Anna’s Wood Fired Oven Blog

You have become addicted to the crowd-pleasing status of being a pizzaiolo (pizza maker)… Yes, and you want new recipes that will amaze your friends even more… I understand.  I am there with you.  It’s easy when you have a wood fired oven.

You will appreciate serving the pizzarollis at your parties because you can conveniently use some of the pizza dough you already prepared.  And lots of garlic and olive oil and…  Well, try them out and see for yourself and let me know if you are able to stop after just one or if you are like the rest of us and eat as many as you can get your hands on while they are still piping hot.

First, “steal” some pizza dough from the stack ready to be shaped into pizza pies. Click here for the pizza dough recipe. Flatten out the dough a little on a lightly flour surface, cut small strips of dough and roll between your palms into 4″-5″ long pieces.

Then make a small “knot” (see drawing).

Place the pizzarollis on a metal baking sheet and slide in oven.  They can take the higher to medium temperatures of the oven.  Since I usually serve them as an appetizer along with the pizza I bake them at a hot 600 degrees F.  At this temperature they bake quickly so keep an eye on them and remove when they have browned.

In a bowl mix good-quality olive il, two or more crushed garlic cloves (to taste),  fresh or dry oregano leaves ( or alternatively thyme or rosemary), salt to taste,and a small amount of grated parmesan cheese.

Once the pizzarollis are done baking, toss them in the bowl with the olive oil mix while they are still hot. Serve alone or with other appetizers such as thin slices of prosciutto. But have a few first, since they tend to disappear very fast!

Buon appetito and Happy Memorial Day weekend from us all here at Los Angeles Ovenworks!

We’ve had such a spell of wonderful weather here in Los Angeles… the cool ocean breeze tempering the warm sun, plants blooming everywhere… enough to make one forget that earthquakes and traffic ever existed! Our peach tree yielded an abundant and welcomed harvest, and I kept making peach cobblers as fast as family and friends could eat them. Fruit desserts come out really nice in the wood fired oven and I love using up the lower temperatures, when the oven is starting to cool down (350 F).

I think that the charm of cooking in a wood burning oven is that life slows down, just like it does when you are on a vacation. I leisurely start the fire, right in the middle of the oven floor. Humming contentedly while I enjoy the beauty of the fire and its crackling sound, I gather all my ingredients and start preparing my dishes. In the meantime, the oven is absorbing a great deal of heat into its walls and floor, and this heat will be released slowly over a period of about 6 hours.

When the fire has died down to coal and embers, after about one hour, I sweep the embers with a long-handled ash stick to the right (or left) side of the oven, and then I wait 10 minutes before I use a natural bristle brush to sweep the remaining bit of ashes from the floor. The oven is now ready and usually registering about 750F. At this point I have a choice: I can either bake some pizza or focaccia or wait for the oven to cool down further.

Pizza is traditionally cooked by adding a small piece of wood onto the pile of embers. This way, the extra heat generated by the small flame will travel in a circular way from the side of the oven to the dome and down again onto the oven floor. Pizza will bake in 3 minutes, and it will absorb a little bit of heat from the floor, but by keeping that small flame you will replenish the heat balance immediately between pizzas and you could continue to bake forever until you drop or until your one hundred guests just cannot eat one more slice! Check out the pizza recipes and make your own dough from scratch.

For most dishes like roast meat, chicken, turkey, etc. I wait until the temperature is about 500F. If it is Thanksgiving and there’s a lot a lot of cooking happening, then I let the oven heat up a bit longer in the beginning by adding a little more wood and extending the firing up time to one hour and a half. This way I know there will be a lot of retained heat in the walls and floors.

I bake bread at 500F and in this case, I will scoop out all the embers and coals and will close the opening tight with the metal door for the 30 minutes or so it takes to bake. Mmm… you should always wait one hour before you break your freshly baked bread and eat it… but I overlook that rule so many times. The aroma wafts into my nostrils and overpowers my mind, what can I say. Baking bread in a neighborhood is like making popcorn in an office, everyone will know, and your friends will suddenly knock at your door, all smiles.

I bake pasta dishes, like lasagna, at 450F. Vegetable dishes come out fabulous too, with a nice smokey flavor. Fish and lobster can be grilled over the coals inside the oven or placed on a bakeware dish along with their condiments.

And lastly, at 350F the time comes for the desserts… as I mentioned, I have been doing a lot of peach cobblers and I am thinking of doing my famous cherry galette soon. The sugar in the fruit browns and bubbles to perfection in the wood-fired oven!

Well, actually there is still something I will put in the oven: a pot of beans to slowly, very slowly cook over 3 hours as the ovens gradually cools down from about 300F. See the recipe, click here.

Buon appetito!

The Italian in me has the same attitude come good or bad times: let’s sit down to a well-prepared meal! It’s no wonder then that one of my resolutions is to cook up a storm of new recipes in my wood-fired oven. I will be saying “Buon appetito!” a lot.

Here’s a preview of what is coming up in the months ahead.

I am very excited about the pizza and bread recipes described by Charles Van Over in his classic book The Best Bread Ever. He breaks all the rules of bread baking and the result is incredible! He doesn’t proof the yeast, uses cold water instead of warm, and…get this… doesn’t knead the dough but uses the food processor. Genius.

I met Charles and his wife Priscilla last fall in Connecticut. They are both very accomplished chefs and are installing one of our Italian wood-burning ovens. I can’t wait to turn the spot light of my website to showcase their creative talent for your benefit.

When baking bread and pizza I have found that the taste is greatly enhanced by a wood fired oven. If you are considering installling a modular oven, the best ones are made of refractory clay.

What’s refractory clay you wonder? It’s high quality clay heated to very high temperatures and cooled after it forms into small balls with a hard crust and a porous center. It is in the tiny air bubbles within the center that the heat is trapped and slowly released. The exceptional thermal properties of clay can simply not be replicated within other materials, such as cement alumina.

This becomes apparent when you bake bread, because you will need to scoop out all the embers from the oven and use only the indirect heat accumulated within the walls and the hearth of the oven. If your modular oven is not well designed and isn’t made of refractory clay, you will find this process much harder.

In addition to featuring recipes by Charles Van Over, I will be sharing my own experimentations in the pizza oven. Lots of new recipes coming up, so stay tuned!

I wish you a very Happy New Year and may it be filled with “buon appetito!”