Cassius RIP

We come here not to bury Cassius, but to praise him.

Tragedy has struck. And Cassius is no more. The bitterly cold winter and blanket of snow sapped away his strength and left him in pieces. But rather than be sad and mourn his departure, let’s instead celebrate his incredible life and feast on pictures of the sensational pizzas he blessed with his scorching heat.

Cassius. You were amazing. You set the Summer of 2009 on fire. And we’re going to miss you. So much.

Maybe Phoenix might rise from the ashes of his demise?

For further posts about Cassius click here.

Update from Cassius

Cassius is going from strength to strength. The summer rain and sun has widened his cracks, but he doesn’t care. We’ve tried to add coats of protective clay but he isn’t interested. He just shrugs them off and demands to be used. If we cook in the Aga he starts sulking like a moody teenager. Our efforts in Cassius to date have been great. But we are constantly trying to improve our technique.

So in preparation for a party in Somerset, I bought a cast iron rectangular skillet to act as a DIY pizza stone. So far we’ve been using upturned baking trays, but in light of the fact that we have ruined 3 of Cowie’s parents’ pans, I thought it would be worth the small investment.

The other area we’ve been keen to improve on is the dough. We’ve been following a Jamie Oliver recipe that demands semolina flour, but have always cheated and used plain flour. The bases have been tasty but lacking the authentic bubbles that you get at places like Franco Manca. So we visited At the Chapel in Bruton who have a pizza oven and to our delight they gave us not only a bag of their semolina but also a small pot of their sourdough starter! To say that I was excited would be the understatement of the century. (More on “Simon the Sourdough Starter” another time)

The combination of using dough made with semolina and the cast iron “pizza stone” resulted in our best pizzas yet. The skillet got so hot in the embers that it had the pizza base dancing and bursting. The pizzas cooked in around 3 minutes flat and tasted of Napoli!

A simple parma ham and mushroom pizza kicked Christened the new skillet…

The “La Reine”, excusing the lack of olives, put Pizza Express’s version to shame.

A plain, tomato and mozzarella pizza was simply brilliant. Some torn basil and a twist of black pepper had us shouting with greedy delight.

And a fully loaded beast with mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and chilli that we’ve named “Arnie”.

Our Eggy Pizza was a triumph as well. The yolk oozed across the plate and acted as a fantastic dipping sauce.

Cassius is loving life. He’s just getting better and better. The combination of semolina and skillet has made a huge difference to the bases. They’ve become much lighter and are developing the bubbles we’ve been hankering after. For our next trick we’re going to make our bases using “Simon the Sourdough Starter” that we’re lovingly nurturing… If you’ve got any suggestions for awesome toppings let us know.

Tandoori Chicken

Every time we visit Cowie’s parents is another excuse/opportunity to experiment with Cassius, our clay oven. It has excelled at cooking pizza and roast lamb so we thought we’d see how it coped with tandoori chicken.

We took inspiration from Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe and just added more fire. The basic idea is to create a marinade from greek yoghurt, lime, garam masala, chilli, ginger, garlic and coriander. You blitz this together, add some salt and allow the marinade to tenderise the meat and penetrate the flesh with the Indian flavours. About 3 hours will do the trick, but over night is ever better.

Given that we were catering for 10 we needed 3 chickens so we had to par-cook the legs and wings in the aga and blasted the breasts in the Cassius when he was at full heat. We’ve not been able to measure the temperature yet, but it is way hotter than any oven I’ve ever used.

The breasts cooked in about 15-20 minutes. They emerged with a charred, spicy crust and dripping with moisture inside. It’s a great technique. It wasn’t a bad result given that it was our first attempt. Next time I’m going to add more chilli to the marinade and make some naans.

What shall we cook in Cassius next?

Pizza Oven (Cassius) Progress

As my way of butting in on Cowie’s pizza oven project, I have not only decided that our clay oven will now be called “Cassius”, but I have also given him another layer of clay which means I have technically been part of the building process!

Despite dislocating my thumb in the “claying” process, it was a huge success. Cassius is now looking and cooking better than ever. Next time we are going to add an insulating layer of clay mixed with straw/sawdust which will help to bind it together and conserve heat. Once this is set and the structure seems sound we will add a cosmetic layer of clay and maybe even decorate Cassius with some mosaics and possibly a very manly name badge.

The next step will be to convince Cowie and her parents that they are desperately in need of an “outdoor kitchen” which will give us license to build a little table and sink to make the pizza making easier. It might also be a good idea for us to get a little bakers shovel so we don’t land up using the spade! Even though it does make for a great photo.

Here’s a photographic update:

After the first firing, it is quite natural for the clay to crack. It looks a bit like crazy paving. So to stop the cracking and to add strength you have to add another layer of clay mixed with sand which is what I’m doing with Andrew in the pictures.

You can see how wide the cracks are, but they are relatively cosmetic. I hope!

Our proscuito, olive, mozzarella and pepperoni pizza was awesome.

Great spade work from Andrew or Andreas as he likes to be called now!

Each time we fire up Cassius and cook a fresh batch of pizzas we get ever so slightly better. We’ve got our pizza dough down to a fine art and this time got the oven so hot we could barely stand near it – which wasn’t really the ideal way to welcome our new layer of clay to the oven! Once we’ve finished the oven fully we are looking forward to experimenting with sourdough pizza bases and baking/roasting things beyond pizza. I’ve got my eye on a porchetta recipe for instance.

If you’ve got any bright ideas for what we should cook in Cassius let us know.

Cowie’s Pizza Oven

Being the amazing girlfriend that she is, Cowie took it upon herself to build a pizza oven from scratch over Easter whilst I was back at home with my family. Not only is this an incredibly brilliant thing to do… it is also enormously selfless as the wheat in pizza dough doesn’t really agree with Cowie’s stomach. So it was quite literally a labour of love.

I’ve been desperate to have a clay pizza oven ever since we saw one at River Cottage. I bought the book , by the amazingly well named Kiko Denzer, that they recommended and became engrossed in the incredibly passionate world of DIY clay oven sites such as “instrucatables” and “clayoven”. I love the idea of crispy based pizza. Of charred, smoky crust.And of puffy dough.Of that Neanderthal smell of primal food. I guess it has brought out the latent Ray Mears in me.

If you want full instructions please visit this brilliant, brilliant site. But here’s a quick overview of how we bodged our oven together.Or rather how Cowie went about creating the best pizza oven anyone has ever made for me!

1.Persuade parents, landlords, other-halves etc. that they simply cannot carry on living without a pizza oven. Don’t underestimate how important stakeholder buy in is.
2.Build a base for your oven. This should get to a height at which you’d like to cook at.
3.Use a concrete slab as the floor to the oven. Or fireproof bricks.
4.On top of you base, build a dome of wet sand. Make sure the dome is the right size. You want space around the outside to form the clay oven. The sand is essentially mapping out the negative space that will become the inside of the oven.
5.Coat the outside of the wet sand with wet newspaper.
6.Dig up some clay and moisten. Mix with sand and build a layer of clay that covers the newspaper. Ensure this is around 2 inches to 3 inches thick. Make it as strong as possible.
7.Leave a hole at the front that is 63% of the height of the oven itself. Apparently this is the perfect ratio to allow the oven to breathe.
8.Once the dome is formed and secure, pull out the sand.
9.Light a small fire and allow the oven to dry.
10.Add a second skin of clay to fill in the cracks that will have formed.
11.Light another fire to continue the drying out process.
12.Add a third layer of clay as a cosmetic layer. Make it as smooth and attractive as possible.
13.Light a proper fire and get baking!

So far we’ve got to number 9. We got a bit overexcited and decided to cook in it straight away. To our joy it worked! (We’re going to finish the process next weekend.)

