This is the perfect pizza dough. It really develops flavor with the slow refrigerated rise. This is a take on a pizza dough from La Cucina Italiana, but it’s also pretty darn close to the dough I used to make at Pirro’s in San Francisco back in the ’60s and early ’70s.

• 360 ml warm water (105°F/38ºC to 110°F/40ºC)
• 1 g active dry yeast
• 500 g “00” flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (plus more for dusting)
• 10 g fine sea salt
• Olive oil for the bowl

Sprinkle yeast over warm water in bowl of mixer fitted with dough hook. Let proof about 5 minutes.

Mix together flour and salt. Add to yeast mixture. Mix on low speed about 4 minutes or until dough forms a coarse ball. Stop mixer and cover bowl with a towel. Let dough rest about 5 minutes, then remove towel and continue mixing another 2 minutes or so.

Lightly oil a large bowl. Form dough into a ball, transfer to bowl and turn to lightly coat with oil. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes, then refrigerate overnight.

Punch down dough, re-roll, and return to bowl. Tightly cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.

Divide dough into 2 pieces; shape pieces into balls and place on a lightly floured work surface. Loosely cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise at warm room temperature until doubled, about 2 hours.

Pizza is best cooked on a pizza stone in a VERY hot oven – 500°F+. At Pirro’s, our ovens were set at 650°F.