Anna’s Wood Fired Oven Blog

I will be turning over a new leaf, I mean… a new loaf, this year.  I bought the popular book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Hertzberg and Francois because I wanted to try their method in two of my pizza ovens.

Simplifying the process of baking and cooking while keeping the taste and quality of the food has always appealed to me, so I was eager to experiment with this no-fuss bread baking.  Yes, no sponge or starter, no proofing the yeast, no kneading, and a high moisture dough that can be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks.

In other words, minimal output of time and effort.  I used their basic recipe for  artisan bread which they explain on a video (see link below) and involves:

• 5-quart food grade container with a lid (don’t use glass with airtight lid since it could explode)
• 3 cups of lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 tablespoon granulated yeast
• 1 1/2  tablespoon kosher or coarse salt
• 6 1/2 cups unsifted, all-purpose white flour (I used the 365 Whole Foods organic label), measured with the scoop and sweep method
• A bit of corn meal for the wood peel

You pour the water into the container, add the yeast and the salt, and then the flour.  Mix with a wooden spoon until moisture is absorbed evenly by the flour.  Let rise for 2 hours.  Place in fridge overnight.

When ready to bake, take dough out and dust with flour. Flour your hands so that the dough won’t stick.  Divide dough into four 1 lbs balls.   Shape each ball in your hands, by tucking edges under, no kneading involved. Dust corn meal on the wood peel and place bread loaf on peel and let rest for 40 minutes before placing in hot oven.

Dust the loaves with flour and slash a few 1/4 inch deep cross or scallop pattern using a serrated knife.  Slide directly onto the hot oven floor.

Now for the pizza oven temperature!  I experimented both in over-baking and under-baking the loaves and they came out very tasty even though the higher temperatures burned the crust to a dark brown and the lower temperatures left the crust pale.  Still, it was a good bread.  So… beginners take heart!  This is pretty fool-proof.

Fire up your wood burning oven (click here if you don’t know how).  When the fire has burnt for about one hour (less for the smaller ovens, longer for the larger models), rake out the embers from the oven and store in a fire proof container.  (Do not discard ashes until they are absolutely cold.)  Check the temperature and close the door, sealing the oven.  If you wish, you can at this time place a small metal container with water inside the oven, I like to use my small cast iron pan.

Bake your bread between 500 F and 450 F with closed door for 30 minutes.  You may check midway after 15 minutes and turn the loaves if needed, but it is best not to be opening the door more than once.  Use your round metal peel to slide your fresh baked bread out of the oven, let the loaves cool on a rack before you slice.

I highly recommend this method, it is particularly helpful if you are a beginner bread baker or if you want to offer your guests and family a very delicious home made bread that will amaze everyone.  When you make it in your pizza oven, the crust will be denser and chewier than if you make it in your regular oven, and the overall taste much better.

The book:   Artisan Bread in Five Minutes

The  video.

Enjoy and please let me know how bread baking experience turned out!

Buon appetito from us at Los Angeles Ovenworks.

 

Once you master the basics of pizza making you will most likely start the quest for the perfect flour.  It’s just the way it is.  New vistas open up beyond the realm of King Arthur’s Flour… and the chef in you heeds the call for new culinary adventures. Throughout the years of cooking in our wood fired oven we have tried a lot of really good flour, and we are so grateful that there are still mills out there making a great product.

Here are some that stand out:

Presently, we buy our favorite flour from  CentralMilling.com  in Utah, a water-powered mill nestled by the Logan River and the Rocky Mountains.  The company also carries its own seeds (nothing is genetically modified here, thank you).  They have a long list of products for every taste and baking need… their Type “OO Normal” Flour is very close to the Italian Caputo Flour and is designed to take the high temperature of a pizza oven.  Did I mention that it is organic?  It comes to us fresh and fragrant (California is not that far) but keep in mind that the minimum order is 50 lbs. and the shipping costs are … high.  Is it worth it?  Yes!  But if you can only buy small bags, know that Central Milling also produces the Whole Food’s 365 Organic Unbleached All Purpose Flour.