Cowie made some dough following a Jamie Oliver recipe and we threw together a collection of toppings. Given that we didn’t have any mozzarella we’re delighted with the results. The pizzas were gorgeously smoky, crispy and authentic. Step aside Zizzis!

We now can’t wait to evolve our technique. For instance I’m keen to make sourdough bases, buy a herd of buffalo and to harvest my own wheat. Also, if anyone knows where we can get a bakers’ paddle, please can you let us know.

Franco Manca

I took the rare opportunity of a day off in Brixton to sample the pizza at Franco Manca. After an in depth article in OFM a couple of months ago, the internet has been awash with chatter about this place. And I felt like it was my duty as a Brixton resident and foodie to see what all the fuss is about.

Foolishly I forgot to take a note of the address, assuming that it must be easy to find. But I found myself walking back and forth along Electric Avenue, dodging the market vendors, trying desperately to find this “hidden gem”. It always helps of course if you are actually on the right road. A quick call to 118500 and I was back on track. I was put through to Franco Manca who then guided me into the restaurant which was about 18 yards from where I was standing. The charming chap on the phone even spotted me and came to greet me. Top class service from beginning to end.

Snuggled into the heart of Brixton Market, remember, if you can, that it’s Unit 4, Electric Lane. The restaurant bridges both sides of the covered market alleyway which adds a great natural flow to environment. On either side are large pizza ovens that have been hand build over in Naples. They generate a temperature of 500’C which is the key to their sourdough pizzas having such a crispy crust and soft middle. I inspected them with great interest, taking notes for next year’s big project where I am planning to build an outdoor earth oven in the garden. Should be epic. If anyone’s got any advice, I’d love to hear from you.

I ordered the chorizo pizza which comes with dry and wet sausage from Brindisa. It arrived almost as soon as I had spoken. Given all the hype, I was determined not to be prejudiced and was hoping it would live up to all the noise. And it did. As promised it was gorgeously charred on the outside, with the appearance of tiger bread whilst the mozzarella, tomato and chorizo was perfectly cooked as well. The puffy crust was crisp on the outside and pillowy soft inside. A bit like a savoury, hot macaron!

The chorizo had a lick of char and otherwise was simply irresistible. I was tempted to add pepper and chilli oil but didn’t want to tamper with something that had been thought through so clearly. The mozzarella made almost made me giggle as it unwound as I tried to eat it like some sort of practical joke. All this fatty, carby goodness was washed down by a jar of their delicious home made lemonade followed the best espresso I’ve ever had for £1!

All the ingredients are impeccably sourced with superb credentials. But the crowning glory is the sourdough base that takes 20 hours of careful nurturing before it meets its glorious fate in the super charged ovens.

I was amused when two gentlemen in suits arrived and loudly asked “are you the guys who make the best pizza in London”. I felt like I stood out pretty badly in my brown cords and blue v-neck jumper, but I was a chameleon by comparison. It seems that word has spread and that this gem is fast becoming a lot less hidden.

Be warned that Franco Manca is only open on week days from 12-5. My pizza, lemonade and coffee came to well under a tenner.

I want to build an outdoor pizza oven

I need some help.

I’m determined to have a pizza party next summer in our garden and need to construct a fully functioning pizza oven in the spring. I’ve had a good look around the internet and can see there are a whole bunch of people building outdoor ovens for pizzas and general cooking purposes.

Can anyone offer me any advice about the pitfalls and things to watch out for. What design should I use? And are they easy to build?

I’ve found this video that seems to sum up what I want to do. I want to be able to stand there in my apron, put on my best Italian accent and wave around my massive baker’s spatula.

I found these photos on HeatKit which seems to be a Mecca for all things to do with building pizza ovens.

If there’s anyone out there who wants to help me build a pizza oven at my parent’s house near Bedford please get in touch. I really need some help!