One Guy Changed My Pizza Game Forever

now i've been documenting and sharing my pizza journey with all of you basically since i got on youtube many years ago and i've improved a lot and i've grown and hopefully you have as well and you're making epic pizzas at home and i still consider myself a hobbyist you know i'm somewhere at like level seven or eight and i'm trying to get to 10 which is why today is very exciting because i flew in a true master a true level 10 neapolitan pizza maker someone who has been studying pizza their whole life and he's coming over to give all of us a complete master class in neapolitan style pizza making so you've made it finally veto yo yes thank you so much mike for having me here it's an honor and pleasure so tell me where did you start with neapolitan pizza or squad in general uh pizza in general so i born in the pizza and i just start to say pizza is lifestyle for me because i grew up in the restaurant business from my mom fourth generation pizza chef from my father's third generation pizza chefs part of me my first first first was a 16 years old it was a pizza place to go in the little town in italy and then i had it for two years a little bit uh bad experience i don't know if i can say their own video but uh what happened uh nothing the mafia burn it down one night they came and they say okay you have to pay the rent basically that's how you know uh well it was no money yeah so forget about it the day after uh i mean now we left but uh it was really tragic but we had to change the city or whatever so how many other pizza shops did you have nothing so after that i decided to learn how to make the real neapolitan pizza because i come from my mom's family they were sicilian immigrated to chicago so they were doing different style of pizza sicilian and chicago my father body style tin cross so i wanted to learn the real pizza because uh the real pizza is in naples and the neapolitan pizza for me it's right there so for me this is the real pizza i even put it on my skin that's the hardest pizza to make that's what i'm here today to teach you and you so speaking of that how did you master it yourself uh so that's what was really really challenging because at the time the only pizza chef from naples know how to make neapolitan pizza i had to steal the art and was hard because after i found this job in the neapolitan pizza place the pizza yolo was going in the back locked the doors i forgot about it it doesn't see anything so over the years i i i steal the art i learn a little bit listening for other people you know but i learned i open up this pizza place which was my dream in los angeles and in the meantime i was doing videos i decided to make a video how to just one little thing how to clean the oven and give all this secret all this out to for free through youtube and here i am so what's the first step to making authentic neapolitan pizza the polish the yeast polish is a pre-fermented dough which is uh helps a lot where the pizza nice light fermented very digestible you need to make a foolish if you're making well after you met me yes because i that's the secret so i tell you the secret this is the cigarette so make the polish doesn't matter how much pizzas you make make the polish and then it's easy you make it all night to put in the fridge the day after voila it's very simple to make take out the scale scale 200 grams of water in the water you add five grams of honey then five grams of yeast mix everything melt the yeast in the water and then go ahead and add 200 grams of zero zero flour that's 100 hydration let it sit for 15 minutes and then seal it close the lid one hour at room temperature then go ahead put it in the fridge overnight or for 16 to 24 hours make sure don't paste 24 hours or it's gonna become acid and it's not gonna work anymore so the goal is to make the the pizza nice puffy cross soft inside and crunchy the outside how you do that we add manitoba flour why manitoba because the w of the flour are more that means is strong the flour more strong the flour more is going to attach the gluten so that's yes so that's why you're going to have you're going to have the elastic flour okay so now take out the polish one hour room temperature and put it in a bowl add the 300 grams of manitoba flour in the meantime go ahead and get 300 grams of water 20 grams of salt mix it up and melt it uh the the bowl was a little bit too small so we had to transfer everything to a bigger bowl and that's when we add another 200 grams of zero zero flour the same flour that we had in the polish integrate the flour in the polish and little by little go ahead and add the water with the salt until all the water gets integrated in the mixing that we are making so this is going to take about 10 to 15 minutes if you see now it's all wet almost when it's going to drink all the water it's going to become nice and smooth so now i'm not able to work the dough so now i put it right there this way we want to work the dough with two ends to be able to be more fast you want to make the dough really nervous see you want to break the gluten till nice and it can pulls all together when you feel there is no more this chunk of flour inside that's when you know that the dough needs some rest so now at this point look what we do we just bang it on the on the counter lap and fold yes until we have like a uniform dough but not smooth because of course it needs some resting time right now see now it's getting stronger okay voila okay now a little bit of olive oil gently tap tap tap on the dough voila now let it rest just like that nothing on top just at room temperature for 15 minutes yeah 15 minutes now top top top this way you get some oil in your hands then get the spatula detach it from the counter once it's detached simply ends like this and we have to create a bone so gently go ahead and create the ball until it's smooth