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Roberta’s pizza, Detroit-style

This recipe makes 1 Detroit-style pizza in a 10x14 pan. Give yourself at least 12 hours but ideally 1-2 full days for the dough to cold ferment in the fridge.

Dough Ingredients

• 153 grams 00 flour (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon)
• 153 grams all-purpose flour (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons)
• 8 grams fine sea salt(1 teaspoon)
• 2 grams active dry yeast (3/4 teaspoon)
• 4 grams extra-virgin olive oil (1 teaspoon)

Other Ingredients

• Shredded low-moisture Mozzarella and or
  • Queso Oaxaca and or
  • Shredded Monterey Jack
• Jarred Marinara sauce
• Oregano
• (optional) Bread Crumbs
• Whatever toppings you want (pepperoni is the classic choice)

Preparation (at least 12 hours before you plan to cook, ideally 24-48h before)

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flours and salt.
2. In a small mixing bowl, stir together 200 grams (about 1 cup) lukewarm tap water, the yeast and the olive oil, then pour it into flour mixture. Knead with your hands until well combined, approximately 3 minutes, then let the mixture rest for 15 minutes.
3. Knead rested dough for 3 minutes. Shape into a ball, and put it in a bowl with a little oil, turning to coat. Put plastic wrap on the dough (pressed down onto the dough, so there’s no air touching it), and refrigerate for a day or two. Three days would probably also be ok.

Cookin’ it

1. Grease a 10x14 pan with 2” tall sides with beef fat (ideally) or Crisco or butter (also ok).
2. Remove dough from the fridge and stretch it into a roughly rectangular shape, then place it in the pan, stretching and pushing the dough to completely cover the bottom of the pan and fill the corners.
3. Move a rack to the lowest position in your oven, and preheat it to 550º or as close as your oven gets to that.
4. Let the dough come to room temperature and rise on the counter (this usually takes an hour or more).
5. Lift up the edges of the dough to get any large bubbles out, then sprinkle some oregano on the dough, then add cheese. The one you use is up to you, but queso Oaxaca (cubed or pulled apart) or shredded low-moisture Mozzarella do the best for the distinctive baked-cheese rim that’s characteristic of Detroit-style pizza. Be sure that the cheese goes all the way to the edges; in fact, you’ll want to put a nice little rim of cheese all the way around the edges.
6. Put your toppings on top of the cheese, but try to keep it light. If you want extra crunch, add some breadcrumbs.
7. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until the cheese around the edges is blackened and the cheese in the middle is starting to brown.
8. After baking, use a flexible metal spatula or a knife to loosen the edges of the pizza; it should snap cleanly off the walls of your pan. Lift and slide the pizza onto a cutting board, and spoon three lines of sauce across the pizza (or whatever arrangement you want; point here is: put sauce on, not too much). If the pizza’s looking juicy, let it sit for a few minutes; cut into 6 squares and enjoy!

Reference

• https://www.ediblebrooklyn.com/2013/recipe-robertas-margherita-pizza-and-cookbook-giveaway/
• https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/dining/a-little-pizza-homework.html

Notes

2022-01-29

Truly amazing results—thanks to greasing the pan with rendered beef fat leftover from a beef short rib dish made last month. Coincidentally, I used the same Italian cheese blend I used in 2018 and blamed for my poor results at the time (see below); I think probably the issue was pan lubrication. Today’s pie released effortlessly from the pan, with a crisp brown bottom. It was the cleanest release I have ever had, and also the first time I used beef fat to grease the pan.

For future reference: I greased the pan with cold hardened beef fat, which softened and partially liquefied as I handled it. I kept the greased pan in the refrigerator until it was time to put the dough in the pan for the final rise.

Also used hormel pepperoni, bought at the grocery store as a whole sausage and sliced thin just before applying. Good cupping.

2018-11-11

Uneven results

• Used vegetable shortening on pan, this seems to have worked well
• replaced dried yeast with ~1tbsp of sourdough starter. This seems to have suffered a bit from early mixing with the salt, though eventually it overcame the salt and did its magic. May be good to try this in the future with a delayed addition of salt similar to Tartine Sourdough method.
• doubled the dough recipe; don’t do this. It resulted in a two-plus-inch-thick crust, and really what I got was more a topped focaccia than a thick pizza. Ended up cooking 15min at 500º, then 5 at 475º and 5 at 350º to ensure the thing was cooked fully.
• Used “Italian Blend” shredded cheese for the edges, and it was perhaps a mistake. Cheese formed a hard crusty edge, but it was tough and flexible, not hard and brittle, resulting in some difficult chewing. It also formed a hard seal to the metal pan (despite the shortening), which seems to have resulted in some steaming on the bottom of the crust. Bottom crust was disappointingly blonde and showed some obvious signs of trapped steam.
• Used uncured, dried pepperoni, and it worked okay but could have used more cupping. Search continues for smaller-diameter, thicker-cut pepperoni to achieve the perfect cup.
• Used the Roberta’s sauce method (whole peeled pomodoros blended with salt and EVOO) and put sauce on before baking (over cheese, under pepperoni). It’s a much different effect than the Detroit-style sauce; first, it’s much thinner; second, it’s missing the distinctive oregano; third, I forgot the excellent recommendation to sauce after baking, which preserves a lot of the acidity and brightness of the sauce and gives a nice contrast to the multiple fats and umami sources going on elsewhere in the pizza.