Should you’re able to take your pizza-making expertise to the following degree, an ideal place to begin is the world of preferments. A easy mixture of flour, water and yeast that’s made prematurely of cooking, preferments are added to the ultimate dough for additional taste, texture and high quality.
One of the vital in style kinds of preferments is poolish, which refers back to the methods of Polish bakers who transported their strategies to France. For perception, we flip to the pages of “Modernist Pizza” by the founding father of Modernist Delicacies, Nathan Myhrvold, and head chef of Modernist Delicacies, Francisco Migoya:
“Poolish is a high-hydration (100%) preferment produced from flour, water, and prompt yeast. […] One of the vital widespread kinds of preferments, poolish is extensively utilized by skilled pizza makers in North America (although not often by Italian pizzaioli, who typically choose to make direct doughs). As a result of it’s based mostly on commercially manufactured yeast, it doesn’t have the tangy taste of a levain [sourdough starter].”
In keeping with Migoya, a poolish might be blended and fermented at room temperature, would not should be maintained, and, attributable to its wetness, is less complicated to include into the ultimate dough than a biga. (A biga is a time period utilized in Italian baking and is often drier and stiffer than a poolish.) Including a poolish to the dough can even provide you with a shorter combine time and fewer dough improvement, making for a extra visually interesting crumb.
A poolish usually wants 6 to 12 hours to ferment, including a pleasant buttery and nutty taste to the ultimate dough. That is nice for traditional pizzas like our recipe right here with tomato sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan and recent basil, however it additionally works nicely for dessert pizzas!
