Whereas I am an enormous fan of chilly pizza, I oftentimes discover myself wistfully desirous to relive the glory of the recent pie. Realizing that it is not possible to roll the clock backward on a pizza—which begins its decline virtually instantly after popping out of the oven—I’ve by no means given a lot thought to checking out whether or not there was a really perfect method to go about reheating chilly pizza. I’ve simply assumed that one of the best you might do was throw it right into a scorching oven till it is heated via, and resign your self to the truth that the crust on a reheated slice by no means approaches the feel of a freshly-baked one. Whereas the oven can restore to a slice among the crispness and pliability it had when recent, it does so on the expense of a lot of the moisture it contained. A reheated slice, irrespective of how tasty, is inevitably crisper, drier, and firmer than it had been initially, since some proportion of the water it contained has been pushed off within the course of. Now for individuals who can afford to splurge on steam-injection options, the Balmuda toaster can work wonders in reviving stale pizza — however there are different strategies.

Griddle Me This: The Advantages of Griddling Pizza

However I’ve just lately discovered a greater technique, one which minimizes this moisture loss as a lot as attainable. I stumbled upon solely accidentally, when someday I might determined I did not wish to waste the time to fireplace up my whole oven to reheat a couple of measly slices. Missing a toaster oven—the usual weapon of alternative for reheating pizza slices—I made a decision to attempt heating up my slices on the (little-used) griddle I’ve on my range, putting them beneath the chrome steel cowl that’s meant to cover it away when not in use.

Doing so, I believed, would warmth the slices way more shortly and effectively than the oven, and the duvet would create a shallow oven-like house, permitting them to be heated via fully and never merely from under. However I used to be so hungry on the time, I made a decision I could not wait even lengthy sufficient for the griddle to warmth up. As a substitute, I simply threw the slices onto the chilly griddle, coated it, and turned it on. Because the slices can be sitting so near the gasoline burner itself, I didn’t wish to scorch or overcook them, so I set the griddle to its lowest temperature (200°F).

About thirty minutes later, what emerged from beneath the duvet was a puff of steam, together with my slices, now fully reworked. As a substitute of the stiff, barely warped slices that they had been when chilly, they had been flat as soon as once more, and the cheese on them was gooey and shiny. And with one chew, I knew I used to be onto one thing. Whereas these slices had been nonetheless not fairly pretty much as good as that they had been when recent—they remained a contact extra crisp and barely drier—that they had a far brisker texture than I had skilled ever earlier than in a reheated slice. The crust was smooth within the inside and crisp on the underside, the cheese totally melted, and the toppings supple and scorching.

The subsequent few occasions I had leftover pizza with which to experiment, I performed round with the tactic to verify I understood the approach. I knew that the moisture- and heat-trapping cowl was important, however wasn’t certain concerning the heating technique itself. I attempted putting the slices onto a preheated griddle, however that solely served to over-crisp and dry out the slices, leaving them stiff as planks. As did beginning out with a chilly griddle set to the next temperature. In the long run, I decided that the three important components of the tactic had been ranging from chilly, overlaying the griddle, and heating the slices at a temperature under the boiling level of water (212°F).

Retrogradation

To make sense of why this technique labored so properly, it is necessary to know what occurs to the crust as soon as a slice of pizza begins its inevitable post-bake decline. It would not merely flip stiff as a result of it is chilly, it truly stales, similar to a loaf of bread does over time.

Staling, or retrogradation, is the method by which the starches within the bread launch the water they comprise into the encompassing areas and agency up*. As long as the water launched by the starches stays within the surrounding gluten, the staling course of could be partially reversed by reheating the bread above 140°F, the temperature at which wheat starches take up water and gelatinize (e.g., grow to be smooth and pliable). For this reason toasting {a partially} stale slice of bread can restore softness to its inside.

But when the water launched by the starches escapes from the bread, both via gradual evaporation, or quickly, when it’s heated above the boiling level (212°F), the starches will now not have water to reabsorb, and all hope is misplaced.

So what this implies is that to get the absolute best reheated pizza slice, you wish to warmth it to above the gelatinization level, however under the purpose that the moisture shall be pushed off. A slice of pizza positioned right into a scorching oven acts like a slice of bread in a toaster: the outside (together with the cheese and toppings) quickly heats up, loses water, and hardens. Solely the very inside of the slice retains sufficient water to re-gelatinize. When as an alternative heated gently on a coated griddle, the slice is slowly and uniformly introduced as much as the gelatinization level, and solely a small quantity of water is misplaced to evaporation, principally on the one place you truly need it to occur: the underside crust. Reheating the slice in a small, enclosed house additional helps to attenuate the quantity of water that’s misplaced through the course of, and the trapped moisture—which escaped within the puff of steam that I noticed after I eliminated the griddle cowl—truly helps to melt the cheese and toppings.

So does this imply you might be S.O.L. if you do not have a griddle on which to reheat your pizza? Fortunately, no. The strategy works simply as properly in a coated skillet, ideally one which has a tight-fitting lid and is as shallow as attainable, to attenuate the quantity of water that’s misplaced as steam. The one limitation to the skillet technique is you could solely reheat at most two or three slices at one time.

*Retrogradation occurs most quickly at temperatures simply above freezing, which is why you might be higher off leaving leftover pizza in your countertop and ending it off earlier than it has an opportunity to spoil, moderately than refrigerating it.

March 2011