This discussion is the first I’ve heard of it. I never saw it in California, and I don’t think it’s made it to Kansas, either (though we have a fast food place that serves German-based items).
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I’ve never seen it for sale even in the UK. My wife and I have made some attempts to recreate the sauce, some of them quite pleasant, but none of them has come out like the real thing. It was only invented in 1949, so the usual model of “the immigrants take their food with them and then modify it for local tastes” may not have had time to happen at scale yet.
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Another burger attempt.
Braising steak
Small onion
Breadcrumbs
Salt
Pepper
This time I marinated the meat overnight in a mixture of dark soy, worcester sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic.
The patties were a bit too moist and the flavour was a bit too much, especially for the kids, but these were still excellent and I think I may experiment further with a marinade (although that may be a bit overdoing it for a burger).
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I recently read about an old trick with ground meat: add baking soda.
I tried it while mixing up a batch of taco meat the other day. I put in a little less than 1.5ml of baking soda per 0.5kg of ground beef, mixed it up and let it sit for ~10 minutes before browning it per usual. It definitely made a difference, the meat was more tender and retained more of its natural juiciness.
I’m eager to give it a try with burgers, just haven’t had the circumstances arise yet.
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Today was cornmeal pancakes for Mardi Gras. Or “Johnnycakes” as I grew up calling them.
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Today, I am once again diving into the world of pizza. Last time (a few weeks back) I made another of Matt’s “Skull and Roses” pizzas, and it turned out pretty okay, like he said it would. Not great, but definitely not bad.
Today, I am trying out “Adam Ragusea” and his pizza recipe. I know of Adam’s work through “The Greatest Generation”, a comedy podcast based on Star Trek TNG (originally), where he composes a lot of their interstitial and theme music. He has two videos devoted to making NY-style pizza, and I figured, hey, I’ll give it a shot. The dough is upstairs rising at this moment.
… and already I have a complaint. His recipe starts with 600ml (approx) of water, plus yeast and salt and sugar and oil, and then you add to that about 5 cups (600g) of flour. And that is just nowhere near enough. I probably added almost 2 cups more flour before it came anywhere close to being the right texture (don’t quote me on that amount, I added it about 1/4 cup at a time, incredulous that the initial estimate could be so far off, but it definitely was). But I will reserve judgement for the finished product. I’ll be baking 4 pizzas with the recipe today (Adam recommends throwing it in the fridge to rise for up to a week, gives it a bit of a sourdough taste/texture, and I respect that, but ain’t nobody got time for that these days).
I will keep everyone posted on progress. One of these days I will find a pizza dough I really, really like, and that will be a glorious day. Until then? Science!
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End results: very, very satisfying. Not a perfect pizza, and the stupid things stick to my peel like they’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, but still remarkably good pizza.
Recipe made 4 very large (but thin) pizzas. Not a crispy dough, but thin-thin-thin, supposedly “NY-style”. Ran out of mozz for that last one (technically, I have lots of cheese left, but I didn’t want to open a whole block of mozz for one pizza, so I just did the pepperoni on that one). The prosciutto I picked was a teeny, tiny bit too salty for the pizza, but that’s probably to be expected.
Anyway! Going to try the recipe again next time I make pizza, and if the results are this good, I officially have my pizza recipe going forward. So that’s nice!
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I have not made a NY style pizza in a long time, but the basic formula I used had 72 or 74% hydration (weight of water to weight of flour). That’s using commercial high gluten flour (Bay State Milling’s Bouncer, mostly, somtimes Kyrol) which can absorb more water than all-purpose or supermarket bread flours. That’s a really wet dough, that’s only handable with lots of bench flour, and only after it’s been fermenting for 24 hours or more. For 600 ml of water, that would work out to 833 g flour, which is about 7 cups. So something is wrong with his measures. If I were getting back into the style, I’d probably go with 65% water, with a couple percent oil. If I were new at it, I’d probably start with something like 58% water with 3% oil. That gives an easier to handle dough, with still good extensibility, but not too much elasticity. salt is 2.5%, instant yeast 1.5% for something used in six hours, down to 0.1% for something that’s going to ferment for a few days or a week. All get more time than you think is reasonable in the kitchenaid, at medium speed. (probably 7 or 10 minutes total mixing time).
