Heat- an Amateur Cook in a Pro Kitchen (2006) by Bill Buford

Author:Bill Buford [Buford, Bill]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-19T00:39:39.453000+00:00

15

OTTO WAS NO LONGER One Fifth Avenue, but, even with a name change, the curse of the place seemed to persist. When the restaurant opened in January 2003, the curse resurfaced and had its way with the item at the heart of the whole enterprise: the pizza. The early experiments had mystified everyone in the Babbo kitchen; they then mystified diners at Otto. (We don't have the Otto-speak sorted out on the pizzas, the headwaiter said, addressing the members of his staff during the second week. If anyone asks you to explain them, call over a manager. ) Mario continued to think of them as griddle pizzas, heated from underneath on a flattop rather than in a wood-burning oven. No, they're not Italian, they're my take on Italian. They're what I cook for my boys "Mario's two sons, Benno and Leo "and they love them. The implication was that if Mario's children loved them, so would the world. The world wasn't so sure.

I'm nervous, Joe said. I find the pizzas inedible. My mother finds the pizzas inedible. They sit on my stomach like a rock.

There were complaints. They were too spongy. They were undercooked. They weren't crispy. You couldn't cut them with a knife. Joe wasn't sleeping: Everyone is suddenly a fucking pizza expert.

I got it! Mario said one afternoon. We shouldn't heat the plates they're served on. They should be cold. But the plates weren't the solution.

I got it! Mario said the following week. I'm making too much gluten. The secret is twenty percent more yeast and only three minutes of kneading. But the result tasted of raw bread "Joe, eating one at the bar, made a face of unequivocal revulsion "and the complaints continued.

I got it! Mario said, two weeks later. It's cake flour. Good old-fashioned all-purpose cake flour. Why didn't I think of that before? But it wasn't cake flour. In fact, a few days later, Mario abandoned cake flour and was using 00 instead, the refined pasta flour from Italy.

At night, I'm studying my McGee, he said, alluding to Harold McGee's book on the science of cooking. Otto was in its second month. It seemed inconceivable that he could still be experimenting with the recipe. I know everything there is to know about gluten. The solution is fifty pounds of flour "half all-purpose flour and half Italian 00 "and only a tablespoon of olive oil, three tablespoons of sugar, and then you let it sit for three hours. I was impressed by the detail Mario was sharing with me "that the crucial ingredient was a single tablespoon of olive oil in fifty pounds of flour, for instance "and his belief that I would understand what he was talking about. I didn't, but it didn't matter, because this recipe wasn't the solution either.

Finally, I really do have it, he said, when I found him one morning sitting at the bar. It's flour plus sweat equals dough. He was exhausted. Yesterday I swallowed thirty pounds of flour. I had a steam shower this morning and coughed up a loaf of bread.

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