Miriam Weiskind Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You are listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of three baking books including my latest, “Snackable Bakes.” Each Saturday, I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Miriam Weiskind of The Za Report, and we are talking all things pizza. Not only has there been such a boom in artisanal pizza all around the country, but many of you are making pizza in your kitchens and backyards. Miriam is one of the only female pizza makers, or pizzaiolo, in New York City. She fell in love with pizza as a child, decided to pursue it professionally after going on a pizza tour and got deep into the art of creating a perfect pie. We talk about Miriam's story, how she started a pie business out of her apartment during the pandemic, and how she's become such a pro at the pizza pop-up. We walk through Miriam's margarita recipe and talk about toppings, oven temperatures, pizza stones, and everything you need to gain some “Dough confidence,” as she calls it. Stay tuned for my chat with Miriam.
Thank you to Plugrà Premium European-Style Butter for supporting today's show. You might be new to Plugrà Premium Premium European-Style Butter, but it's been a favorite in my fridge for some time. Summer is finally here, and that means stone fruit and berry season and Plugrà will be my go-to when making fruit pies, cobblers and more. I love that Plugrà contains 82% butter fat. Higher butter fat content means less moisture and more fat, which is precisely what you're looking for when baking. Plugrà European-Style Butter is available in different forms and varieties for all your cooking and baking needs. They're salted and unsalted sticks and solids, and also Plugrà extra creamy butter with olive oil and sea salt. One of my faves. If you've learned of anything listening to She's My Cherry Pie, it's that ingredients matter. The next time you bake, reach for Plugrà and taste the difference it makes. From professional kitchens to your home kitchen, Plugrà Premium European-Style Butter is the perfect choice. Ask for Plugrà at your favorite supermarket or specialty grocery store or visit plugra.com for a store locator.
I can't believe it, but this is the last episode of season two of our show. I've had so much fun exploring all of these baked goods and talking to the talented folks who make them, and big thanks to you for making She's My Cherry Pie the number one baking podcast around. I appreciate all of your support and especially your ratings and reviews. Keep them coming. Let me know which bakers and pastry chefs you'd like me to interview next and what baked goods you'd like to know more about. It makes me so happy to know that our show inspires you to bake and provide the peaceful break in your day. We'll start working on the next season very soon, but in the meantime, let's check in with today's guest.
Miriam, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk pizza and so much more with you.
Miriam Weiskind:
Thank you for having me be a slice of your podcast. I am honored and grateful to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first things first. You are the founder and pizza maker behind The Za Report, a pandemic-born business, inspired by your mom. And before we go deep on The Za Report and pizza, I wanted you to share your personal and professional love affair with pizza. It happened in the operating room or in the room in which you were born. So can you tell the story of the day you were born and how pizza played a role?
Miriam Weiskind:
So the story goes back to May 19th, 1980. My mom was in labor for so long that my dad and a doctor were eating pizza. So the joke was that I popped into a pan of pizza and that is where my love affair with pizza began.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that so much. So from that hospital room, let's fast-forward to you coming to New York and then around January of 2020, you decided to embrace pizza full-time, traded in your six figure job as an art director to take a job at Paulie Gee's. First of all, for those that don't know, can you tell everyone about Paulie Gee's?
Miriam Weiskind:
Paulie Gee's is one of the more recognizable pizzerias in New York City. Similar to me, he had decided to pursue a different path from what he was originally doing and opened up in Greenpoint. At the time when he opened, it was not an up and coming area really, so when he and his wife Marion planted their seed there, it really helped to revitalize that area. And now it's one of the most popping places in Greenpoint. But he specialized in wood-fired pizza. He had an oven, a wood-fired oven, he hand-built, and then eventually was able to come to this location open. And was serving at the time, and it was a new era of pizza, it's when you also had Roberta's, but you had these people that were doing Neapolitan, as I say, Neapolitan-ish or the proper term would be there's Neapolitan and Neopolitan. Neopolitan is new age, Neapolitan is old age.
But they were doing wood-fired pizza where they did eclectic things on there. And Paulie has this magic where he walks around and likes to greet everybody holding his cup of coffee or his Mike's Hot Honey tumbler. I made a list of places I wanted to go. And I asked all these operators for a job, I just want an apprenticeship or a job. I want to learn how to make pizza properly. Paulie was the first one to say, “Of course, when can you start?” And then after that first night when I fired a pie, I would say it was love at first bake. And I said, “I'd like a job.” And he's like, "This isn't going to be the same pay you have as an art director." And I go, "I understand that," but I felt that the opportunity to learn paid so much more than any dollar amount.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Miriam Weiskind:
And it was worth it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Miriam Weiskind:
And it was hard, hard work.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that story just because it's brave and you just went in there and put yourself out there and he responded.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Just love that. So that was January. Then two months later, the pandemic hits. And so you lost your Paulie Gee job and you started making pizza in your house for your neighbors at your mom's suggestion.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us about that?
