I’ve been making pizza regularly for about 15 years, conforming to our habitual Saturday night at home ritual of two movies and a pizza. This adds up to many pizzas, like maybe 500 or 600, but we’re not counting. Anyway, two weekends ago an interesting thing happened, because I deviated from my usual procedure. Typically, when the dough has been assembled and kneaded and plopped into a bowl in the morning, I cover the bowl with a tight skin of plastic wrap, thinking that somehow sealing the bowl will benefit the rising dough. Call it folk-science.
But I started to think that after years of following this practice I had probably contributed acres of petrochemicals to the country’s landfills, so two weekends ago, I did what people have been doing for centuries when they made bread, and I simply covered the bowl with a clean dish towel. And because it was a hot day, I set the bowl out on the back porch.
Eight hours later — I favor a small amount of yeast and a long, slow rising — I retrieved the bowl, took off the towel and was surprised by a scent not only of nicely risen dough but of something slightly sour, slightly tangy. Had wild yeasts made it into the dough? Had some minute contact with the air been enough? Whatever the case, the dough for that night’s pizza, and the crust it made, had the telltale tang of sour-dough bread.
To test the theory, I did the same thing for this weekend’s pizza — dish towel over the bowl, set the bowl out on the porch — and sure enough, there it was, that snappy, slightly sour scent and (eventually) flavor that contributes greatly to the finished crust. Actually, these two have been among the best pizza crusts I’ve made.
I can’t do this when winter comes, of course, but I’ll make sure to follow this practice for the rest of this summer’s pizzas.
Pictured above is this weekend’s pizza with fresh tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, black olives, lots of basil, feta and Parmesan cheeses and slivers of sopresseta, an Italian salami.