PIZZA

PIZZA

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INGREDIENTS:

For 4 people who love eating a lot of pizza when they do it :)

1. water
2. 2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
3. 800 g high grade flour 
4. 1Tbs salt
5. fresh yeast (granulate yeast or a cube of fresh yeast) 

PREPARATION of THE DOUGH:

Warm up the water a bit, the yeast doesn't work with cold water but neither works with boiling water. If you use granulate yeast  mix 2 Tbs of it with the dry ingredients; in case you have the cube of fresh yeast one is enough and you will need to dissolve it first with the water.

Place the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Mix them all together. Then make a well using a spoon; inside that place the oil an a bit of water; start gently mixing together the liquid with the flour, moving the spoon in always slightly bigger circles; keep on adding warm water and stir until it is too difficult to mix with the spoon. Then use the hands, move the dough with your palm and push it; you need to "work it" adding water until it becomes an elastic ball of dough. I mean, not hard, not liquid bat a ball that you can hold into your hands and it is still soft and not sticky.

I normally try a bit of the dough to see if it has enough salt and oil, as we don't like flavourless doughs, do we? ;)

Place the dough in the bowl with a bit of flour around and cover it with a tea towel; keep it in a warm place (or at least not cold). For at least 1 hour, 1 and an half hour. 

PREPARATION of THE PIZZA:

Take a bit of dough and make it thinner using your hands and with the help of flour, so it doesn't stick on the surface. I normally do it directly on top of baking paper so I prepare all the pizza I want to bake and leave it for other 10 minutes on top of each other (if you have a small kitchen like me). 

Take fresh tomato puree (I like to use the one with chopped tomato in it) and add to it a bit of oil, salt, pepper, oregano  and a pinch of sugar. Mix with a spoon and it is ready.

TOPPINGS:

Take fresh tomato puree (I like to use the one with chopped tomato in it) and add to it a bit of oil, salt, pepper, oregano  and a pinch of sugar. Mix with a spoon and it is ready.

In Italy we also make "white pizza", without tomato sauce and it is great as well!

For the topping I like to grill some vegetables (like aubergines, courgettes, peppers ); to use some sliced onions, capers, black and green olives, chopped chilly; I use to fry some mushrooms with garlic and white wine; grilled asparagus; boil some spinach; seitan (tiny sliced and fried) is also wonderful; even I tried with vegan bolognese sauce and it is delicious (a bit heavy though!);  etc. etc. etc.

Pre-heat the oven while you place the sauce and toppings.

COOKING:

Bake it at 200ºC or 230ªC until the bottom of the dough is a bit golden (check it lifting up a corner of the pizza while in the oven.)

Evviva la pizza!!!

N.B. If you add a boiled and mushed potato to the dough it will be more spongy. Then you will need to make the pizza sheet a bit thicker, we call that in Italy "focaccia".

N.B. The pizza with the sauce and topping so ready can also be freeze and ready for the next pizza time!

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