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My wife found the best way to stop them sticking was to shape the bases but not transfer them to the paddle until the last second (just before topping and cooking). Looks like you’ve got polenta on the paddle.
Also, now we’re doing them in winter and the kitchen is cold it’s easier.
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THIS IS SO USEFUL! Thank you!
Gods, I never know how long or how fast to run the standmixer!
I mean, all of it is useful were I a smarter man than I am. It has now been pointed out to me that in the written version of the recipe (in the description below the video), Ragusea does point out that a lot of additional flour will be needed, so he is at least aware of the issue (it’s just weird to start so, so short of the mark). Oh well!
Anyway, thank you for the thoughtful response! I really should buy a big bag of bread flour. I almost always use All Purpose because I buy it by the tonne.
Clever! I usually make the next pizza the moment the previous one goes into the oven. Maybe I should wait longer in the future. Cornmeal definitely helps keep it from sticking, but the amount you have to use is a very, very fine balance: not enough and it sticks, and too much and the pizza tastes gritty.
Plus, this morning I have cornmeal on the table, on the counter, on the floor (to the windows! To the walls!). And that always sucks.
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The “add a lot of extra flour” is an okay way to make a dough, if you have experience, and know what you’re aiming for (or you have someone to show you). It’s a horrible way to instruct. In my experience, it’s usually the result of someone not understanding their formula, and not willing to spend the time to figure out what they’re actually adding.
I had a friend’s mother give me her cinnamon roll recipe (because her cinnamon rolls were awesome). I copied her recipe from her recipe card. The first time I made it, I added quite a lot of extra flour to get a dough that I thought was the right consistency. I asked her about it, and she admitted she always had to do so, too, and so had just started using more flour to begine with, and never updated the card.
On mixer speeds: the manual of your mixer probably tells you not to mix doughs at speeds other than 1 or 2. I ignore this, and run it on the middle speed for wet doughs. IN commerical settings, they’d be done on the middle speed of a Hobart, which is bit faster. But the vigorous mixing is important for developing the gluten, especially in high gluten flours.
On flour: NY pizzerias use pretty high gluten flour, almost always bromated. (potassium bromate is a flour improver, it increases gluten strength and extensibility. It’s also a probably carcinogen, though it should be decomposed in baking. It’s banned in much of the world, but not the US. If you live east of the Mississippi, you can get good bread flours with it in (Bouncer, Kyrol, and All Trumps are all ones I’ve used with good results.) If you live west of the Mississippi, you have a harder time, because California requires a “this product will kill you” label. One of my annoyances in life is that commercial bread flour is generally only available in 50 lb bags, and AP is available in 25 pounds. Some stuff is put up in 25 pound bags, and then sold in sets of two, just to annoy me. some places do break them up; if you live near a GFS marketplace, they usually will sell a single 25 pound bag of Bouncer. 50 pounds of bread flour is just too much for me to use before I worry it’s going to go rancid. I still buy it, and end up discarding a third of a bag.
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Slightly off topic but I’ve got the same Chili bottle…
Also that looks banging - love bhajis in a burger. I used to go to a local folk festival (basically an excuse to sit in the sun and drink strong cider, occasionally discovering some cracking singers) and they had a stall that sold bhaji burgers. One of the best things I’ve eaten! (although that may be affected by the ale and cider…)
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Those look great I want the recipe for that burger!
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It was time for another butchers order and that means my partner cooks because meat is his responsibility. That particular piece is a specialty from the local butcher: dry aged pork. It is called „Alte Wutz“ and it is so good.
As I cannot eat beef anymore without… issues… and dry aged or slow cooked is worse … the dry aged pork is such a great idea.
Also my partner makes the best fries.
The wine is our favorite from our favorite winery across the Rhine. It is the equivalent of a pinot grigio and we are ordering more right now.
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Pork belly that I dry brined with fennel seeds and black pepper and then baked:
Served with apple and fennel slaw and sparkling shiraz:
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I really can’t stand sparkling reds. Don’t know why. The rest looks amazing.