Miriam Weiskind:
New Yorkers, at that time, we all were, I don't want to use the word trapped, but we were confined to our apartments. We were told not to go out. Everyone did the same thing. Every Friday we'd flip on the TV or every day flip on the TV and to see, can I go outside? What's going on? How bad it is? So a lot of people started baking and we all remember everyone was doing a sourdough starter. So New York City ran out of flour. But at the same time, I was like, I'd already started baking pizza a little bit. I'm like, this is a great time to work on my craft. So I started baking a few pizzas and I'm like, "This is too much pizza for me to eat." So my mom was like, "Well, why don't you feed your neighbors?" Because we all were out of work. There was an elderly woman on the first floor, there was a family in the back, there was an EMT on three. And I'm like, okay, let me help people out. So I put up a menu and a sign that said, "Hey, you guys, this is one of the few things that's keeping me happy right now is baking pizza. If anyone would like a free meal, please text me or slip a note under my door."
Jessie Sheehan:
And just logistically, you did that in the lobby of the building? How did you spread the word?
Miriam Weiskind:
It was literally posted above the mailboxes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Miriam Weiskind:
I was on the second floor, you go down a flight of steps, you hook a left. So you had to almost live in the building to see it. You couldn't see it from the street.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Was it Paulie's recipe?
Miriam Weiskind:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or was it?
Miriam Weiskind:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
No. So you made up your own dough recipe just out of thin air and then made up your sauce and made up your cheese and just went for it?
Miriam Weiskind:
So the recipe I started with was actually a 72-hour recipe from Baking Steel. It was a bulk fermentation, and you left it in the fridge and then you'd ball it up in the morning and it was ready to go in the evening. But I was also just exploring and experimenting with anything I could, because again, flour was limited, supplies were limited. You had to use what you were given. But that was the recipe I started with and I understood it. It was easy. And then at the same time, Instagram was what I like to say, it was the Encyclopedia Britannica of the universe for bread making and pizza making and anything. And it was the only thing we all were really tuning into because it gave us a break from reality.
Jessie Sheehan:
You put the sign above the mail boxes in the building, your neighbors got excited. I understand some of them were taking them for free because they didn't have a choice, but others, you had a voluntary donation. If people wanted to pay, they could.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. I was in the group of New Yorkers, I want to say there was close to half a million of us that were not able to get any unemployment benefits. So I was in a place where, guess what? You couldn't pay the rent. And I felt I needed to still pay rent to my landlord, even though he was so good to all of us. He gave me an empty apartment to do my prep and store everything in. He discounted our rent for us. But what happened was I decided that the pizzas would be free for anyone who was unemployed, anyone that was a first responder or essential worker, or anyone who was just feeling sad and depressed and needed that greeting card to cheer them up. Because my mom used to send me a greeting card every week just to remind me that she loved me. And she was thinking to me.
She was a do-gooder. She was the person that at Rosh Hashanah would drive around and give out 200 bottles of honey to make sure everyone she knew, whether they're Jewish or not, would start off with a sweet New Year. So this was my way of doing just that. And she encouraged me to do good and to help others so people could donate if they had a job, they had money, they could donate in order to one, help me pay rent and two, to keep me supplied. And I had a handful of vendors, pizza supply vendors that also donated things to keep the magic going. And then I started this thing called Live at 5 where everyone would tune in and watch me bake from my apartment. And they were watching it with, it was as raw as you could imagine, stuff dropping on the floor, stuff catching on fire eventually. But it was this thing that people are like, I've got to tune in to see what she's doing today because it was unscripted.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. And did the neighbors spread the word?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I know eventually there was a wait list and you were servicing your community, not just your building.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. I think it was maybe two or three weeks into doing in the building, because remember I was posting on Instagram, people outside caught wind, and I volunteer with an organization called Achilles International where we run with disabled runners. And so one of the women from there came and picked up for her family. She told friends. And before I knew it, my inbox was flooded with DMs to order pizza, and I suddenly had to go from baking four pies a night to 20.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you started soon after this, I mean, not that your home wasn't your pop-up, but you started soon after getting, or once it was safe pandemic-wise to start doing popups with your small oven, correct?
Miriam Weiskind:
I had my first pop-up at a bar out in Greenwood Heights, and it was instant success. There were 20 people in line to get the pizza immediately. Because they knew the deal. I'm like, "Donate what you can." And so after that, then I had a good friend who had a restaurant in Fort Greene called No. 7, and it was shut down. And she's like, "Listen, we've got this backyard space." And I was like, "Oh, you know what? I just got a call from this company called Ooni." I didn't know much about them. I mean, I've heard of them, but they're like, "We'd love to send you an oven and help you." And I'm like, "That is great. But let me explain to you what a New York City apartment is. I have a fire escape. And somebody's going to call the police if they see me operating a portable oven with a flame."
Jessie Sheehan:
Will you describe the difference between the Breville and Ooni?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. So a Breville is an indoor electric oven. You can use it indoors. It plugs into 120 volt outlet. At the time, the Ooni ovens were outdoor portable ovens that you had to either use propane, wood pellets or charcoal for. So they're very different. Ooni has since come out with an electric oven called the Volt. But at the time, I was able to use the electric ovens indoors, and now I had an opportunity to go outdoors. So Ooni sent me ovens and I'm like, "All right, let's set up a pizzeria here." And I worked with Nino Coniglio, who has Coniglio's Pizza in New Jersey, but is more well known for Williamsburg Pizza here in New York City. Helped me learn how to go from making pizza dough in my home. And I even had an extra refrigerator in the basement. My landlord, God bless him, he's like, "Whatever you need, we got it. We got it." He loved being a part of the speakeasy.
