Sage and Pepper's Musings

Well, it might not be quite that, but this experience elevated my future dough making and pizza assembly. Every now and again I’d either make or purchase a pizza dough ball but more than often, I’d tear the dough and end up shoving a frozen (but good) pizza in the oven. This summer, I dusted off the Ooni pizza oven and bought some dough… same issue. So I booked a class at a local Dallas pizza restaurant to learn how to make it properly.

Partenope in Dallas (https://partenopedallas.com) offers a great looking class and today, eight of us gathered to learn from the professionals. Chef Jonathan and crew put us through our paces.

With a simple recipe of flour, water, yeast and salt, my dough after about ten minutes of kneading was put into a container to bring home and that’ll be fired up tomorrow or Monday. Since I have a pizza oven capable of 700f+, the recipe omits some olive oil and sugar that the others dough had – that’s there to help with the browning effect when put in a conventional oven because of the lower temperatures.

Technique matters, so they gave each of us one of their dough balls that they make and proof so we had an oven-ready one to work with. We learned the correct technique for stretching and shaping the dough (rotation alongside gentle stretching until it formed the appropriate shape) and not a hole-in-the dough for any of us).

Now it was time to discuss sauce and toppings. I usually would make a sauce using Cento canned ones (Cento Certified San Marzano Whole Peeled Plum Tomatoes are grown in the Sarnese Nocerino area of Italy, renowned for its especially fruitful soil as a result of its proximity to Mount Vesuvius. Our San Marzano tomatoes are certified by an independent third-party agency to ensure their superior quality. Perfect for making homemade sauces, our tomatoes are hand-picked only when ripe, giving them a distinctively sun-ripe and sweet taste). However the restaurant uses the same ones (directly imported from Italy) but rather than cooking them with oil, some herbs and salt as I had, they use the raw tomatoes and some salt (1 tsp of salt per 28oz can). I asked if I should be using a food mill to produce the final sauce rather than blending and they recommended that approach to remove the tomato seeds and a source of bitterness. A bit more work but worth it.

So, dough, light (3oz) sauce, some grated Parmesan and a generous handful of chopped Mozzarella. I also added some crushed Calabrian peppers for a bit of heat (sorry, Claudia) and that was it. Partenope is particular about only adding ingredients that are available in Italy to a pizza, so whilst Jalapeños are popular here in Texas, that’s a Partenope-nope 🙂

After a few minutes in their lovely gas-fired oven (wood-fired is not permitted in this part because of the fire hazard risk to buildings), our pizzas were ready. And they looked great!

Given they had a lovely prosciutto slicer, I added some to mine.

So, learned a lot about technique (the main reason I went for dough handling), and having answered many questions we all had about “what about this… or that…?” it was a great event. Good location, great wines, and passionate staff – a class that will elevate my future at-home pizzas was definitely worth every penny. I think they also probably helped Ooni pizza oven sales – at least two people are seriously considering getting one 🙂