Reinhart - PERFECT PAN PIZZA: detroit, roman, sicilian, foccacia, and grandma pies to make at home

PETER REINHART is widely acknowledged as one of the worlds leading authorities on bread. He is the author of twelve books, including the James Beard and IACP Awardwinning The Bread Bakers Apprentice, as well as American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza. He appears regularly on television and radio, and is a full-time baking instructor at Johnson and Wales University, a culinary and keynote presenter at conferences around the world, and the founder and host of the popular video website PizzaQuest.com. He lives in North Carolina.

Resources

This list is by no means comprehensive, but will provide enough information to get you up and running or lead you to additional sources with more detailed information. Given the power of the internet, you can easily track down what you need using a keyword search, but the following represents my recommendations.

BOOKS, MAGAZINES, AND OTHER PIZZA MEDIA

There are so many good pizza books to choose from, but the following are all useful and loaded with excellent recipe ideas for all styles, including pan pizzas:

• American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza, Peter Reinhart

• Bianco: Pizza, Pasta and Other Foods I Like, Chris Bianco

• Mastering Pizza, Marc Vetri and David Joachim

• My Pizza, Jim Lahey

• Pizza, Gabrielle Bonci

• Pizza: A Slice of Heaven, Ed Levine

• Pizza Camp, Joe Beddia

• The Elements of Pizza, Ken Forkish

• The Pizza Bible, Tony Gemignani

• The United States of Pizza, Craig Priebe and Diane Jacob

• Where to Eat Pizza, Daniel Young

There are currently two professional magazines that are free to anyone in the trade (or with enough passion to sound like youre in the trade). Pizza Today (pizzatoday.com) and PMQ (pmq.com). Both provide e-newsletters and digital versions as well as printed magazines, and include recipes, personality profiles, interviews, and business tips as well as news regarding upcoming pizza conventions, expos, and trade shows.

Other useful websites and media: There are too many to list and there are more every day, so do an internet search if you want to immerse yourself. But, here are a few links to get you started.

• Pizza Quest (fornobravo.com/pizzaquest) is my own pizza website, filled with interviews, video webisodes, recipes, and guest columns, all in pursuit of the perfect pizza and to celebrate artisanship wherever we find it. The videos, in longer episode format, are also featured on mybluprint.com.

• The Pizza Show, with Frank Pinello, ViceTV (video.vice.com/en_us/show/pizza-show).

• The Brooklyn Pizza Crew (brooklynpizzacrew.com).

• Roman Pizza Academy videos of Massimiliano Saieva (search for these on YouTube, and they will also lead to videos of many other Roman-style video masters).

• And, finally, the pizza episode of David Changs Netflix show Ugly Delicious.

SOURCING

Cheese

Everyone has their preferred cheese brands and many types will work with the recipes in this book. That said, for Wisconsin brick cheese, which is hard to find in most supermarket cheese sections, you can refer to the following websites for more on the history and methodology as well as where to track down this unique, relatively unknown cheese:

• Klondike Cheese: klondikecheese.com

• Widmers Cheese: widmerscheese.com/the-story-of-wisconsin-brick-cheese

• Zimmerman Cheese: wisconsincheese.com/wi-cheese-companies/36/zimmerman-cheese-inc

• For Italian-style cheeses, again, there are many excellent brands to choose from, both domestic and imported. But for a one stop site, full of thumbnail descriptions as well as superb cheeses of many types, I suggest BelGioioso Cheese: belgioioso.com/Products

Flour

The pizza dough formulas in this book were designed to be made with bread flour that has a protein content of approximately 12.5 percent. Some brands of all-purpose flour, such as King Arthur, have nearly that amount of protein (approximately 11.7 percent) and are acceptable substitutes. I do not promote one brand over another except to say that all of the major American bread flour brands will work in these recipes. These brands include Central Milling (also packaged for Whole Foods as their 365 Brand), General Mills (such as Better for Bread and also Harvest King), King Arthur, and many locally milled flours produced in small batches. In the UK, Europe, Australia, and Asia most of these brands are not available so, unless you can find equivalent local brands, another option is to buy flour directly from your favorite bakeries or pizzerias. As long as they know you will not be opening a competing business they are likely to be willing to help you out.

The recipes in this book will also work with whole grain and sprouted flours, such as any supermarket brand of whole wheat or whole rye flour; but they are especially suited to work with flour made from sprouted wheat. There are currently only a few brands producing and distributing this type of flour (Ardent Mills, Arrowhead Mills, Bay State Milling, Essential Eating, King Arthur, One Degree, and To Your Health, in addition to a number of small, regional companies). For more general information on sprouted grain flours, try these links: