Wood fired ovens and the pizza dream team

This week at Numero 182 has seen more seeds planted in the poly tunnel; more tiny seedlings springing into life; a beautiful new set of shelves constructed in the poly tunnel (doubling its capacity); some long overdue burning of brambles that were cleared from the uppermost terraces way back in October (yes, Allison, those piles - although more raking & burning is still needed!); a lot more dirty, dusty work on the apartment ceiling (this time taking up the concrete floor in the office); some beautiful warm spring weather (spring? who am I kidding?, the weather this week has been better than an entire British summer - we hit 29.5C yesterday!!); and 31 March was the first evening since October that we haven't needed to light the fire in the house.

Teeny tiny tropea onions.

A bean stalk!

Beautiful self-propagated borage.

Artichoke.

New fruit trees going in.

New shelves: capacity doubled!

Burn, baby burn.

Office floor Saturday morning.

Office floor Saturday mid-afternoon.

Office floor Saturday night.

Office floor Sunday afternoon.

The apartment bedroom is/was under there somewhere...

Of course, all of that was interspersed with the usual dog walks, Italian lessons, supermarket trips and almost daily trips to Frateschi - although on Friday Stuart decided enough was enough and decided to pay the extra to get Frateschi to deliver materials to us: despite its spacious bus-like qualities, there's only so much that will fit into our car and while it seems extravagant to pay €35 for one of the Frateschi guys to spend 5 minutes chugging up the hill in the truck, it made a lot of sense to get all the of the rest of the cotto tiles and bags of concrete that we will need to finish the apartment ceiling delivered to us, job done.

That little lot should see us through to finish the floor/ceiling.

Dog walking.

The week hasn't been without its social events either, and what a social we had! On Wednesday we were invited up to Vellano to the property where Stuart has spent a fair bit of time working with David building new concrete steps, cutting trees, helping set up a swimming pool, and clearing land - the home of British couple Paul and Veronica. Paul and Veronica had come over to Italy for a short break over Easter and had kindly invited us, along with David, Sarah and Donatella, for a pizza evening. This wasn't just any old pizza though - it was to be the first time they had used their wood-fired pizza oven since buying the house 8-9 years ago.

Cooking on ... wood.

Wood-fired cooking has, of course, been going on for millennia, and round ovens built with bricks or local stones have been built in Italy for many centuries - indeed, 30 brick ovens were found in very good condition among the ruins of Pompeii, some of which even still had petrified bread in them.

The abundance of bread production in Italy (every region has its own particular style of bread - if not more than one style) has been attributed to the popularity of these brick ovens throughout the centuries - unlike in some other countries, where it was rare for individuals to have their own ovens or the rights to use one, Italian families did typically own ovens, albeit fairly small ones. Communal ovens were also common though, and you can still see the old communal ovens in many of the old villages - people would knead their own dough at home and then take it to the public oven to cook it.

The communal oven in Castello di Tocchi.

Our house had its own wood-fired oven, which was situated at the back of the house in just about the spot that our new 300L hot water tank now occupies. The oven could be accessed either from inside the house (during the colder months presumably this was the preferred option and brought warmth into the house) or from outside.

Sadly, the wood oven at Numero 182 was knocked down long before we bought the house, but we do have some photographs of it in its dilapidated state - and the new woodshed floor is built on its foundations.

Wood oven from the outside - sadly we never saw it.

The oven from outside.

The blocked up indoor access to the wood oven is the spot on the wall covered in  what looks like test paint patches.

We do plan to reinstate an outdoor wood-fired oven at some point, but this is likely to involve having to apply for yet more planning permissions (despite not being in any way attached to the house) and is still a little way down our list of important jobs to be done. When we do finally get around to it though, we will be calling on the expertise of our friend David, who has been on a River Cottage wood-fired-oven-building course and will be able to give help, direction and guidance on its construction.

Traditionally, wood fires would be started with bundles of small twigs known (in England at least) as faggots. Pieces of wood would then added in increasing size until the oven got up to full temperature, at which point it would retain a lot of its heat thanks to its construction.

The chimney of a wood fired oven is at the front, above the opening. This means that the flames are drawn across the ceiling of the oven and the smoke is drawn straight out at the front, creating a veritable inferno - the temperature can easily get up to 500-600C.

Bread was perhaps the most basic and staple food item baked in a wood fired oven - to bake bread, once the fire had died down a little, the dough would be placed in the oven and then the oven would be closed with a wooden door doused in water to create a steamy environment inside the oven.

Wednesday was all about pizza though, and despite owning the property for several years, Paul and Veronica had never before got around to trying out the wood oven that lives in a snug little outhouse at their property. You'd never had know that this was the first time they'd used it though - Paul had cleaned it up a couple of days prior, and by the time we arrived, he and David had got the fire going and looking toasty, and a table was all set in the cosy outhouse next to the oven.

Earlier in the day, David and Sarah had procured a batch of pizza dough from Vinicio, a guy in the village who is famous for his bread and pizzas. Vinicio is the father of Serena and Simone, who run the Bistrot in Vellano, and it is he who makes the pizzas that the restaurant serves every weekend. For a fresh batch of 1.6kg of dough (which was more than enough to feed 7 of us), Vinicio wanted no more than €2.60 for his efforts!

With Vinicio's dough, and the toppings and cooking masterfully handled by the dream team of Paul and David (later joined by Stuart), we were soon tucking into amazing piping hot pizzas with delicious toppings and perfect crispy bases.

After rolling out the dough to the right size to fit on the paddle, the pizza base must be well floured underneath so that it slides easily off the paddle into the fire and can be spun easily to get an even cooking. By the time the oven was properly up to temperature, pizzas were cooking in little more than a minute - you can tell when a real wood-fired oven pizza is cooking by the way the dough bubbles up as it cooks, and once it has a good golden colour it's done, although it has to be said that the extra crispy, almost charred bits add extra taste and authenticity and are just as important.

Favourite topping combinations of the night, for me, would have to be the thinly sliced potato with gorgonzola (potato on a pizza? it works, try it!), but close contenders were the tuna, onion and pepper, the mushroom & gorgonzola, the ham & cheese, the vegetarian (tomatoes, cheese, courgette, onion and peppers), and even the plain garlic, olive oil and salt. Simply delicious!

We had a lovely evening in great company, and the opportunity to experience our first wood-fired pizza cooking (in person rather than in a restaurant) was fantastic - a really great way to spend an evening and it made us even more determined to make our "project wood-fired oven" a priority.