But now No. 7 had given me a commercial kitchen with a massive walk-in and a backyard to set up the ovens. And so I would bake there twice a week, and for a few months we saw out every single night because we do pre-order just with the practice with COVID, because people couldn't dine in. But I also, we had take home cocktails and beer. So No. 7 was able to make a little bit of revenue as well with the bar. So we were helping each other out. But without them giving me the opportunity to use a restaurant, I would not have taken the Ooni ovens and learned how to take the wood fire experience at Paulie Gee's and adapt it to the portable oven setting and become a successful commercialized pop-up pizza. And at the time, I think I was one of the few that had started doing this again. And then before long, you have a number of the pop-up Pizza Bakers starting, and we inspired a whole new generation of people to begin baking. I love that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Was it already called The Za Report at this time? Did that name-
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Miriam Weiskind:
The reason that it was called The Za Report was when I was doing pizza tours I'm like, I want to be the person that does a report on good and bad pizza. But you know what you learn as you immerse yourself into an industry like this, is you only want to talk about the good things. And even if you go to a pizza and it's not good, it doesn't taste great, you still I'll can find something good to say about them. So I found that you should always empower and support people within your community. So The Za Report became this thing where I was going to do reporting on pizza to more about, let me talk about what's happening all around me and share the beauty that exists within this community.
Jessie Sheehan:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
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Jessie Sheehan:
Now, I would love to do a deep dive into your margarita pizza. Is a margarita pizza is a Neapolitan pizza. And then a Sicilian pizza is different. That's like a different shape?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. So a margarita pizza, you can have many different styles of pizza than a margarita. It's more specific to wood-fired pizza. But if you were to ask my parents, they would send you a photo what they thought a margarita pizza was in Ohio. And I'm like, that is not a margarita pizza, but let's just keep calling it that. They want to call it that. They can call it that. That's fine. But traditionally a margarita pizza, it's going to be the basics. And I always say it is the most essential pizza on a menu and it's the one you should always order. Or if you're in New York style, get their cheese, because that's going to tell you the entire story. Margarita pizza, it's simple, really good crust, which we know is essential. Tomato, cheese, basil, and I do extra virgin olive oil, and a sprinkle of Romano or Parmesan cheese. It's simple.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And I guess what I think what you're saying is if you order the margarita and it's good, then the place is worth their weight and gold.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because if you can do the margarita, which is the simplest of simple, and you can do that well, then you can zhuzh it up and everything will be delicious.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Miriam Weiskind:
Nail that crust, nail the margarita, nail the world.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So when the New York Times described your 12-inch crust pizza, which is the one we're going to discuss, they just said the crust was smooth, it had a well-rounded taste, the texture was more soft than crisp. And then for your Sicilian, they said it was thick and cushiony squares and that the dough had fermented for days came out with it. I love this, "Graceful light footed texture, unusual for Sicilian pizza." But I loved those descriptives of what these pizzas are like.
So first things first with our margarita, we're going to prep the dough. First of all, I just want to say, because I know you believe this, that I think you would say the most important tool when making pizza is a scale, a kitchen scale.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And so I think most, a lot of home bakers have scales at home. But pizza in particular, maybe all bread, it's a good idea to have a scale. I'm going to put that out there peeps. So first things first, we're going to grab a bowl. And I saw in some of your videos it tends to be a metal bowl. But I assume, could you do a glass bowl?
Miriam Weiskind:
Oh, absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
Could you do glass bowl? And do you have a particular brand or a particular bowl that you like to use when you make it?
Miriam Weiskind:
Generally it's whatever I can find under the sink. But I use these stainless steel bowls that I get from Restaurant Depot. They're common in a commercial kitchen. But if I'm at home, Pyrex, whatever bowl you have, you just want something that is large enough. Because you mix the water into the flour and you're going to be kneading, you want to make sure there's enough room that you can really knead that entire-
Jessie Sheehan:
Makes sense.
Miriam Weiskind:
Massive ball of dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
So in the middle of the bowl, you're going to mound half all-purpose flour and half bread flour. And I know you like King Arthur and I think you like King Arthur because it's not bleached. It's not bromated.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. It's a very clean and it's a healthier flour. I mean, again, I tell people when it comes to flour, it depends what you're going for. If you're looking to do a good New York style pizza, Heckers is a great all-purpose flour. But for our purpose, we're going to stick to King Arthur just because it's non-bromated made and it's unbleached. It's going to be a healthier, better tasting pizza.
Jessie Sheehan:
And can you tell us why we want to use a mixture of all-purpose and bread?
Miriam Weiskind:
I like to mix the strength of the flours and the protein levels. So all-purpose is going to come out a little bit weaker, whereas the bread is going to give it a little more strength, a little more chew, a little more flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then now we're going to add into our mound some active dry yeast. First I wondered if there's a brand that you like. And I also wondered, I'm just like an instant yeast person. Always.
