- It's just so simple, this might be my go-to from now on.

- It's just a very different way of thinking about pizza.

- It's a really good technique.

It's absolutely the perfect crust for all of these different types of toppings.

- It's got the tomatoes, it's got the cheese, it's got the meat.

- I love it.

- It has simplicity, but it's really interesting.

- It's really a full meal.

That's what I love about this pizza.

- Hits the zone.

The pizza zone.

- Yes, yes.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, we travel to Brazil to learn how to make white tablecloth pizza.

With over 6,000 pizzerias in São Paulo, they take pizza seriously, from a simple pizza with ricotta, za'atar and arugula to pizza carbonara with pancetta, pecorino romano, and hard cooked eggs.

So please stay tuned for knife and fork pizza from the heart of Brazil.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad: for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (people talking in background) - That's right, pizza is all over the world, and Brazilian pizza is the best.

♪ ♪ - (speaking Portuguese): ♪ ♪ - I really like eating pizza anytime.

I like the flavor, I like the texture.

♪ ♪ - (speaking Portuguese): ♪ ♪ - (speaking Portuguese): ♪ ♪ - I usually eat pizza twice a week.

♪ ♪ That's probably the best moment in the week for me.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Although I have this heritage from Italy, we make a very Brazilian style of pizza.

♪ ♪ When the pizza came to Brazil, all the Italian people brought some culinary culture and they tried to replicate it.

But our flour was very different from Italian.

The tomato, cheese, the mozzarella cheese.

So everything was so different, they couldn't make the same pizza.

♪ ♪ We have a lot of ingredients and toppings.

We make layers of toppings.

And because of that, we must have a dough that's a little bit stronger.

♪ ♪ - Pizza in São Paulo is almost a religion.

It's something you do with your family.

The pizzas usually are big one; it serves up to three or four people.

We mix a lot of things.

You have always like a cheese and a protein and you have the seasonings and some vegetables or tomatoes.

We like the crust and we call cornicione-- to, to be large and tall.

That's what we think it's like a perfect pizza.

♪ ♪ - (speaking Portuguese): ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - One side I'm going to make a calabrese with onions, and the other one is going to be the gratinada.

We have the catupiry cheese.

It's a Brazilian cream cheese.

Provolone cheese, sliced and shredded parmesan on it.

♪ ♪ This is not so much because we are going to stretch it a little bit with the parm... the provolone cheese when we cover it.

♪ ♪ Make this layer.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - So Brazilian pizza sounds a bit odd because I hadn't heard about it.

Nathan Myhrvold, formerly of Microsoft, who's written the Modernist books-- he did one on pizza.

And I asked him, I said, "Where did you go, you know, to do the research for the book?"

He said São Paulo was one of the top places and it's considered to be the pizza capital of the world.

Half the people in the town are Italian.

Six million people, more than in Naples.

And there's 6,000 pizzerias there.

- Wow.

- But he said it was a very different formula.

It was a sturdier crust, lots of toppings, Things like pad Thai pizza, you know, that kind of thing.

So not something you would get in Avenue J in Brooklyn.

So we went down and tried these and they were great.

So we thought we'd bring them back here.

It's just a very different way of thinking about pizza.

This is a serious dinner.

- Yes.

- This is not something on the fly.

- Yes.

Yeah, it's really a full meal.

That's what I love about this pizza.

You can get really creative with the toppings that you put on there.

But we're going to get started with the foundation of the pizza.

We're going to make the dough, which is going to be... end up the crust of the pizza.

Traditionally, pizza doughs have a hydration content of about 55% to 60%.

- And some over.

- And some over.

Some get really, really wet-- like the kind that you pour out into the pizza and get really, really wet.

This pizza goes the other end-- it skews the other end, and it tends to be very, very dry.

It's about 50% hydration and that is so that we can have a nice, sturdy dough that will hold up under the weight of like, oftentimes, kind of wet toppings.

We are going to be using four cups of all-purpose flour.

We found that that was a better flour for use in this kind of dough rather than bread flour because it is so dry, and we want to be able to manipulate it and stretch it.

So we have four cups of all-purpose flour.

I am going to add to that-- before I add the water.

I'm going to add two teaspoons of sugar and a teaspoon and a half of table salt.

And then I'm going to go ahead and add just a teaspoon of instant yeast.

All right, so I'm just going to go ahead and mix these dry ingredients on low speed for about 15 seconds.

(mixer whirring) Okay, and now while it's mixing, I'm just going to add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

(mixer whirring) And now I'm going to add a cup and a quarter of warm water.

You want it to be about 100, 110 degrees.

All right, just going to pour that all in.

(mixer whirring) And this is going to mix on low speed for about eight to ten minutes.

And you want to check it, it should not be a very sticky dough.

It should not stick all the way to the sides.

If it does, you want to go ahead and add a little bit more flour, like a tablespoon at a time.

♪ ♪ (mixer whirring) Okay, Chris, so it's been about ten minutes.

This looks great.

You can see it's not sticking at all to the sides of the bowl.

Which is what we're looking for.

I'm just going to go ahead, scrape that off the dough hook.

Just going to use my hand, sometimes that's easier.

It got way up there.

Sometimes it climbs right out of the bowl.

You got to watch these things.

Okay, and if you wouldn't mind, since you're standing over there, we could just go ahead and transfer the dough.

We have a nice oiled bowl here.

♪ ♪ - (laughs) - That last bit, there we are.

- So you can see the dough is-- it's sticky, but it's not wet.

It's sort of like tacky.

And that's what you're looking for.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

And then I'm going to go ahead and put some plastic wrap on that.

We're going to let this rise in a nice, warm draft-free spot for about one-and-a-half to two hours until it's doubled in size.

♪ ♪ Okay, so it's been a couple of hours.

- I, I've got to stop you for a second.

- (laughs) - Like, how do you know?

This always bugs me.

They say until the dough is doubled in size.

Now, if you have a bucket that-- with straight sides and you can mark it-- I get it.

- Yes, those are great.

- I should have one of those.

Well, when you have a bowl like this, does it really matter if it's exactly double?

- It doesn't really matter.

Also because this dough is going to rise again for a second time in the fridge, so it doesn't have to be that exact.

But this does allow the dough to develop quite a bit of flavor, which we really liked, so we added the step in.

But no, you don't have to be totally exacting on this.

But those buckets are really handy and I like to put, like, a rubber band around the side, to kind of gauge.

Yes, you're right.

Good point.

Can I carry on?

- I feel good.

- All right, so now we're going to go ahead and divide the dough into two pizza rounds.

And I'm just going to flour the counter, Flour your side as well.

Just going to gently turn this out, And I'm going to flour the top a little bit, too.

- So I have another question.

- Oh, another question, wow.

Surprising.

- So some recipes say "punch down the dough."

- Mm-hmm.

- And I always thought you shouldn't punch it down, right?

You should be a little more gentle with the dough?

- Some recipes call for turning the dough too.

And I think that's sort of to redistribute the yeast.

It also stretches the dough.

- You don't want to punch it hard down.

I mean, if you need to punch it, you can, but you don't have to punch it.

It's aggressive language, I agree.

(laughs) Okay, so we're going to go ahead and divide this in half.

I'm going to give you one.

And then we just want to shape this into a smooth, taut ball.

And I just sort of roll it against the counter with my hands.

Yeah, beautiful.

And then you'll see that you have there-- this is just a Ziploc baggy that I sprayed with some cooking spray to grease it, which helps getting the ball out later.

Pop it in there.

- Yeah, I put one in a bag like this once and getting it out was... - Interesting?

(laughs) - Interesting, yes.

- Now this is going to go ahead and go into the fridge.

Like I said, it's going to rise a second time and it's going to go for at least 24 hours and up to 72 hours.

So this is a great dough that you can make ahead.

And after it's done that and had its time to kind of chill and develop flavor, I'm going to take them out four hours before I want to make my pizza.

And this is so that the dough can warm up.

Because it's such a dry dough, it's really important, it makes it much more stretchy and elastic so when we go to shape our dough, pizza rounds, it's much easier.

- We have tested that, and if a dough is 75 degrees, that's what it should be?

- Mm-hmm.

- Because then it's not going to snap back.

- Exactly.

- But also it's easier to work with.

- Yeah, it's a long time to wait, but if you just have a little bit of forethought.

You want to put it on a nice oiled baking sheet and take these out of the bags, and then loosely cover them with some plastic wrap and then just set them aside for four hours to warm up.

- That's why, you know, working remotely is good.

- Yeah, right.

- Because you can do this pizza recipe at home.

- Exactly.

- It's perfect, all right.

♪ ♪ - Okay, Chris, so the pizza dough has been out, and it's been warming for about three hours, and I've turned on the oven to 500 degrees.

- I know, it's hot.

- You can feel it, right?

Whew!

The rack is set on the upper middle rack and I've got a pizza steel in there.

You can use a pizza stone as well.

We're going to go ahead and start the fresh tomato sauce, which is another unique thing about this recipe is a nice, bright flavored sauce; it's not cooked at all before we go ahead and put it on the pizza.

We're going to be using a pint of grape tomatoes for this.

You want to use grape tomatoes and not cherry tomatoes because we found that those get a little too jelly-like.

These are much meatier.

They hold up better.

I'm just going to go ahead and process these just until they're broken down to about quarter-sized pieces.

(processor pulsing) That looks great.

Make sure we don't have any big pieces.

I'm going to give it a couple more pulses.

(processor pulsing) Perfect.

Okay, and I'm just going to transfer this over to this strainer.

I've got a fine mesh sieve set over this bowl.

We're going to go ahead and let these drain for about 30 minutes just to get rid of the excess liquid, because, remember, we have a lot of toppings going on top of this.

- I thought this was just a basic tomato pie.

- (laughs) - I don't think so.

- And every now and then, you want to give it a little shake just to get all that juice out.

Just let this hang out for about a half an hour, and then we'll finish our sauce.

♪ ♪ Okay, so we're ready to finish off this sauce, which I'm going to go ahead and have you do while I am shaping the pizza dough, which you can see has been warming up.

It has once again risen.

- Why do I always get this job?

- Do you want to do this job?

You can do this job.

- That's the fun job.

Well, you're better at it than I am.

So I think this is a perfect distribution of tasks, right?

- (sighs) So you're going to go ahead and... - Oregano?

- Oregano.

- Some pepper flakes.

- Yes.

- A little olive oil.

- And then just season it with salt and pepper, please.

All right.

Save that one for later.

This feels great, it's nice and pliable.

Just going to give it a little dusting.

And I'm just going to stretch this out using my fingertips.

And give it a flip.

Very easy to work with and it's not sticking.

- So I'm not going to look up in the air as you throw it up in the air?

- Chris, look over there!

(laughs) No.

So we're looking for about a 13-inch circle, and you want to work sort of from the center out because we want the center to be thin, and we want to have about a half-inch border to hold in all those delicious toppings.

But this is really, really easy.

It's probably one of the easier pizza doughs that I've ever worked with.

- Hmm.

- So, that's it.

It's about 13 inches, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

Now I'm going to transfer this to our peel.

I'm going to sprinkle it with a little bit of semolina flour, which is great, yeah, they're like little ball bearings.

- It's better than cornmeal, cornmeal is too-- - It's too crunchy, yeah.

- Too crunchy.

- This works better than flour as well.

Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and lift this up gently.

I like to use the back of my hands so I don't poke holes in it.

And you might have to reshape it a little bit.

♪ ♪ All right-- and then, if you wouldn't mind, you're going to put half of that, because we're going to need the other half for the other pizza.

And spread it evenly on top, that would be fabulous.

♪ ♪ This is really the simplest sauce, and I love it.

- You want me to leave an edge?

- About a half-inch border would be great.

- Okay.

- Doing a good job.

(laughs) - Doing the best I can.

Okay-- here we are.

- All right, so we are so we are now ready to start with the first of our many toppings that we're going to be putting on this pizza.

- So this is not... - This is not finished.

- This is... - No.

- This is foundational.

- Yes, this is, this is the foundation for all the pizzas, so-- yeah.

- Okay.

♪ ♪ I really love this one.

This is like a comfort pizza.

