.
[17:37] Flavor is incredible. Reminds me of
[17:39] dough from New York slice shops I used
[17:41] to have growing up. Truly incredible
[17:43] that this had water on it. You haven't
[17:46] noticed, there's been a motif to this
[17:47] year, which is emphasis on fresh bread
[17:50] baking and dough making. You might not
[17:52] have noticed, but I've been subliminally
[17:54] training you to demystify the dough
[17:57] experience, which I once had. are soft,
[17:59] crunchy airy fluffy.
[18:03] Even if you're not interested in the ice
[18:05] part of this, this is your new go-to
[18:07] dough. Keep the starter alive. Keep
[18:09] feeding it a little flour and water
[18:11] every day. If it goes too long, throw it
[18:13] in some more flour, a little bit of more
[18:15] water. Throw it on the stove. Make fried
[18:17] bread for breakfast. Keep it going. Now,
[18:19] if you want the recipe, it's going to be
[18:21] linked down in the description. I've got
[18:23] some updates on the shoulder. It's not
[18:25] great. Not going to tell you yet. will
[18:28] in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. For
[18:30] now, that's all I've got. I'll see you
[18:32] next time. Until then, take care of
[18:34] yourself. Emphasis on that. Go feed
[18:37] yourself.