Miriam Weiskind:
You can instant.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're okay with instant?
Miriam Weiskind:
Oh, absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, great.
Miriam Weiskind:
Active is what I had at the time, and I think I just forgot to activate it. But it performed the same. And the thing it's what's important is that you're getting a fresh packet because it could be dead. But the reason you activate the yeast beforehand is just to make sure it bubbles up. So even if you dump that in the flour and you start to see the bubbles, it's alive. But yes, you can use instant yeast. You just want to use a little bit less because it's more powerful. But it all works the same. So what I like to say is when you're putting the flours in the bowl, once you've blended everything, put the yeast in there, stir it together, make yourself a little castle, because we're going to have fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Miriam Weiskind:
And then when you add the water, you're going to basically pour it in like a moat and you're going to stir slowly and you're going to very gradually incorporate.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just wanted to ask, I know that you like to use cold filtered water with the dough as opposed to distilled. Can you tell us why?
Miriam Weiskind:
Well, New York City, we've got some of the best tap water. So the reason I like to use cold is because if I'm going to do a 72-hour dough, you're going to ferment that dough and age it. It's going to slow down the process. If you're using an instant yeast, it's going to blossom very quickly. So by using the cold water, you're going to slow it down.
Jessie Sheehan:
And why filtered versus distilled? I'm not even sure I know the difference.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. I generally just use tap water.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, water is a very interesting thing. It's a very temperamental thing. So in New York City, our water comes from the Catskills. Our mountains, there are these big tall things. And you know what happens when you go down the mountain? Gravity's pulling you down. So essentially, we have a natural water filter. So we don't chlorinate our water the same as you would if you're pumping it across the land in Florida or Ohio. So you even notice soft versus hard water, but it has a distinctly different taste. So in that case, what I do when I go to Ohio is I'll take water and pour it through a Brita filter the day before and I'll leave it in the fridge and then I'll use it because it helps for that chlorine to dissipate. And you're going to be using a healthier water.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's smart for people who don't live in New York and want to make pizza. So you pour your water in around your mound like a moat. I love this, the imagery of the castle and the moat. And so you're going to slowly stir the water. And I was wondering about the tool. In one of the videos I watched, there's actually a unusual looking spatula that you're using.
Miriam Weiskind:
Oh yeah. It's a dough spatula.
Jessie Sheehan:
A dough spatula.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us about a dough spatula, it's just where we would get it and what it is?
Miriam Weiskind:
I would say the closest thing you could find is probably just one of those stiffer rubber spatulas that when you're making brownie bat and you're stirring, it's just something that enables you to incorporate everything a little bit more evenly. So you could use a spoon. I just don't like how the concave the spoon is. And it's just a tool that I gotten from the pizza school and I continue to use it all the time. If you have a mixer, like a KitchenAid mixer, it's a tool that you don't need because the mixer going to mix it for you. But personally, I like mixing by hand when I'm at home just because it's just another way to really connect with that dough. And I feel like your love goes into it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Also just if you don't have to pull out a stand mixer, I'm all for that.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I mean everything. One bowl, one hand, I love it. So we have a spatula. Either it's a dough spatula that you find maybe in a specialty store or you're using a regular flexible spatula, stiff rubber spatula. And I love this image. You're stirring the water while you're gradually knocking the flour off of its castle, off of the mound into the flour moat. And that's the technique for stirring until shaggy, yes?
Miriam Weiskind:
Until shaggy. And then you get your hands in there.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you use your hands to fold and knead the dough in the bowl until it forms a rough ball. You're covering your dough at this point with a towel and just letting it rest for about 20 minutes. It's like our first rest.
Miriam Weiskind:
You want that ball to, it looks shaggy, it shouldn't be perfectly smooth. And I also try to clean most of the stuff off the bowl. But in the second round is when we really clean that bowl off. But yeah, so then you let it take a nap for about 20 minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great.
Miriam Weiskind:
And that's when you clean everything else up.
Jessie Sheehan:
I like that. I like to clean as I work. And then you're going to, I love this, you're going to sprinkle fine sea salt over the dough. And I thought that was so interesting that the salt doesn't get included with the dry. Often you'll see in a bread recipe, the salt is one of the ingredients that's included in the dough. It's not something that's sprinkled on top. So I wondered if you could tell us why we're sprinkling and if there's a brand of fine sea salt that you're fond of.
Miriam Weiskind:
So salt is an important conversation because the size of the granule matters. If you use a really large flaky salt, it's not going to incorporate as well. If you use something that's too tiny, it's going to be iodized. You want to avoid that. So I like to go with, I think it's David's Kosher Salt. But or Trader Joe's-
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you mean Diamond Crystal? No.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh.