We're making a pizza carbonara.

- Mm-hmm.

- So here we have crisped up about four ounces of pancetta.

We have some whole milk shredded mozzarella, and some pecorino romano.

And we're just going to use half of all of these.

This is for two pizzas.

- Okay.

- Go ahead and top this pizza that's already been sauced.

- So I have yet another question.

- Great.

- Everybody's like, yeah, great.

Um... - (giggling) - This sauce is very dry, and the reason is you don't want a wet tomato sauce that's going to sog out or soften the dough.

- Exactly, yeah.

Because a lot of these toppings-- I mean, this isn't a good example of that but a lot of the toppings, you know, they add a lot of moisture and weight to the pizza.

- Right.

- This one is leaning more towards the rich side.

- Yeah.

- (laughs) It's probably why I like it so much.

And then now this.

We are not being shy with the cheese.

All right.

I feel like we're having our own little pizza party.

- It's very quiet for a pizza party, but it's okay.

- All right, and again, I'm going to go ahead and put this in the 500 degree oven, and it's going to cook for about eight to ten minutes.

Thank you.

Perfect.

♪ ♪ Okay, so pizza is out of the oven.

It smells fantastic.

- Smells great.

- And now we're going to add our finishing touches.

Now, traditionally, raw egg yolk is drizzled on top of our pizza, but we decided to go ahead, just be easier to do a hard-boiled egg yolk.

We like to hard boil our eggs, we like to steam them for about 12 minutes for a fully cooked yolk.

And then you want to run it under some ice water.

- So raw egg yolk would be drizzled on the pizza when it comes out of the oven, not before it goes in?

- No, no, no, when it comes out.

- And it's going to cook a little bit.

- Presumably it will cook with the heat of the oven.

We're just going to go ahead and grate this right on top.

Actually looks really pretty.

Going to do the other one.

Just in case it wasn't rich enough.

(laughs) All right.

Okay, and then lastly, we're just going to go ahead and sprinkle some nice freshly ground black pepper.

- But without black pepper, it's kind of not carbonara, which is really why they named it carbonara.

- All right, whew, this is hot.

Slide that off.

Scooch that over.

Are you ready?

- Mmm-hmm.

- All right.

♪ ♪ - You need a bigger pizza wheel, you know those big ones.

- (laughs) Oh, this looks so...

I don't know if we need a fork and knife for this one.

- No, I don't think we do.

- I was going to say, I think we might be able to just pick this one up.

Enjoy.

- Mmm.

Mm!

- Mm.

It's so cheesy.

- That's really good.

- It's really nice.

The pancetta adds a nice saltiness.

You've got all that cheese, it's gooey cheese, that black pepper.

- This hits the zone.

- Yes.

Yes.

- The pizza zone.

It's got the tomatoes, it's got the cheese, it's got the meat, it's got a little pepper, egg.

- And I really love this tomato sauce.

- It cooks just enough in the oven, but it still is fresh and really, really bright.

It's just so simple.

This might be my go-to tomato sauce from now on.

Mmm.

- Mmm.

We're just not going to talk anymore.

- I know!

(laughs) - We'll be back with you in a couple of minutes.

- This is a really good one.

- You know, for another pizza risk we've done here, we took cherry tomatoes, cut them in half, then we mashed them in a colander and let them drain so you get bigger pieces.

But that also worked pretty well if you want to get rid of the liquid.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

It's a really good technique.

All right, so now we're done with pizza carbonara, and we're ready to move on to our last topping as soon as we're finished eating this one.

Mmm.

♪ ♪ Okay, Chris, so here we are, ready to make our final pizza.

This is a ricotta, za'atar, and arugula pizza.

- Mm!

- Really, really nice.

I'm going to go ahead and get started.

We have boiled onions here, nice red onions, thinly sliced.

I'm going to put half on our sauced pizza.

- I like this already.

- Right?

- Onions, ricotta.

- And we're done.

- I love za'atar.

- Yeah, this is a really nice one.

Again, like, totally crazy Middle Eastern flavors coming from, you know, out of Brazil, but I like it.

- They had a fair number of Lebanese immigrants to Brazil too, I think.

Yeah.

