Neapolitan style pizza from a wood-fired oven

Make the biga: mix a quarter teaspoon of instant yeast into a quarter cup of room temperature water.

Add 100 g of double zero flour and work by hand to a smooth stiff dough with no unhydrated flour.

Leave at room temperature, ideally 75 F, for 12 to 16 hours; this one went 13 hours.

It is ready when it has more than doubled, is bubbly, slightly domed, and collapses when tapped.

Mix the flour, yeast, salt and water in the stand mixer on low with the dough hook.

As the dough comes together, add the biga in pieces so it incorporates.

Mix to medium gluten development, then add the oil and mix slow for about five to ten minutes more.

Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and bulk ferment about an hour at 75 F.

Divide on an oiled surface into four portions of about seven and a half ounces.

Shape each into a tight round: pull one edge up and over itself, then push and rotate with the scraper until it forms a smooth dome.

Set seam side down on an oiled baking sheet, oil the tops, cover loosely and refrigerate two to 24 hours.

Drain the canned tomatoes, split them open by hand and take out the seeds.

Pass the tomatoes through a food mill set over a bowl.

Season the puree with sea salt, red pepper flakes, dried oregano and olive oil; taste and adjust.

Coat a dough ball in flour, dimple it, push the bubbles outward to establish a rim, then stretch on the backs of the hands.

Rub semolina into the peel and stretch the dough out on it.

Top with minimal tomato sauce, torn mozzarella and a little salt, working fast so it does not stick to the peel.

First attempt, for the record: at about 350 F the dough did not puff and would not release from the peel.

Push the coals back, put fresh logs around the perimeter and get flames up and around the dome.

Sweep the ash off the oven floor.

Launch onto the oven floor; at over 700 F it bubbles and sets almost immediately and bakes in about two minutes.

Finish with red pepper flakes, a little olive oil, stracciatella and freshly torn basil.