This guide to using an outdoor oven “skillfully guides the reader” with photos, directions, and recipes for everything from pizza to poultry (Alice Waters). Andrea Mugnaini has spent over twenty years perfecting the craft of wood-fired cooking. A pioneer of the industry, she founded the first cooking school dedicated to wood-fired cooking—and her oven importing company has brought the Italian style of cooking and living to America. The Art of Wood-Fired Cooking begins with detailed instructional information on the ins and outs of the wood-burning oven. Mugnaini reveals the methods she has been teaching through her classes—and shares delicious recipes for pizzas, breads, fish, poultry, meats, vegetables, pastas, and desserts. Fire up the oven and enjoy: Butterflied Shrimp Zucchini Gratin with Tomatoes and Gruyere Tuscan-Style Pot Roast with Herbs and Chianti Focaccia with Onions and Thyme Limoncello Bread Pudding with Fresh Blackberries

This contemporary collection of more than 100 recipes from chef-instructor Mary Karlin covers the range of wood-fired cooking options available to home cooks. From flame-licked Plank-Roasted Porterhouse or Grilled Naan to a hearth-baked Milanese Risotto, Leek, and Asparagus Tart or Warm Chocolate-Chipotle Cakes, Karlin's unassuming yet refined kitchen sensibility shines through in every dish. With a vast knowledge of terrific ingredients, the diverse flavor characteristics of hardwoods, and the best live-fire techniques and equipment now available, Karlin is a passionate advocate for this growing trend. Her globally inspired Indian, Italian, Mediterranean, American, and North African recipes for cooking over live flame and embers are paired with contributions from Peter Reinhart, Bruce Aidells, Deborah Madison, and other fired-up chefs. Whether you're a seasoned barbecue expert or you just bought your first bag of lump charcoal, Wood-Fired Cooking will have you stoking appetites in no time.

Take pizza night to the next level with this essential guide to wood-fired cooking from Anthony Tassinello, chef at Berkeley, California's famed Chez Panisse restaurant. "I have always had a passion for fire and wood ovens. Anthony's own love for cooking with fire is contagious and his knowledge about wood-fired pizza is all encompassing. This is an inspiring and well-written book from a teacher you can really trust!" — Alice Waters, author of The Art of Simple Food and owner of Chez Panisse Chef Anthony Tassinello has created the must-have cookbook for serving up homemade pizza with your wood-fired oven. From classics like Margherita Pizza to more elevated fare like Stinging Nettle and Chanterelle Mushroom Pizza, he walks you through the time-tested tradition of preparing—and savoring—the perfect pizza. More than 85 recipes—Learn how to make basics like dough and sauce, popular pizzas like cheese and pepperoni, and unique flavor combos like artichoke and thyme, along with calzones, hand pies, focaccia, and beyond. Get to know your oven—Find Anthony's tips and techniques for mastering your oven and taking advantage of everything wood-fired cooking has to offer. Make it a pizza party—With a section on perfectly paired cocktails, refreshing side salads, and sample menus, you can create a night of food and fun your friends and family will never forget. Transform simple ingredients into mouthwatering meals with the Essential Wood-Fired Pizza Cookbook.

In the past twenty years, interest in wood-fired ovens has increased dramatically in the United States and abroad, but most books focus on how to bake bread or pizza in an oven. From the Wood-Fired Oven offers many more techniques for home and artisan bakers--from baking bread and making pizza to recipes on how to get as much use as possible out of a single oven firing, from the first live-fire roasting to drying wood for the next fire. From the Wood-Fired Oven offers a new take on traditional techniques for professional bakers, but is simple enough to inspire any nonprofessional baking enthusiast. Leading baker and instructor Richard Miscovich wants people to use their ovens to fulfill the goal of maximum heat utilization. Readers will find methods and techniques for cooking and baking in a wood-fired oven in the order of the appropriate temperature window. What comes first--pizza, or pastry? Roasted vegetables or a braised pork loin? Clarified butter or beef jerky? In addition to an extensive section of delicious formulas for many types of bread, readers will find chapters on: - Making pizza and other live-fire flatbreads; - Roasting fish and meats; - Grilling, steaming, braising, and frying; - Baking pastry and other recipes beyond breads; - Rendering animal fats and clarifying butter; - Food dehydration and infusing oils; - And myriad other ways to use the oven's residual heat. Appendices include oven-design recommendations, a sample oven temperature log, Richard's baker's percentages, proper care of a sourdough starter, and more. . . . From the Wood Fired Oven is more than a cookbook; it reminds the reader of how a wood-fired oven (and fire, by extension) draws people together and bestows a sense of comfort and fellowship, very real human needs, especially in uncertain times. Indeed, cooking and baking from a wood-fired oven is a basic part of a resilient lifestyle, and a perfect example of valuable traditional skills being put to use in modern times.