so close inside until it's moved you don't want to pull it too much otherwise the gluten is gonna it's gonna broke so what we do at this point is so make the bowl just like that voila now again a little bit of olive oil voila so now at this point we get a humid towel and then on top this way it doesn't get dry the dough so now we leave this dough for one hour at room temperature just like that one hour let's make the tomato sauce real uh easy and fast but that's how we do it in italy dump the tomato in a bowl and simply add a handful of salt and chop some basil in and add a teaspoon of olive oil start to measure with your hands we crush the tomato my hands because we want to have these pieces to go on the pizza this way you taste the tomato the goal here for a margherita pizza is to taste every ingredient that is on the pizza for the classic margherita we have to use fresh mozzarella in this case we have hard dry fresh mozzarella which is even better to make the pizza this is a good consistency to make a pizza because it's not too milky is not too dry so this is the cut that we want to have for the pizza if you get the cheese you just go like this you go on the pizza see what happens first of all it doesn't look it looks ugly first of all that's what i said i'm sorry but uh that's not the way to do it because if you see the slide see here it's a little bit thinner what happened that this part here is gonna burn so you don't have the same consistency of the of the pizzas you're not going to taste the exactly fresh mozzarella that we want so this is the way how to cut the cheese originally way in naples not too thick not too thin if it's too thin it's going to burn if it's too thick it's not going to cook voila this is the way to cut the cheese or you can do a little square but the most important thing is the slice the thickness so this is how we find the dough after you can hear the air inside the dough a little bit of olive oil in your hands so it doesn't stick in your hands and we don't break the glute we have 500 milligrams of water so we have to make a classic 250 grams depends how big you want the pizza since we have this uh big o and we want to make a little bit bigger so let's make it four basically we're gonna cut it and this is about 280 grams each so now we want to close it so basically keep this part on top and we want to close it really well and tie it up not too much otherwise the the layer on top here is going to break and we don't want that so this is a little bit too big so we're going to go ahead and cut it off while i'm closing in close it in close it in and then inside inside is like making the cheese this part we close it we chop it and cut it too no flour or anything already olive oil we change the add ratio if we put the the flour we don't want to change the dehydration and put it four finger apart we're gonna rest for one hour so basically double up the side and the dough will be ready because it's already ready but we need to relax a little bit and this way it gets more air inside since we've got to wait one hour until the dough is ready this is the perfect time to break open my brand new pizza oven sent to me by the sponsor of today's video uni pizza oven now there are ways to make decent neapolitan pizza at home in your oven i actually have an entire video showing you how to do that but today's video is all about mastery and uni has made pizza mastery affordable in your very own home my first uni oven was the fire which i reviewed about two years ago and it makes great pizzas but i did have some critiques with that oven and i gotta say uni pretty much addressed all of those issues with this karu 16. to fire it up you can choose multiple fuel sources including gas but i'm a little pyro and i prefer working fire and all you need is a few mini logs to get this thing ripping hot so if you're interested in your own uni click the link in my bio to purchase one directly through their website now let's get ripping so before making the pizza if you see now we don't have flame right before making the pizza we have to check the dough is ready after one hour like you can see almost double up the side so what we do we put small pieces of wood inside the oven right before making the pizza this way we get the perfect flame so big pieces to tune it up yes but these are too much of a flame too much of flame and then it will burn the top and the bottom will stay raw so we'll go ahead and get the small pieces just like that and then boom okay now you'll see in two seconds we're gonna have a bigger flame come here watch this see and now that flame is gonna create more pressure and the pizza will become perfect so that's it let's say talking let's go ahead and let's make this pizza bonus listen this is the air in the cross so let's go ahead a little bit of flour voila spatula guys you got to have the right spot to let mike here at the biggest spot like this what we're going to do we need a smaller one the size of the dough get the spatula and get that pizza out gentle you don't want to get the dough inside otherwise forget about it you're gonna not gonna be able to stretch anymore voila go ahead one shot right there so make sure you close you seal the others put it away and let's rock and roll and let's stretch the piece of gentle little bit of flour on the floor loading it up with flour yeah right there tap on top get your finger and press press no stretch press get the air to the cross you see there so get the air to the cross now go back now flip it over again when you are here paint it you block the air to the cross doesn't go anywhere it stays right there so now one end you press one end you pull press pull pull press now turn watch this watch this mike one step really important one end here on top lift it up one end under look at this make it bigger and then land it down i came to new york to teach you all this my