Leonardo Curti - Pizza & Wine: Authentic Italian Recipes and Wine Pairings

Theres something irresistible about sinking our teeth into a fresh-baked crust smothered with rich tomato sauce and toasted, molten mozzarella, hot from the oven. Since Lombardis of New York first introduced us to the Italian pie back at the turn of the century, Americas love affair with pizza has grown. We now spend $32 billion a year satisfying our passion for pizza, seeking it out in hole-in-the-wall mom and pop pizzerias, calling for a movie-night-in delivery from all-American mega-chains like Dominos and Pizza Hut, and even finding it on menus of some of the trendiest upscale restaurants.

But the gusto and enthusiasm Americans bring to pizza have taken the dish far from its Italian roots. When it comes to toppings, we cant get enough. From double pepperoni to extra cheese to the ultimate meat lovers pizza piled high with half a dozen meats, we seem to have a super-sized appetite for colossal pizza pies. The chains have cooked up firmer crusts to carry the extra loads, Chicago developed its famous deep-dish pizza to hold it all, and New York devised a style of folding over giant slices to keep all the contents from spilling over.

Not so in Italy.

Two thousand years ago in the Mediterranean region, Italian cooks were baking flour dough on a large stone heated in the fire, achieving a crisp but fluffy flatbread. Eventually, wood-fired ovens replaced the open flame and hot stones. Using such ovens, the Neapolitans created what many pizza aficionados to this day consider the quintessential pizza: a soft thin crust lightly charred from wood-oven baking and infused with smoky flavor, brushed sparingly with a long-simmered tomato sauce made from the ripest of Italian tomatoes, topped with a sprinkling of fresh mozzarella cheese and finishedimmediately after the pie is pulled from the ovenwith a few freshly torn basil leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. For Italians, just as a pasta dish is more about the pasta than the sauce, Italian pizza is about the crust. The toppings are always savory and delicious, but they are also few and never overwhelming.

In keeping with the spirit and soul of these Italian traditions, we are excited to introduce our latest cookbook: Pizza & Wine: Authentic Italian Recipes and Wine Pairings . In the delightful pages ahead, we will take you step by step through making your own remarkable Neapolitan style crustcrunchy at the rim, thin and moist in the middle, yet light enough to pair perfectly with whatever toppings you choose.

And we certainly have not forgotten the toppings. Our goal with the recipes in this book is to not only give you some incredibly tasty combinations to try, but also to inspire your own creativitya perfect Neapolitan crust is a canvas awaiting your culinary artistry. To get you started, Chef Leonardo offers the Traditional Margherita pizzatomato, basil, and cheeseplus many other mouthwatering pies such as Roman Artichoke with Capers and Shaved Parmesan , Poached Pear with Gorgonzola and Speck , Pancetta with White Asparagus, and Lobster with Ripe Avocado and Cherry Tomatoes. As a tip-of-the-hat to non-Italians like Wolfgang Puck, whose creative toppings have for years pushed pizza lovers to think outside the box, Chef Leonardo has included a variation on the Smoked Salmon with Caviar and Chive pizza. And to complement the delicious pies youll soon be making, he has also tossed in some delicious appetizers, breads, and desserts to complete your pizza-dining experience.

For those who have yet to add a wood-fired oven to their kitchen or backyard, rest assured that all the pizzas in this book can be made in a conventional oven using a preheated pizza stone, or even on the grill. However, we urge you to at least start dreaming of a wood-fired oven of your own. We truly believe these ovens are the best-kept secret in culinary America. Not only are they an exciting and fun way to cook, they are extremely versatile and bring style, sophistication, and beauty to any indoor or outdoor kitchen. They inevitably become the focal point whenever you entertain and add a festive but homey atmosphere to any gathering of family and friends.

Without question, a critical part of any wood-fired oven is the firebrick floorit must have just the right porosity to allow the raw dough to steam off into the tiles and allow the high temperatures of approximately 750 degrees F to quickly move up through the pizza. This is what produces that perfect crustsoft in the center and blistered and charred around the rim. The superior cooking floor of the Mugnaini wood-fired oven stands as the benchmark others try to achieve. Mugnaini ovens are handcrafted by Refratarri Valoriani, the same family of artisans that have been making wood-fired ovens since 1890. The tradition started when Sylvio Valoriani patented his wood-fired oven design in Italy in 1946. This elegant solution made oven ownership possible for everyone and is still the standard for wood-fired ovens worldwide. Mugnaini ovens are actually a hybrid of the Valoriani oven and use their residential dome and commercial-grade floor for a unique combination that results in fast start-up times with professional results. This creates an oven ideal for the way we wish to cook today. Thanks to Andrea Mugnaini and Mugnaini Imports, Mugnaini ovens come in a variety of sizes and styles, and are finding their way into more and more homes across America.