Miriam Weiskind:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're welcome.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, it took teamwork on that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah. I think of Diamond Crystal as a kosher salt, but-
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it is a kosher salt?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, it's a kosher salt, but you just don't want to use a really large crystal.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like Morton's, Morton's has a much larger crystal.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. It's too big. I mean, will work? Yes. At the end of the day, are we going for a Michelin star here? Only in our hearts. What you want to do is you sprinkle the salt on top and you let it relax. You could either do that before or after. I just like to let it relax on top over the entire piece of dough. Because it's going to slowly begin to melt in. And then after that 20 minutes is when you'll take us into the next step.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we've sprinkled with salt and you are massaging it a little bit, kneading it a little bit until it no longer feels grainy. Then you're going to have another little rest. And then I also love this, you're going to sprinkle your dough with Sicilian, Italian or California extra virgin olive oil?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. What you're going to do is after you've incorporated that salt, why do we do salt before oil is because if you put the oil in first, that salt is not going to incorporate into the dough. So it's really important. The other nice thing is that when you're putting that salt in and you're kneading it around the bowl, you're actually also exfoliating the bowl, which means you're removing all the stuff off that you don't want to have to wash. And that should be a goal of yours, is have a clean bowl by the end. I say that means a good dough. Then you are going to drizzle the olive oil in and you're going to begin to again knead that in until that ball becomes smooth. And one of my pro tips is if you're having a hard time getting that oil to incorporate, take a little more of your flour, sprinkle it on a top, and that's going to help that oil soak into the dough ball a lot faster.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And is there a specific brand of olive oil that you like to use?
Miriam Weiskind:
I recommend that a lot of people have access to, I love Partanna. I went to olive oil school with TRULY, which is part of Corto out in California, and that's where they taught me everything about olive oil. And now it's essential.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that you've been to pizza school and olive oil school. They're two schools-
Miriam Weiskind:
And tomato school.
Jessie Sheehan:
I have never been to any of those schools and need to sign up immediately and become a student. I also heard you say in one of your videos that extra virgin olive oil is like a New York City pizza ingredient?
Miriam Weiskind:
The reason you put extra virgin olive oil into a dough has to do with elasticity, flavor, and color.
Jessie Sheehan:
But are those more New York City? You wouldn't see that in another place. Olive oil in dough?
Miriam Weiskind:
Generally speaking, it depends on the pizza maker. But I added in because that's what I used to add in my New York style, and I include it in my Neapolitan recipe now too.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love. So you're squeezing your dough, you're kneading until all of your oil is absorbed, resting again. And now the ball should be mostly smooth at this point, and we're going to transfer it to a work surface. Let it rest a little bit more. And now dust with a little bit of flour, which will, as you just said, is also going to help if there's still a little bit of oil that needs absorbing, little bit of a sprinkle of flour is going to help with that. And you're going to begin to stretch and fold and knead, cover with a towel, rest again. And then I love this, and we talked about this with Diana, who is on the show to talk about bagels. You basically are kneading and working your dough until you can pull a window, yes?
Miriam Weiskind:
Mm-hmm. The window pane.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Can you tell, just in case listeners miss the Dianna [Daoheung] episode, which they should go back and listen to, can you tell us what pulling a window is? With dough making?
Miriam Weiskind:
It's going to show the gluten development. It's going to show you the elasticity. And if you pull that dough up and it rips apart, it is not developed enough to rest. So you want to continue to work it. And then once you pull that window pane up and it pulls up beautifully and it's smooth and it's going to be translucent, you can see through it. You know that you're good to go.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So now we're going to divide the dough with a bench scraper or a large knife. You cut the dough into four pieces. You need each one into a ball. Is there a technique? I know ball making can be tough for people.
Miriam Weiskind:
So I am a female with small hands, and a lot of the men will pick up the dough and they folded over two hands and they continue to fold over. And for me, that was really hard. So what I do is I take the piece of dough like a French bread baker, I will pull it up over the top and push forward away from my body, spin it again, pull over, push forward. And what that's doing is I'm compressing and pushing and kneading it. And then what I'll do is once it's a perfect ball, I'll then gently pull it toward myself, rotate it, pull it toward myself, rotate it. What that do is it's creating a really taut skin. I really think the way that you ball dough, every element of every step of how you make your dough goes into the love and the quality that comes out at the end. So I've used the dough ballers. I know that there's a proper name for it. I just call it dough ballers, the automatic machine. And I just found it didn't roll my balls as tight as I would like them. And I want it to be really taught because this dough is going to rest all day, or it might rest for a few days. And you want it to expand into this beautiful disc.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know that there is something about when you're making bread and you're, dragging is the wrong word, but the thing that you're talking about that you're doing to make the ball and to get the taut skin, there is something about almost pushing gliding the dough on your surface. And particularly if there's a teeny bit of flour, which maybe there isn't in this instance, but the pushing the dough along the surface and not lifting it up helps to tighten the top of the dough, almost like the bottom folds in on itself. I mean, it's so hard to articulate and so it's so easy to understand when you see it. But I find that so interesting. The way that works.
Miriam Weiskind:
Literally, it's going to look smooth as a baby's bottom.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's incredible.
Miriam Weiskind:
But when you ball it the other way, which most men do, they pinch it like a wonton or like a dumpling shut, and then they put it onto the tray. So if I'm doing it like a French bread baker and I'm rotating and pulling toward me, rotating and pulling toward me, it's already taut enough at the bottom that it goes right into the tray and it's going to proof beautifully.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love that. So then there are four of them. Each round gets placed in a lightly oiled pint container, like what you get when you get takeout.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love that.