Another great product is made in Naples:  Antimo Caputo Chef’s Flour,  the famous type “OO” flour from Italy. Particularly if you don’t want to store a 50 lbs bag, since you can find this product on Amazon.com or via some local stores in a convenient 2.2 lbs bag, (shipping cost will average $7.25).  This flour is a favorite among pizzaioli both in Italy and in the US because it is specifically created for high temperatures such as you get in a pizza oven.  Don’t try it in your regular gas oven, it won’t brown properly.  The low gluten content makes it ideal for a Neapolitan pizza and the pizza pies stretch nicely without breaking.  Note for those who like buying large quantities:  The  ”OO” Pizzeria Flour in 55 lbs (blue) bag is the same flour that is in the Antimo Caputo “OO” Chef’s Flour 2.2 lbs (red) bag.  Molinocaputo.it

We also like the Hudson Cream Flour, from a mill in Kansas — one of the last independent flour mills in the US — that has produced “short patent” flour  for over 100 years.  During the milling process their wheat is ground more times and sifted with finer-meshed sieves than usual.  We love the sweet fragrance of this “creamy” flour,  and I use it when baking bread and desserts.  Check them out at Hudsoncream.com, they do sell locally in many states.  They will send you 1-5 lbs for  a shipping cost of $7.75,  6-10 lbs for a shipping cost of $11.55, so you get an idea.

We prefer flour that is organic, unbleached, and when making pizza, with a low gluten content for that nice stretch.  Would love to hear about what flour you like and why.  How does it perform in your wood fired oven?

Happy cooking and buon appetito from Los Angeles Ovenworks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It can be a bit confusing at first to figure out how to properly insulate your pizza oven.  It makes good sense to check out the options, particularly if you live in a cold climate, so that your oven will be very energy efficient and keep the heat in for a long cooking cycle.

Whether your project calls for a concrete masonry slab or a metal frame stand, the most common way of insulating the oven from below is a  1.5″ – 2″  layer of  Super Isol Boards.  These are boards made of Calcium Silicate with a great compression strength, so they can hold the weight of a pizza oven.  They are light, and are easily cut and placed under the oven. You will need 3 boards for a medium size oven, for example, a Model 90 or a Model 100.

Or you can use a 4″ layer of vermiculite and cement mix under the oven.  You can buy vermiculite at Home Depot or a garden/plant center in 4 cubic foot bags.  Request vermiculite without silicon coating and definitely wear a respirator or mask when handling vermiculite since it produces a lot of dust.

Another alternative is a layer of medium duty fire bricks.  Keep in mind that these last two options will mean more labor, so include that in your cost comparison when planning for your pizza oven.

Isol Boards are porous, absorbing water very easily and you must enclose them completely when building the structure around your oven, so that they are not exposed to the elements. You really don’t want any moisture absorbed in your wood fired oven, because water would steam at higher temperatures causing cracks.

The Super Isol boards we offer are high-quality to avoid the problems we’ve heard others encounter with cheaper versions of this product.

To insulate the top of the wood fired oven you will use the thermal insulating blanket provided in your oven kit.  Wrapping this over the dome will ensure that there is no loss of heat.  If you live in colder climates or if you just want to add extra insulation then fill the cavity between your oven and the masonry walls you built around it with lose vermiculite leaving an air gap at the top.

If you are planning a mediterranean or adobe style oven,  i.e. without the masonry structure around it, then you do need to coat the oven and the blanket with a 5″ mix of vermiculite and cement for extra protection and thermal mass.  Then you can stucco and paint with exterior stucco paint to make it waterproof.

Insulating properly will also mean saving on wood in the long run, although a wood fired oven is very thrifty in its consumption compared to a fireplace.  It will insure many years of happy cooking!

Buon appetito from us all at Los Angeles Ovenworks.

It’s funny how you can repeat a process for years and then suddenly your are hit with the “Aha!” moment.  Our insight into firing up our pizza oven came when Peter decided to improve his box fire construction by placing three extra pieces of wood along the perimeter.  Let me explain…

You’ve made your pizza dough or prepared your chicken and eagerly walk over to the oven to fire it up.  You have your good stash of very dry, split hardwood set aside and you pick out about 7 choice pieces, about 2.5 to 3″ wide and 15 to 20″ long.

