Pizza with shallots and bresaola

Put just over 400 ml of water in a bowl and mix in as much bread flour as will easily go in, about 475 g, with no kneading, just to get all the flour wet.

Dig a hole in the centre, cover, and autolyse for an hour, which makes the kneading much easier.

Eyeball in a couple tablespoons of malted barley syrup, then a quarter cup of warm water into the hole with a little syrup drizzled in to feed the yeast.

Stir in a packet of dry yeast, two or three teaspoons, and leave about 10 minutes to check it is alive.

Add a glug of olive oil and about a tablespoon, 15 g, of coarse salt, plus another handful of flour to take up the loose moisture.

Knead at most five minutes, adding the minimum flour needed to handle it, until solid and stretchy.

Bulk ferment covered for an hour or two until big and puffy, which gives a chewier crust that puffs more in the oven.

Punch down and divide into four balls, dusting with flour as needed, and rise them again in oiled containers, using the dough to paint the oil around.

Seal and rise a couple more hours on the counter, or refrigerate a day and up to a week for better flavour.

For the sauce, use at most half a cup of ground tomatoes per pizza with dried basil, dried oregano, a little garlic powder, ground pepper, a pinch of chili flakes, a pinch of sugar and a glug of olive oil, stirred together.

Grate or crumble 113 g of cold low-moisture mozzarella, cut half a shallot into thin strips, and pick parsley leaves.

Powder the peel all the way around with cornmeal and flour.

Stretch the cold dough by gravity, turning and pinching out the outer ring, and finish stretching it on the peel a little wider than wanted since it contracts.

Spread a very thin layer of sauce, then a layer of parmesan under the mozzarella.

Thread the toppings through the cheese: some bresaola, then cheese partly covering it, more cheese, shallot strips, more bresaola, more cheese, the rest of the shallot, and parsley leaves on top. Shake the peel between additions so it releases.

Bake seven minutes on a pizza steel preheated an hour on the oven's highest convection setting, then move straight to a cooling rack, which keeps the bottom crispy.