Miriam Weiskind:
Like one of those soup containers.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Love it. So you put each one in a pint container, cover, refrigerate, and this is what makes your dough extra special, from one to five days.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you could make it the next day, which is probably traditional-ish, but you could also wait five days.
Miriam Weiskind:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I imagine the flavor just gets incredible the longer you wait.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, because what happens is the yeast is consuming the sugars and the flour and it's fermenting, it's creating the gas that's in, when you stretch that dough, that's the gas that you're pushing to the outside, but you're giving it so much more flavor. So I tell people, I'm like, when you go to one of those, now we call them $1.50 slice shops, you can really taste the difference in quality. Because it's going to have a lot of sugar added to it. Why do we add a lot of sugar? Or why do you add a lot of sugar to the dough when you're making it? Because it helps it proof a lot faster and it tends to be a 24-hour dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to bake our dough. So we prepare the oven. You're going to remove the dough from the fridge. You're going to let it rest at room temp for about an hour. If you're not lucky enough to have an Ooni or a Breville, you are going to arrange your oven rack about four inches from your heat source. You said either the top or the bottom of the oven depending on where the heat source is. So in a video I watched, I saw that there were two pizza steels in the oven. First of all, is there a brand that you love? And second of all, why two? And describe a piece of steel for those of us that don't know what it is.
Miriam Weiskind:
So the one that I originally had and still use are Baking Steels, but it's basically a piece of steel. And the reason why a steel can be better for own pizza baking versus a stone, is that when you heat it up, the heat is consistent across the plain and it also retains heat better. Why do I use twos? Because I want to use radiant heat. So my broiler is in the bottom of my oven, so I'm creating a heat source on the top in order just to bake it more quickly. And it's an added bonus, you can actually put your pizza in the broiler on the bottom to finish it off and get that wood fired effect to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Miriam Weiskind:
Best home pizza hack. If you don't have a stone, you don't have a steel, take your cookie sheet, flip it upside down, preheat the oven on, and you can launch onto the cookie sheet and it will bake the pizza.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's good for people to know. You could invest in a steel first, stone if you don't have a steel, and then if you have neither, grab your cookie sheet.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I assume you could either do a flat, if it's a cookie sheet without sides, you don't have to invert it, you just use it. Or do you want one with sides that you can turn upside down?
Miriam Weiskind:
You want to turn upside down.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Miriam Weiskind:
And the other thing is just important note, you don't take these items out of the oven. So one of the biggest pet peeves for me is when I see somebody baking pizza on a stone and they're taking a photo and they're like, look how great my photo is. I'm like, you took the whole stone out of the oven. It's continuing to bake your pizza. My Baking Steels do not come out of my oven. I cook everything in there with those baking steals and also bread. How do you create a really quick Dutch oven? You take a pot of water, you put it underneath the steel, and that enables you to put the moisture that you need in the air when you're baking bread.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. So we're going to turn our oven to 500 degrees, which is high as people know, and we're going to let it go for 45 minutes. And I think you-
Miriam Weiskind:
Yep. Preheat.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, because a lot of people don't realize that it takes ovens a very long time to preheat. You can't hit 500, and assume in 10 minutes you have a 500 degree oven.
Miriam Weiskind:
Your stone it's going to be about two or 300 degrees and you need that to... And those steels, by the way, they get hotter than the 500 degrees. I've definitely had mine up to 700. So keep in mind that you're heating a metal surface. Don't touch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So now we're going to make the sauce and yours is a raw tomato sauce, which I love. You say that you want people to use whole peeled tomatoes as opposed to crushed because the whole peeled come from a different part of the vine and are the flavor of tomato we want in a margarita pie.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. I'll give you guys a little bit of education on this. Tomatoes come from three parts on the vine. Generally the top are overly ripe, the middle are perfectly ripe, and the bottom are, they are under ripe. So what happens is they tend to use the middle ones that are perfectly ripe for the whole peeled tomatoes. And they're not as sweet the top. They're going to be a lot sweeter. And they also tend to season them. Whole Foods sells the Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes, which the price point is so great. I think it's either 2.99 or 3.99 for a can. I'm like, you can't get better than that. It's a quality tomato from California. I have more preference to California tomatoes. When they come from California, they tend to be sweeter versus Italian tomato and different dirt, different environment. The volcanic soil that San Marzano are specifically grown in, it just has more of a tart metallic flavor in my opinion. But it's to each their own, whatever you love.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to put our tomatoes into our bowl and we're going to ideally use an immersion blender if you have one. But you could also use your hands or you could use a fork. And you're basically gently breaking down those tomatoes. I love this. So simple, simple, simple. But you just mix in a pinch of dried oregano, which I love. Just a brand of oregano that you're fond of or?