Now try Peter’s method: Place three logs in each corner of the pizza oven, close to the walls, (see photo A.) Then build a box fire in the middle of the oven floor  by alternating two logs diagonally one way and  two logs the other way on top, repeat (see photo B.).  Put a piece non-toxic fire starter under the wood and light the fire .

A good thing to do when the fire is starting up, is to lean the metal door outside on the arch (see photo C.), this way the initial smoke is channeled up the vent.  It will soon be very hot in your oven and the smoke will naturally flow upward into the chimney.  Part of Peter’s method at this point is to sit back and relax,  listening to the fire… his way of celebrating the upcoming feast, sort of the quiet before the storm of cooking. The pizza dough that he prepared the day before and kept in the fridge overnight, is now next to the oven,  rising and ready to shape into pies.

You will notice that the wood in the middle ignites first and then the heat in the oven will ignite the split wood pieces around the perimeter and this will create a wonderful radiant heat all around the floor and the walls.  Your wood fired oven will absorb this heat created by the fire burning out in the next hour and then the oven will slowly release this accumulated heat for many hours of cooking cycle, gradually cooling off.

When the fire will have burnt down you can move the coals and ashes with your ash stick either to the right side or the left side of the oven.  (If you are planning to bake pizza, then place a small wood piece onto the coals to keep a small flame throughout the pizza making process.) Check the temperature with your handheld laser thermometer provided in your Los Angeles Ovenworks’ kit.  Start your cooking feast!

You can have a lot of fun experimenting with different woods:

Alder: Imparts a light flavor that works well with fish and poultry.
Apple and pear: Nice and subtle flavor, use with pork and game.
Apricot, Plum, Peach, Nectarine: Flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory.

Hickory: The most famous smoking hardwoods, imparts a strong, hearty flavor to meats, used mostly for pork shoulders and ribs.
Maple: Mellow smoke fragrance traditionally used for poultry, pork and seafood.
Mesquite: Produces a very hot flame perfect for grilling steaks.
Pecan: Sweet and mild with a flavor similar to hickory, but not as strong.
Oak: Favorite wood of Europe, strong but not overpowering. Used for beef or lamb.

Walnut: Heavy smoke flavor, great to bring out the natural goodness in mushrooms, potatoes and vegetables. Mix with lighter woods like almond, pear or apple to dilute the smoke flavor if needed.

Buon appetito from Los Angeles Ovenworks!

We started the year stumbling upon a great pizza…  Peter wanted to try a new dough recipe and invited his buddy Chris over for a taste.  As it often happens, Chris brought a garnish to experiment with and we had one of our own (which actually was the extra stuffing that was left over from the ravioli Peter had made earlier).  Try them both and decide which one you like best.

The Dough

Is an easy variation of our Neapolitan Pizza Dough and it makes for a crispier pie that holds up nicely  to heavier garnishes.  The variation is this:  Add 1 cup of flour to the recipe, so 5 1/2 cups of flour instead of just 4 1/2 cups.

Fennel, Mozzarella, and Fontina Garnish

We used the dish Chris brought and made this white pizza… loved it!

3 heads of fennel, quartered

1 clove of garlic, sliced thin

1 cup of vermouth or white wine

1/4 stick of butter

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 F.  Put fennel, garlic, vermouth, and butter in a metal pan and place in the oven.  Once the butter is melted, take the pan out to baste the fennel, then back in the oven to bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until fennel is tender.  Let the dish cool.

Prepare the pizza pie and garnish with some of the baked fennel, sprinkling cut mozzarella and fontina cheeses on top.  Slide pizza in the wood fired oven, bake for one and one half minute, rotate, and finish baking.

Slide pizza out of the oven and before serving, add some finely chopped parsley, grated parmesan cheese and optional, a little olive oil.

Potato,  Gruyere, and Truffle Butter Garnish

Boil 3 medium potatoes in salted water.

