Don’t call it a pizza, it’s a pinsa!
Led by cookbook author and all-around Italy expert Katie Parla, La Cucina Italiana writer Paul Feinstein joined Parla for an Instagram Live session to talk about pinsa, pizza trends in Italy, and how to make your own oblong-shaped delicacies at home.
Parla is known for authoring and co-writing a number of Italian cookbooks like Food of the Italian South, Tasting Rome, American Sfoglino, and many others. Before joining La Cucina Italiana for a cooking demo, Parla was a participant in Breville’s ‘Meet the Makers’ series that presented virtual pizza demonstrations with local legend pizza makers from across the US. Each stop was guided by Scott Wiener, a pizza expert, who runs the famous NY based Scott’s Pizza Tours and founder of Slice Out Hunger. All ticket proceeds were shared among Breville’s class hosts as they joined efforts to benefit the small pizza businesses (to access past Breville classes, you can find them here and learn from master pizza makers).
The pinsa session with La Cucina Italiana USA and Parla showed budding home-chefs how to prepare their dough, ferment it overnight, shape it properly, and how to cook it for pinsa perfection. Here are some tips on pinsa that Parla and Paul shared during their time on camera.
If you can’t find soy flour, you can substitute rice flour for your dough mixture.\
When kneading your dough, it’ll feel really wet at first and seem like it’s not coming together. Give it time! Depending on the temperature of your kitchen, the humidity in the air, and other factors, it can affect the time it takes to come together. There’s a chance you’ll be kneading for up to 20 minutes before it’s the right consistency.\
Another tip while you’re kneading, add the last 50 grams of water a tiny, tiny bit at a time. Let the dough absorb the water before adding more so it’ll come together easier and not become a wet, goopy mess in your mixing bowl.\
Also depending on the temperature and humidity of your kitchen, you may want to leave your dough out for up to two hours before refrigerating overnight. Give the yeast a chance to grow before slowing it all the way down.\
When you take the dough out of the fridge the next day, give it at least two hours (again depending on your kitchen’s temperature) to start fully rising before baking. If it’s really cold in your kitchen, place the dough inside your oven with the oven light on, the warmth the light creates should be enough to get your yeast moving.\
When you’re topping your dough, try not to oversaturate it with a bunch of weight ingredients. Add your sauce first, bake for a couple of minutes and then add cheeses, meats, etc.\
When you place your pinsa on your pizza peel, make sure it’s really well floured. Then, slide your pizza peel around to make sure the dough isn’t sticking before placing it in your oven.\
If you’re using a regular home oven, pre-heat it to its highest temperature (500° or higher) and heat your pizza stone for more than an hour to get it as hot as possible.\
A great trick for not burning your mouth is to add raw ingredients such as prosciutto or arugula after the pinsa is done baking. That way it provides a cool barrier for the roof of your mouth with each bite.\
If the pinsa is cooking more on one side or another, it’s totally fine to rotate it midway through cooking.
If you missed the live session, you can follow along with Katie and Paul on the LCI USA Instagram page, and find the complete recipe here.