Miriam Weiskind:
I use the Trader Joe's.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Miriam Weiskind:
It's easy.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then little bit of water if your sauce needs to be thinned at all.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, it depends. Yeah. And if you're going to use the immersion blender, definitely pour it into a tall container, but you want to go in gently. If you are getting lots of bubbles, you are murdering those tomatoes. But you want it very gentle and it'll actually puree all the way down into a sauce. But if you are using your hand, again, use a little bit tolerable because you are going to squirt everything with the tomatoes. And I use the juice in the can. I don't waste that. Do not waste anything.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, I love that. This is a great tip for your mozzarella cheese, which is a very important part of a margarita pizza. You have your fresh mozzarella, you're going to have it, cut it into your quarter-inch slices. And then I love this line, a bowl with paper towel and place the slices in there. Why do we do that?
Miriam Weiskind:
Fresh mozzarella is a water-based cheese. The other cheese you buy at the store, it is an aged mozzarella that uses oil. So what comes out of a cheese that is made with fresh water is a lot of moisture. So what that's going to do, it's going to, the paper towels are going to pull the moisture out and you'll see they'll be wet by the end. But it just enables you to not have so much moisture in your pizza because you already have, you're going to have the extra virgin olive oil, you're going to have the tomatoes. So you want to reduce the amount of moisture it's going to go on that pizza.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think that is so smart. I feel like that's a mistake. I've made it before when making pizza at home. Two mistakes I think people make a lot. Too much sauce and wet mozzarella. Or too much mozzarella, because it makes for soggy crusty.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. You don't want tip sag.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nope. All right, now we're going to bake our pizza. So once the oven is fully preheated, you're going to place a handful of semolina flour, which if you don't have, you can make your own with a half breaded flour and half finely ground cornmeal?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. So we're going to put a handful of semolina flour into a bowl. And I thought this was so interesting, maybe this would all pizza peep do, but I loved this. And then you take your bowl of dough, one of your balls, and you drop it into that bowl of semolina and cover it in the semolina to coat.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love that. Love that. And makes it less sticky, right? When you're working with it.
Miriam Weiskind:
Because commonly when people are scratching dough, the two complaints I get are it's stuck or it's not opening up. Even if you don't have the cornmeal, you can use a little bit of flour on your surface and coat your ball in it and it's going to be plenty. It'll burn off. If you use too much cornmeal, it can catch fire. So be careful.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Miriam Weiskind:
I think it's Red Barren.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that the semolina brand that you like?
Miriam Weiskind:
There's a semolina. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, good to know.
Miriam Weiskind:
It's not a course, yeah. But the other thing is back to your dough ball, if you need a little more dough confidence, take your ball a dough out to three hours before baking and it's going to warm up. And the warmer your dough, the easier it opens up and the more dough confidence you're going to have.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. And I think when you mean open up, you're talking about that thing that sometimes happens when you're using a yeast a dough, which is that it keeps springing back to its shape and you try to make it big and it springs back.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So that's good. Always good to warm up your dough a teeny bit. So we're going to sprinkle our work surface with the semolina, stretch or roll dough into a 10 to 12 inch round. On the Kelly Clarkson Show when you were doing this, you used all these funny expressions about what you're doing to the dough. You're like, play the bongos, drive a car, do the toss. Spin like a DJ.
So you're basically trying to get that ball of dough into this 12 inch round, which might involve putting it on your fists the way we've seen.
Miriam Weiskind:
Driving a car.
Jessie Sheehan:
Driving a car.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Miriam Weiskind:
Driving a car.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And one tip you said is when you have that dough hanging over your fists, be sure you're not poking your fingers up because those will go right through the dough.
Miriam Weiskind:
You'll get holey pizza, not the good kind.
Jessie Sheehan:
And also you said to make sure they're not directly in the center of that piece of dough. So it's like you're almost holding the dough by your fist, but it's almost by the, sounds funny, but you can see it when you watch these videos almost holding it by the sides.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Or a little bit off center.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. And if you think about it, imagine the nightmare you'll have if you put that piece of dough on your peel and you top it, and if that center is really, really thin, it's going to get weighed down and you're going to have a failure launch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. So now we're going to sprinkle the semolina flour on our pizza peel.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us what a pizza peel is? And I know you love a thin tipped peel.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us where we can find thin tipped peel.
Miriam Weiskind:
So the pizza peel is what most people commonly slid the spatula, the really big spatula that you don't cook with, but you make pizza. So it just looks like an enormous spatula. But in particular, if you are baking at home, you're going to want to use a wooden one. You're not going to want to use a metal one because trying to slide, especially at home, if you build it and try to slide it off of a metal peel, it's going to be trying to go down a metal slide in the summer, you're going to stick to it. It's going to be hard. We want to make this easy. So I recommend WinCo on Amazon. I think it's a $20 peel. You just need the 12-inch. You don't need a huge, large one. It's not razor-thin, but it's thin enough that when you put it down onto the surface and you shimmy it off, it comes off beautifully.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I love this too, that if you don't have a pizza peel, you can do this with a rimless baking sheet.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or an inverted one with sides.
Miriam Weiskind:
You can absolutely put that into a pan of any sorts and even cast iron will work.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. But this is to move it. We're using the peel to move the pizza from our counter onto our stone?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. You're going to stretch and build that pizza on top of the peel.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you.