Discard the water and pass the boiled potatoes through a ricer while still hot or mash them well. Add 1 tablespoon of truffle butter and 1/3 cup shredded gruyere cheese to the mashed potatoes and stir until melted.

Prepare the pizza pie and garnish with mozzarella cheese cut into cubes and then add a little bit of this potato mixture.  Slide pizza in the wood fired oven that has been pre-heated to 650F  bake for about one and a half minute, rotate pizza and finish baking.  This is another “white” pizza (without tomato sauce) that we really, really loved.  Great as an appetizer.

Buon appetito!

Even in California the fall is showing off its first chill and some rain. It pays off to have a good stack of dry wood saved, especially as the holidays are approaching and there’s a lot of baking to do. And that’s the key to heating up the oven properly: a nice stack of dry hardwood. What is hardwood? See the list here for the most common kinds of hardwood.

Place the wood pieces crosswise, with the smaller pieces on the bottom, in the middle of the oven floor. You will need about 10 or so, smaller pieces of split wood and one or two larger ones. Place a non-toxic fire starter cube on the bottom of the stack and light it.

Keep the fire burning, adding about another 5 split logs as it burns. After about one hour the fire is down to mostly ashes and coals. Now is the time to push the fire, or what is left of it, to the left or right side of the oven.

Wait about 10 minutes, and then brush (with a natural bristle brush) the remaining ashes off the floor to the side. Take a temperature read with your infrared laser thermometer and you can start cooking. You can bake your pizza right on the oven floor or you can roast meats, fish, vegetables in pans, sliding them into the oven.

If you are planning to roast a turkey for the holidays, you will need to make sure you have given the oven an opportunity to accumulate an extra amount of indirect heat inside the walls and floor. So let that fire burn for an extra 15 to 20 minutes beyond the hour.

You can then scoop out the embers from the oven and place the meat inside to slowly roast with the oven door closed.

Buon appetito!

Our friend Mike had his birthday party over the weekend and we brought one of our favorite appetizers. I like this recipe because it is fast and everyone just loves the wood fired flavor and look of this dish.

There will be times when you are not going to use your wood fired oven for a party in your house, because you just want to make something quick and delicious to bring to a friend’s home or a family gathering somewhere else.

In this case you don’t need to build up a lot of heat in the oven. I just wanted to quickly grill some vegetables, so Peter built a small fire while I prepared the marinating sauce and cut the vegies. In about 30 minutes, the fire was reduced to a nice bed of hot coals and I placed a grill over it.

Over the grill (with legs) I placed a metal tray with holes I got at William Sonoma (see photo below). It comes handy when you grill mushrooms, for example, because they all stay in one place and are easy to handle.

You can use any vegetables you like and/or have available. Onions and eggplants are particularly good.

3 or 4 small onions

2 medium zucchini

3 small Italian eggplants

1 green or red bell pepper

15 white mushrooms

Marinating Sauce

2 tbs fresh thyme leaves

1 tbs fresh sage, chopped

1 tbs dry oregano

3 tbs red balsamic vinegar

8 tbs olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

Cut the vegetables lengthwise, so it is easier to grill them. Set them aside. Mix the salt and the vinegar in a bowl, adding all the chopped up herbs. Then add the olive oil.

Place the grill with legs inside the oven on top of the bed of coals. Slide the metal tray with the vegetables on top of the grill. Check at intervals of 4-5 minutes or so, turning when done. Keep the metal door of the oven up against the arch so that it keeps the heat inside the oven, but still leaves the air in.

When the vegetables are done, pour the marinating sauce over them while still hot. Place in a nice plate, garnish, and you are ready to party!

Buon appetito!

It is so much fun to harvest in the garden early on a summer morning! Today I got lots of tomatoes and they look beautiful! Decided to combine my favorite comforting flavors: tomato-potato-bread crumbs. Try this in your wood fired oven or in your conventional oven (in this case just add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time).

Pomodori al forno

6 medium tomatoes, ripe but firm

2 russet potatoes

1 cup of olive oil + 2 tablespoons

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 teaspoons dry oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Cube the potatoes and boil them in salted water. When they are done, mashed the potatoes with a fork. Set aside.

