In pizza we crust. In pizza we trust.

In this “My Scooter Sunday, I found myself back on Jalan Doraisamy. As I mentioned last week, there is so much to see, do, and taste here, that I am now on part three of the Chow Kit series. The route I took to Jalan Doraisamy is the same as I took last week, i.e., via the Federal Highway, Jalan Dang Wangi, Jalan Sultan Ismail onto my destination. JuJu (my Vespa Primavera) was set-up with the GOPRO, and the cell phone so I could enjoy the music. 

Talking about music, I have gone ethnic again. This time, my riding song is Funiculi, Funicula, and my writing song is O Sole Mio, and both songs are sung by the Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti. A famous song from Naples, Funiculi, Funicula was composed by Luigi Denza in 1880 to mark the opening of the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius in Italy.

“Pizza isn’t so much a food as an entire culinary category, ranging from the two-dollar frozen stuff you snag at the grocery store to the ultra-expensive pies at a fancy sit-down restaurant” (Tasting Table 2022). There are more than fourteen different styles of pizza: New York, Sicilian, Roman, Brooklyn, Chicago, Neapolitan, St. Louis, Buffalo, Detroit, California, Miami, Calabrian, New Haven, and New England.

The New York pizza first came to New York with the Italian immigrants, rather than being cooked in a coal oven, this pizza is baked in a gas oven. The Sicilian pizza, however, is baked in a deep dish, and has a thicker crust, with more chewiness than the New York cousin. The Roman, on the other hand, is baked as a long, rectangular pie with little cheese, lots of sauce, and a thin crust. Unlike the other pizzas that are served by the slice, this pizza is served “by the measure”. By contrast, the Neapolitan (from Naples) pizza has a thin soggy center with a charred crispy crust, and fresh mozzarella on the top (Tasting Table 2022).

Like Uncle John in Limapulo, Ken Forkish spent many years in an alternate profession before he found his passion. He said, “I answered the call of the ancient Chines curse: “May you live in interesting times””. After he left corporate America, Forkish opened Ken’s Artisan Bakery in 2001, and Ken’s Artisan Pizza in 2006, both in Portland, Oregon. He trained in several places like the San Francisco Baking Institute, and Toscana Saporita in Italy. In addition, he also authored a few books, including “Flour Water Salt Yeast” (Forkish, Random House, 2012). As I did in “Malu, Malu, Malu”, for Yarl, I am taking excerpts from this book.

But to enjoy the real pizza experience, I ran a parallel story in Kuala Lumpur. And the pizza place of my choice is Heritage Pizza at The Row on Jalan Doraisamy in Chow Kit. On 15^th September 2022, Heritage Pizza will be two years old. It is owned by Mr. Tony, who is in the Aerospace industry, but whose real love is food, especially pizza. Heritage is his first pizza restaurant.

Speaking to the pizza guy (he prefers not to be called a chef) at Heritage Pizza, his journey to pizza was not by choice. After his culinary training at Berjaya University, Aneel Naicker, got an internship at the Westin Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. He wanted to cook steak, but he got pizza instead, and so, pizza was not his first love. “It was more like an arranged marriage with other partners, and you eventually fall in love”.

At Ken’s Artisan Pizza, we baked pizza pies inspired by the Neapolitan pizzas that Alan and I had enjoyed during various trips to Italy. Our pies are individual pies, about 12 inches in diameter, with a very thin crust. Our cooks toss the dough in the air in spiraling fashion to get a perfect distribution of thin dough rather than for effect, but the flying disks make great theater too (Forkish 202).

At Heritage Pizza, they make a hybrid pie; a hybrid of the Neapolitan, and the Roman. Their hybrid pizza takes on the crunchiness of the Roman, and the looks of the Neapolitan. And they call this unique style, Heritage. This style comprises of using simple ingredients such as flour, water, salt and yeast. And instead of measuring the pizza by the diameter, they measure it by the dough weight; each ball of dough should weigh between 250 and 260 grams. And they do not toss their dough in the air, but they do toss it from side to side. They occasionally do toss the dough in the air, but it is usually as theatre for the kids.

Talking about pizza dough, Naicker said, “Good dough before cooking has networking, and air bubbles in it while good dough after cooking has a honeycomb effect in the crust. The type of flour we use is Italian double zero flour, which is what 90 percent of pizza places in Malaysia use”.