The Ultimate Wood-Fired Oven Cookbook tells you everything you need to know about your oven, from initial setting up to choice of woods, plus tips and tricks for perfecting cooking times, and of course, over 70 amazing recipes. Most people start with authentic pizza and flatbreads cooked at high temperature, and Genevieve Taylor talks you step-by-step through the foolproof way to achieve the world's best-tasting wood-fired pizza. But these ovens are infinitely more versatile, and she goes on to show how you can roast and grill (everything from Portuguese clams with white wine, garlic and coriander to Kebabs and Cheese toasties), then bake as the oven starts to cool (Beetroot focaccia with goat's cheese and sage, and even Fig, honey and brandy clafoutis), and ultimately use the dying embers to slow-roast (Lamb shoulder with fennel) or simply leave to cook overnight (dishes like Barbecoa beef brisket and Overnight porridge). With The Ultimate Wood-Fired Oven Cookbook, you'll master both the equipment and your cooking, getting the best out of your oven and your fuel, and enjoying the most delectable, memorable food you've ever eaten.

70 recipes for incredible stone-baked pizzas and breads, roasts, cakes and desserts, all specially devised for the outdoor oven and illustrated in over 400 photographs.

Earth ovens combine the utility of a wood-fired, retained-heat oven with the ease and timeless beauty of earthen construction. Building one will appeal to bakers, builders, and beginners of all kinds, from: - the serious or aspiring baker who wants the best low-cost bread oven, to - gardeners who want a centerpiece for a beautiful outdoor kitchen, to - outdoor chefs, to - creative people interested in low-cost materials and simple technology, to - teachers who want a multi-faceted, experiential project for students of all ages (the book has been successful with everyone from third-graders to adults). Build Your Own Earth Oven is fully illustrated with step-by-step directions, including how to tend the fire, and how to make perfect sourdough hearth loaves in the artisan tradition. The average do-it-yourselfer with a few tools and a scrap pile can build an oven for free, or close to it. Otherwise, $30 should cover all your materials--less than the price of a fancy "baking stone." Good building soil is often right in your back yard, under your feet. Build the simplest oven in a day! With a bit more time and imagination, you can make a permanent foundation and a fire-breathing dragon-oven or any other shape you can dream up. Earth ovens are familiar to many that have seen a southwestern "horno" or a European "bee-hive" oven. The idea, pioneered by Egyptian bakers in the second millennium BCE, is simplicity itself: fill the oven with wood, light a fire, and let it burn down to ashes. The dense, 3- to 12-inch-thick earthen walls hold and store the heat of the fire, the baker sweeps the floor clean, and the hot oven walls radiate steady, intense heat for hours. Home bakers who can't afford a fancy, steam-injected bread oven will be delighted to find that a simple earth oven can produce loaves to equal the fanciest "artisan" bakery. It also makes delicious roast meats, cakes, pies, pizzas, and other creations. Pizza cooks to perfection in three minutes or less. Vegetables, herbs, and potatoes drizzled with olive oil roast up in minutes for a simple, elegant, and delicious meal. Efficient cooks will find the residual heat useful for slow-baked dishes, and even for drying surplus produce, or incubating homemade yogurt.