With a sharp knife cut off the top of the tomato. Holding the tomato in the cup of one hand, gently scoop out the pulp, making sure not to tear the tomato. Keep the pulp and juice, you will use it later.

Ok, so I am partial to making my own bread crumbs. This may be because I just can’t trow away good bread, so I always keep some handy in the fridge drawer, stored in a paper bag. Baguettes are the best for this sort of thing. Break the hardened bread in pieces and process in a food processor. The crumbs will not be uniform size and some will be a bit larger, which is good.

Place the bread crumbs in a bowl and add about 8 tablespoons of the tomato juice and pulp you set aside. Mix in the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the 2 teaspoons of dry oregano, and salt and pepper to taste. Then add the mashed potatoes and mix. Scoop this mixture into each tomato.

Place the tomatoes snugly either in two loaf pans or other metal pan. Add the olive oil so that it comes up about 1/2 inch. Baste the tomatoes with some of the olive oil.

Bake in a 300 degrees F oven for 20 minutes. Take out and baste the tomatoes with the olive oil in the pan. Return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

Mmmmh… so good with some aged goat cheese or pecorino!

Buon appetito.

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!

At home, my husband Peter is the pizza maker, or as they say in Italy, the pizzaiolo. He loves firing up the oven and calling over a few friends. This spells holiday for me as we enjoy amazing pizza in the backyard.

Peter is often experimenting with different dough recipes, yet our favorite dough is still the Neapolitan, (click here for recipe). Growing up in Naples made me appreciate the consistency and the wider rim of this pizza.

A word about flour and mozzarella cheese:

• Pizza dough made from good quality organic white flour has the best taste. You may also like the Hudson Cream flour, check it out.
• Bel Gioioso fresh mozzarella cheese is what I buy because it has the right firmness needed for cooking in the wood fired oven. You can usually find it at Costco for a great price. Cut it in small cubes, rather than shredding it, this will prevent it burning in the hot oven. The mozzarella balls in water are too “wet” I find for use as a pizza topping.

Truffle and Arugula Pizza — Peter’s Favorite

Neapolitan pizza dough

Topping, enough for garnishing one pizza pie:

4 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, cut in cubes

4 slices of Italian fontina cheese

1-2 tablespoons parmesan cheese, shredded

1 handful of fresh arugula leaves

Truffle oil

Optional: 3 slices of prosciutto

Garnish with the mozzarella and fontina cheeses and place in the 650 to 750 degrees oven. Give the pizza a quick turn with the pizza turner after about 1.5 minutes and then slide out of the oven when ready, about another minute and a half.

When the pizza comes out of the oven piping hot, sprinkle the parmesan cheese, add the truffle oil, and sprinkle a handful of fresh arugula on top. Optional: add prosciutto slices.

Red Onion and Bell Pepper Pizza — Anna’s Favorite

Generally speaking, pizzas are topped with crushed tomato sauce straight from the can, but in this instance, I like the sweeter taste of cooked tomato sauce coupled with red peppers and onions.

Neapolitan pizza dough

Topping, enough for garnishing two pizza pies:

1 can peeled San Marzano tomatoes

1 small red onion, sliced

1 small red bell pepper, sliced

1 teaspoon balsamic red vinegar

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 garlic clove

8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, cut in cubes

5-6 fresh basil leaves

Brown onion and bell pepper with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large saucepan on medium heat. When the onion and pepper have softened, add the balsamic vinegar. Continue to cook, uncovered on low heat, for about another 10-15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Make your favorite tomato sauce. Here’s what I do for a simple tomato sauce. Fish out the peeled tomatoes from the can and reserve the juice for other use. Slice the tomatoes. In a saucepan add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil and one clove of garlic. Add the sliced tomatoes, on low flame, let the sauce come together nice and thick, for about 15-20 minutes. Salt to taste.

Spoon tomato sauce on pizza with circular motion. Add the mozzarella cheese evenly. Add the cooked onions and bell peppers, but avoid the juice as this will wet the dough too much. Slide the pie in the oven and bake. Add the basil leaves to the piping hot pizza just out of the oven.

Buon appetito!