What makes a great pizza sauce? The tomatoes. Most store-bought canned tomatoes have too much acidity to make a great pizza sauce, which is why many recipes for pizza sauce include some sugar. When cooked, maybe these tomatoes can make a nice pasta sauce but we don’t cook the tomato sauce for pizza. Rather, it cooks in the pie, while its baking, which allows the sauce to retain a freshness of flavour (Forkish 207).

Heritage Pizza also considers tomatoes to be the most important ingredient in pizza sauce. They import their plump tomatoes from Italy. The sauce is fresh, it is not cooked beforehand; it only cooks for the short time that the pizza is in the oven.

The toppings are on the minimal side, as the intention is for the crust, sauce, and toppings to be in balance. We also aim for a slight char on the bottom and perimeter of the crust. A slight char. It isn’t easy. Things happen fast at 750^oF (399^oC). The whole-milk mozzarella we use is completely melted, a milky ooze with just a touch of brown on top. The tips of fresh basil leaves that bake on the top of the pizza are just a little crisp (Forkish 202).

At Heritage Pizza, they offer a selection of pizzas: meat, seafood and vegetarian. The top seller in the meat category is the Diavola, which is Italian for devil; it is topped with tomato sauce, cheese, salami and charred chilies. Topping the seafood category are the Tonno Cipolla (Tuna and Onion), and the Bottarga (a salted and cured product of fish roe). The former has tomato sauce, cheese, Italian tuna, onions and capers, while the latter is a white pizza. And the top seller in the vegetarian corner is the Margherita, which has tomato sauce, cheese and basil leaves. The pizzas are baked at 400^oC (752^oF), and have what they call “leopard spotting”, i.e., spots of charring. This is a hallmark of a wood fire pizza.

Sitting at the pizza counter, I ate the piping hot Margherita. The appearance of the pizza was fabulous; it had slight charring, and sported the colours of the Italian flag, red, white and green. The scent of the mangrove wood burning in the nearby oven, only enhanced its flavour. The pizza was delicious; it just melted in your mouth. It also had the right balance of crust, sauce, and cheese. I also tried the Diavola. The charred chilies gave this pizza a nice kick. This pizza was magnificent! As far as I am concerned, both these pizzas rank up there with the pizzas I tried in Florence, Italy.

The oven has a big pile of red embers in the back, and you can see its large, dancing, flame from the street. We keep thinly split pieces of oak, madrone, and occasionally other hardwoods in the cutout at the base of the oven and constantly feed the oven’s fire through each evening’s service. In the morning, there is plenty of heat left for baking croutons and other items before lighting a new flame at noon. The restaurant oven has fire burning in at least ten hours each day, every day of the week (Forkish 202).

The oven at Heritage Pizza is a dome brick oven, which is about four feet in diameter. The make is Marana. The wood they use is Mangrove wood, which is sourced from the state of Perak. For example, in this brick oven, which is at 400^oC (752^oF), the Margherita cooks in about one and a half minutes. The Diavola cooks in about the same time too.

Slide the pizza onto a wood surface so you can cut it. At this stage, I like to drizzle a bit of best-quality extra-virgin olive oil over the top. Enjoy the aromas while you slice the pizza, then serve it immediately, with olive oil, chile flakes, and sea salt at the table as garnishes. Some Italian traditionalists prefer to serve the pizza unsliced. That is fine too, but cutting through fresh baked dough on a ceramic plate is more than I want to hassle with. I like to pick up the pieces (Forkish 212).

At Heritage Pizza, once the pizza is baked, it is sliced, drizzled with (only) extra-virgin olive oil, garnished and served. As for the final word on Pizza, Naicker said, “At Heritage Pizza, we stay true to the Italian culture. No pineapples. I am a firm believer that pineapples do not belong on pizza”.

I completed “My Scooter Sunday” with the same route back to Petaling Jaya. My roundtrip journey is 30 km and one hour long. And on my return journey I listened to La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, and Luciano Pavarotti. My nonagenarian mother selected this piece of music for me. And what I enjoyed most was eating the Margherita, and the Diavola, talking to Naicker, and Nick (Batman and Robin), and riding JuJu to Pavarotti’s La Traviata.

Here’s to La Bella Vita! Here’s to The Good Life!

Scootin’ off for now!

Heritage Pizza: 26-G Jalan Doraisamy, Chow Kit, 50300, K.L. Tel: 03-260-21919
Operating Hours: 12 pm to 9:30 pm. Closed on Monday.
https://heritagepizza.weeat.asia/cust/#/seller?np

Flour Water Salt Yeast, Ken Forkish, 2012, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley.