flour or cornmeal Pizza Discuss flour or cornmeal in the Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart forums; My apologies sssmasi. I'm not trying to stir the pot and make trouble. In jest is was. Cheers, Versachi...

[Versachi]

My apologies sssmasi. I'm not trying to stir the pot and make trouble. In jest is was.

Cheers, Versachi

I'm surprised no one has mentioned semolina. It's been a preference of many of the chefs I've worked with.

[redbricknick]

We use polenta at home in Tas. It's like little ball bearings. Polenta and cornmeal are the same essentially right?

[james]

I think that cornmeal can taste and feel a little gritty in your mouth. There's one vote. You also can't use cornmeal with Vera Pizza Napoletana. There's a second vote.

For me, there seems to be a fine line between having the right amount of flour to make sure everything slides off the peel, without having a bunch of flour on the bottom of your pizza -- which doesn't taste good and can even burn.

Have you seen our cool "waffle pattern" pizza peel that has holes to let excess flour drop down?

http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_peel...l-anatomy.html

I also like the "dock" that you see in pizzerias in Naples. It is a notch cut into the marble work surface where the peel rests. The pizzaiolo literally pulls that pizza onto the peel. Fun to watch, hard to do.

James

[sssmasi]

Originally Posted by redbricknick

We use polenta at home in Tas. It's like little ball bearings. Polenta and cornmeal are the same essentially right?

Well in my family when we say polenta we are talking about cooked cornmeal. Basically the way we do that is boil water, add salt, then slowly poor cornmeal into the boiling water until it is the right consistency. Turn to low heat and stir it every 10mins for an hour. Its pretty simple to make and tastes great. You can serve it like mashed potatoes with a bit of sauce on top, cut it into squares after it has cooled, put in a dish flat and bake it in the oven with sauce and cheese on it ect... there are lots of possibilities.

so basically... polenta is a dish and cornmeal is a raw product.