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Scenes from a Pizza-Making Class with Gerri Sarnataro at the Institute of Culinary Education

Posted by Allison Hemler, October 28, 2008 at 9:45 AM

Some of the fresh ingredients and a peek at the pizza upskirt.

If you've ever made pizza from scratch, you'll realize the importance of working with your hands. From forming the dough, to kneading it after it rises, to stretching it out on a peel, and finally topping it with ingredients—there's no doubt that the hands make it happen. Maybe it's the Italian in me, but ever since making pizza from start to finish, I want to make everything with my hands. No mixers, whisks, spatulas.

This is the practice I (and about 15 others) learned at a Contemporary Italian Pizza recreational division class at the Institute of Culinary Education led by Gerri Sarnataro, chef-instructor at the school, pizza master, and founder of a cooking school for vacationers in Umbria, Italy.

During the five hours in a pastry kitchen with Sarnataro, we went through the motions of creating the perfect Neapolitan-style pizza at home. She provided us with a packet of recipes for entertaining friends and family later, but what we wanted to make was up to our creativity and taste buds.

Gerri presented premade dough from 25 pounds of flour as the base for our pizzas that night, but we still made our own dough to take home. After dividing us into teams for prep tasks—chopping onions and caramelizing them, making homemade tomato sauce, shredding mozzarella di bufala, tearing apart artichokes, cooking sausage—we formed our eight-ounce portions of premade dough into discs, about eight inches wide, and just thin enough to avoid tearing. Just so you can get an idea, here's almost all of the toppings we could choose from:

Cheeses

Stracchino, Caciocavallo, Gorgonzola, Robiola, Mozzarella: di bufala & plain old fresh, Ricotta, Parmesano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano

Vegetables (all Prepared by Students)

Tomato sauce, porcini mushrooms, cremini mushrooms, artichokes, caramelized onions, bell peppers, black olives, capers, arugula, zucchini, zucchini flowers

Fresh Herbs

Oregano, tarragon, rosemary, basil (and pesto from scratch)

Meats and Fish

Prosciutto, sweet and hot Italian sausage, anchovies, bottarga

Here are the two best pies I made:

The classic: Homemade tomato sauce, fresh cow's milk mozzarella and mozzarella di bufala, sweet Italian sausage, fresh oregano, all drizzled with some olive oil.

The winner: Pizza bianca covered in ricotta, both mozzarellas, pesto, zucchini, and caramelized onions. A light dusting of Parmesan after it came out of the oven turned it from pretty tasty to downright craveworthy.

During tasting time, we poured glasses of wine, and one by one, once pizzas were done coming out of the deck ovens, we sliced them and marveled at our creations. Because we were in a pastry kitchen, my teammate (and blogger) Noah attempted a dessert pizza with almond paste and chocolate (too bad there was no mascarpone!).

Re-creating the process at home could be a bit difficult without an appropriate oven, but Sarnataro recommends a pizza stone for the best results. I was able to take home enough dough for four pizzas (which went straight into the freezer), and a bunch of leftovers for lunch the next day. Beginners thrive in a classroom with Gerri, as she demonstrates and then individually assists if necessary (she actually took my hands in hers to knead the dough so I could get the feel of it). Though she's not teaching any more pizza classes this semester, she does have a whole listing of other Recreational offerings at the school, which can be found on the course calendar.