Meet Abraham Mathew - @abramatt

Meet Abraham Mathew aka @Abramatt. He lives in a small town called Irinjalakuda in the Southern state of Kerala in India. Abraham is one of those home pizza makers who really took his obsession to the next level by installing a legit wood-fired pizza oven on his pack patio! Check it out here and give him a follow to see more of his amazing pizzas and stunning photos taken by his wife, Samantha (@hungrypenkutty).

How often do you make pizza?
Mostly every Sunday and maybe a weekday as well in case I need to do a new dough trial!

How long have you been making pizza at home?
I have been baking pizza for a long time now. But I think I’ve got into some serious baking only post lockdown. I got the oven in December close to Christmas. Till then I was baking in a old modified home oven and that was quite tricky! Serious research and pizza baking started maybe around July - August  2020.

What style of pizza do you make?
I think I’m most inspired by the classic Neapolitan pizza. So the ones I do mostly would be the Neapolitan style pizzas. I started baking with sourdough but now I do bake with biga too. Recently I have been doing a lot of research on New York style and have been doing trials as well. 

What’s one piece of gear you can’t live without?
My oven! It’s a hybrid oven by Marco Cappiotti and It’s safe to say that I’m quite obsessed with it. 

Who/what are your biggest pizza inspirations?
That’s a tough one as there are too many people that I draw inspiration from. Well watching videos of Chef Franco Pepe (@francopepeingrani) definitely inspired me to dive deep into the world of Neapolitan pizzas. Marc Iacono (@Lucali_bk), Joe Beddia (@pizzacamp), Anthony Mangieri (@unapizzanapoletana), to name a few!

Any advice for new pizza makers?
As long as you love the art and you keep making a better pizza than your last one, you are heading in the right direction! 🍕❤️

Anything else you’d like to share?
Finding the right ingredients for pizza was always the issue in India, especially from where I am. Local produce  don’t really match up either. After months of digging around I’ve finally found sources for the best of flour, tomatoes and hard cheese all flown in from Italy. And the fresh mozzarella comes from a cheesery close to home. In a few months time our restaurant space should be up and running. Hoping to bring a slice of Italy to my small town 🙂