- But again, you can put anything on a pizza.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and put this into our 500 degree oven for about ten minutes total until it's nice and brown.

Thank you.

Okay, now, while that's cooking, I'm going to go ahead and make this ricotta topping.

I'm just going to add four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

We have some lovely tangy sumac, And we have dried oregano.

And here we have the za'atar.

If you can't find it in the store, it's pretty easy to make, or you can order it online.

- So, sesame seeds, some marjoram or thyme would you use for the herb?

- Yeah, thyme or oregano.

Or you could add more oregano since it's already in the recipe.

Just season it, salt and pepper.

- And sumac, of course.

- And sumac.

Again, you would just maybe increase what's in the recipe.

Okay, I'm just going to fold this together.

This looks amazing, right?

- Mm.

- Like, I could just give you a spoon.

- That's one of my... that's my hungry noise, "Mm!"

- Mm!

- I like that.

- Sorry, you still have to wait a few more minutes.

Okay, I'm just going to set this aside, and we're gonna wait till the pizza comes out of the oven.

- So this is, like, eight to ten minutes.

- Right.

- The usual.

- The usual, yeah, it's already been in for a couple of minutes, so it's probably going to be another six to eight minutes, and then we'll go ahead and finish off the pizza.

♪ ♪ The pizza just came out of the oven and the onions are nice and cooked down, and we're going to go ahead and finish it off.

So first we're going to go ahead and dollop half of this delicious spiced ricotta mixture.

I'm really excited to eat this.

- Could you go faster?

- I'm... (laughs) - Speed this up, please.

I'm making sure each piece has got the same amount of ricotta on there.

And then here, we're going to go ahead and dress only half of the arugula that is going on both pizzas, because we don't want to dress the other half too soon, because it'll start to wilt down by the time the other pizza is done baking.

So I'm just going to put a bit of olive oil, A little bit of fresh lemon juice.

Go ahead and toss that up.

I absolutely love putting arugula on any of my pizzas.

I think it's the best.

Okay.

- Also, you know, across the world, a lot of people, especially the Middle East, dress a salad, olive oil or some kind of oil and lemon juice.

That's it.

- That's all you need.

- And a little salt, maybe.

- Right, salt and pepper.

The greens are so flavorful, that's really all you need.

You don't need to, you know, put gloppy dressing on there.

This is beautiful.

Just carefully slide this off.

♪ ♪ - You know, once in a while, people ask me about my job and I complain how hard it is.

They just go like, "Oh, yeah, right.

This is... You have such a tough job."

- Yeah, right?

Excuse my fingers.

There we go.

Thank you.

All right, how are we going to tackle this one?

- With our hands.

- With our hands?

- Because pizza and... - I better have a napkin then.

Well, also I'd like to say that this crust really holds up nicely.

- It really does.

It's absolutely the perfect crust for all of these different types of pizzas and all their toppings.

- That's my favorite.

- Really?

- Well, there's a lot of onion.

It goes really well with the spiced cheese.

- Yeah, I love the cheese and all the spices.

And then you get that, like, fresh arugula.

I love it.

- This is really good.

Again, it's like the whole meal.

- Well, it has simplicity, but it's really interesting, like with the sumac and za'atar and the arugula.

- And this one I find a little bit lighter, like, than the carbonara, which was lovely and rich.

But this is just like a light, fresher pizza; it's nice.

- It's like being in a rock and roll band.

Save your best song for the last.

- Right.

- I think this is the best.

They're all great.

This is my favorite.

So if you want something different in pizza, we suggest you look to São Paolo where they have six million Italians and 6,000 pizzerias.

And it's a whole new way of thinking about pizza, which is white tablecloth, knife and fork, and really interesting toppings.

This is pizza with ricotta, za'atar and arugula.

You can get this recipe, actually all three of these recipes, and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

- All episodes and recipes from this season of Milk Street Television are available for free at our website, MilkStreetTV.com.

Please access our content, including our step-by-step recipe videos, from your smartphone, your tablet, or your computer.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From fried shrimp tacos and Thai-style vegetable stir-fry to Mexican chicken soup and Swedish cardamom buns, the Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad: for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