friend and then if you get too much flour pinch it you don't want to touch too much the crunch take off all the flour i will burn and when it burns that's not healthy for you for your stomach okay now get the tomato sauce two or three right there in the center look look how i hold my spoon are you all the right there with your left right here you're controlling god you actually have a way of look at this it's very important everything is important voila you control go a little bit on the cross so it's level in your hand like a knife a little bit of parmesan cheese right there fresh grande on the pizza voila not too much so now two ends just go ahead and dump it on the pizza you don't want to put too much you don't wanna put two less just cover up all the size of the pizza voila now if you want to put the basil inside you can but it might burn i always put just a couple just lid like this to not burn the basil you have to put a little bit of olive oil on top of the lids just right there voila we are ready to go in the other way you did not build that on the pizza peel no now we put it in the peel so easy watch this one end you all the your left hand you're all there i'm right hand pinching and then that's it very easy voila if it's sticky a little bit of flour right there in the front this way this flour goes under that pinch voila we want to make it bigger watch this pinch finger on there and then we're going to tell the secret to these guys game changer voila bigger pizza voila look at this okay see look at this we don't have flame yeah okay so what we do get a little bit of small pieces right there and because we you want to cook with the flame no flame doesn't come out properly we're gonna add flame let's go ahead let's see see look at this we have flame now so let's go ahead let's put this beast in the oven gently you move it a little bit one shot now close the oven right away it's gonna take about one minute and a half two depends on the heat when it gets brown on one side because the flame is only in the back thank you rooney for adding the glass to the front yes so now we're gonna go ahead and take it out because it's cooking one side so we're gonna go ahead and turn it the other side and check a little bit the bottom the bottom is good perfect now let's put it back in the same spot if it's black almost burned in the bottom you have to cook the pizza on the peel if it's white you change spots this one is big so you are able to change spa you said the first pizza might be a bit tricky that one's looking almost perfect first pizza ever christening it usually doesn't come out right i want the pizza a little bit more crispy on the bottom so what i do i just change spots couple of seconds you can keep the oven on because it's already sucked up the heat yes now look it's cooking a little bit more see i think it's ready but i want a little bit more crispy so i just go ahead and keep changing spa mike are you ready yeah three two one two take that pizza out take a look guys listen to this now huh that's what i'm talking about crunchy and soft from the inside hold on let me put right there but not done yet right right there voila i like to put a little bit more parmesan everywhere on the crust everywhere just like that a little bit of extra basil to give like that color and the flavor and a little bit of extra virgin extra on the top just like that the pizza it's lovely what do you think mike what do you think now let's cut their pizza and listen to the crouch and we usually cut with the scissors but look at this this is what we're looking for empty pocket it's light yeah it's nothing and now it's time that's it it's a masterpiece restaurant pizza art it's art i can taste the effort you put into this art form right here every little i came all the way from los angeles just for this moment to see you eating the pizza that crust just like you're right it totally the crust has completely formed a crackly exterior just a very very thin like you can see there's actually cracks in the crust and then the inside is a cloud that's the goal what i call it it's a crunch from the outside and soft from the inside so one last question for you yes mike how does it feel to give away these protected secrets to the whole world now on youtube i received so many comments from my subscribers that you saved me you saved my life and you give me an opportunity because during the pandemic they don't know what to do as a job so now they start to make pizza and they went on the street and selling their pizzas just make their family happy by making the pizza so this is the most beautiful feeling it is a serious thing pizza is a it's a lifestyle and why would you keep this secret i mean yeah it's amazing so i hope you got as much out of this video as i did i'll certainly be watching this video a few times to increase my pizza skills but my top three favorite techniques from veto were one seeing how the different thicknesses of wood affect the pizza cooking two basically his entire technique for crafting the pizza was a complete game changer and finally the movement of the pizza in the oven to get the crust crispier is a great tip to know moving forward so let me know what your favorite tip was in the comments and make sure to subscribe to vito's youtube channel for much more pizza mastery

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 154,098

Rating: 4.9695754 out of 5

Keywords: neapolitan, neapolitan pizza, how to make Neapolitan pizza, perfect pizza, the best homemade pizza, beginners pizza, homemade pizza, poolish, how to make pizza dough, traditional Neapolitan pizza, pizza master, traditional Italian tomato sauce, traditional pizza sauce, basic pizza sauce recipe, vito iacopelli, pro home cooks, mike g, learning pizza from a master, guide to pizza

Id: OjsCEJ8CWlg

Length: 17min 3sec (1023 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021