Miriam Weiskind:
Remember, time is your enemy here, so you want to move quickly because if you spend 30 minutes building a pizza on a peel, it's not going to come off. In theory, you should be able to build that pizza within 30 seconds to one minute.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, it's super easy. There's just six tablespoons of sauce, which I love because I think people make the mistake of putting on too much sauce on their pizza and that is not what you want. If you want to come out with a crunchy pizza crust, a crunchy chewy pizza crust. So we're spreading six tablespoons over the dough in ever expanding circles with the back of a spoon. Is there a particular type or just a?
Miriam Weiskind:
I just tell people. I mean I think most of us, if you have one of those spoons that you are for like salad, I think it's a four ounce spoon, but less is more. So I say take one of those large spoons, put it in the middle, and then I like to say create a crop circle. When you're spreading that sauce out, do not press down again. If you push down, it's going to get stuck to the peel. So you're going to gently circle it out like a crop circle. Like say in Ohio, that's the mid-westerner in me, and then you're good to go.
Jessie Sheehan:
And great. So we have a one and a half inch border. Then we're going to top with a few inches of Pecorino Romano, which I love. And then the three ounces are about a quarter of the amount of mozzarella that we have and we've drained our mozzarella, so it's perfect. Drizzle with some olive oil, same olive oil we used that we put into our dough earlier on, right?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to gently shake our pizza onto the peel, which you call launching into the oven, which I love.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is there a technique? That sounds so scary.
Miriam Weiskind:
So what I recommend is before you go into the oven, take that peel and just go back and forth and wiggle and make sure it's going to come off. If it's not, you're going to gently pick up the pizza and put a little more semolina onto there and you can blow too. And then that'll put it onto there so that when you go to launch in the oven, you're going to basically go, I like to go up a little bit and then down. But there a lot of people are like, oh, go in straight across. I think it's a little harder. You need a little bit of gravity work for you. If you need a little bit of launching confidence before we do this, take that peel, put a towel on it and practice pulling the peel toward you and getting the towel off. And that's going to help you nail the pizza.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, love that. So now we're going to bake our pizza very quickly until the crust is golden brown. Rotate the pizza halfway through for about six to eight minutes total in our 500 degree oven. I noticed that in the food and wine video when you remove the pizza and you mention this somewhere else as well, that one problem with pizza that people don't realize is if you put your brand new pizza, let's say right away on a plate or right away in a box, it gets soggy because of the residual heat. So I see you putting it on a pizza screen.
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that right? Can you tell us what a pizza screen is?
Miriam Weiskind:
A pizza screen is basically a pizza tray that is mesh, so it allows for air to flow through it. If you don't have that, I know y'all are going to have a drying rack for cookies, a cooling rack, so you can also use that. It's just the whole point is you don't want to just stick it on a tray and cut it right away. You want to give it, I would say, 30 seconds to a minute safe to cut it. And then you're not going to have an avalanche, which is where everything just falls off the pizza.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Then using your scissors, you're very quickly going to snip four basal leaves or a few basil leaves into thin slices and put them on the hot pizza. And we want to cut them to extract the oil and flavor?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yeah. Yeah. So if you're going to do more of a New York style pizza, the basil goes on post bake. And the reason why you cut it is that if you put a whole leaf of basil on there, it has more of a floral profile. But if you cut it, what you're doing is you're allowing the heat to pull the oil out, which is going to give you really nice basil flavor. So yeah, I mean if we're doing the margarita pizza, we're going to have a little bit of basil that's going to go in the oven. But the issue with this, if you put the basil in the oven for eight minutes, it is going to blacken and burn. That's why in a home pizza oven, I put the basil on after.
Jessie Sheehan:
I mean, I'm so hungry right now.
Miriam Weiskind:
Me too.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm just going to tell you. And that is our margarita pizza. And then we slice it and eat it. And what I want to know is, it going to be possible for us lucky enough to be able to come visit hopefully? Is there going to be Za Report brick and mortar where we can come and eat this pizza on the regular?
Miriam Weiskind:
Yes, there is. Over the summer, I'm actually going to go to Chicago and study. I was offered a paid apprenticeship with Spacca Napoli, which is one of the most renowned Neapolitan pizzerias in the world. These guys do 600 pies and night on the weekends. So I am going to be thrown in with this, I am pretty sure I am the only female on the team, which is exciting. I'd worked with these guys before and they really love the energy that I brought and I really love the empowerment and the confidence they helped me gain. So I'm going there essentially to learn how to run a restaurant for two and a half months this summer I will then come back to New York, do some more popups, continue to look for real estate, but there is a chance I might go out to the Pacific Northwest to open my first brick and mortar because I see pizza as something I need to be able to share within not just this community, but others that might not have something so special.
So whether I opened my first one out in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, Oregon first or New York City, it'll stay in Brooklyn. But my goal is to be up and running by early spring of 2024 and it will be a Neapolitan ish pizzeria. I am going to be baking my pizzas. It's going to be small batch. We'll offer Neapolitan for four nights of the week, and then the fifth night will be strictly Sicilian pizza. Because I cannot escape making Sicilian pizza for my fans because that is a seven-day process for that dough and it really is a taste of heaven.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Miriam, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Miriam Weiskind:
Thank you for having me, and I hope that you have a slice day.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugrà Premium European-Style Butter for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform. And tell your baking buddies about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.