Рецепт Vera Pizza Napoletana (Real Neapolitan Pizza)
I’m really a pizza addict.
For about 5 years I tried to achieve every information, every secret to be able to make a delicious pizza at home quite like those you eat in pizzeria…. with success.
It’s not as difficult as it seems, it takes more to write it and when you have all the information in your mind you’ll go faster.
In the web there are lots of pizza recipes, but what I’m writing here is based on the real pizza napoletana disciplinary that contains technical specifications (here you can find the whole text: http://www.pizzanapoletana.org/public/pdf/disciplinare%202008%20UK.pdf).
As written in the disciplinary, the “vera pizza napoletana” (real neapolitan pizza) should be soft, flexible, easy to fold like a booklet, with the typical taste coming from well-grown/well-baked and bread-taste crust mixed with the slightly acidic flavour of tomato sauce and the respective aroma of oregano and garlic or basil and cooked mozzarella flavour.
The cooking method is very important for the final result so you must use a pizza baking stone.
You can find it in home centers or in online shops.
Vera Pizza Napoletana (Real Neapolitan Pizza)
Difficulty: hard
Preparation: 6 to 10 hours Cooking Time: 3 to 5 minutesYield: 10 to 15 servings
Ingredients for the dough:
- 1 liters / 2.2 lbs water (good quality like bottled water)
- 50-55 grams / 1.7-1.9 ounces marine salt
- 3 grams / 0.10 ounces hydrated yeast (you can also use 425-450 grams / 15-15.80 ounces mother yeast)
- 1.7-1.8 Kg / 3.7-3.9 lbs all-purpose flour
- …Yes you don’t have to use olive oil!
- Condiments:
- plain chopped tomatoes sauce, plus a little pinch of sugar, salt to taste
- oregano and a slice of garlic or few basil leaves (I prefer using just basil)
a fridge-chilled fresh mozzarella, cut into 1.5 cm / 0.59 inches square pieces (making big pieces and use a fridge-chilled mozzarella is important to prevent pizza from become watery during the cooking time)
These ingredients are for 10 to 15 pizzas, I suggest you to reduce quantities by a half.
Instructions:
Put water into a mixer, add salt and 10% of flour (170-180 grams / 6-6.3 ounces).
Add yeast, start the mixer and phase the rest of flour in.
Let knead the dough for at least 20/30 minutes, it should be soft, smooth and no sticky.
Let rest the dough for 2 hours covered with a plastic-wrap at 25°C/77°F (I put it in the oven and switch on the light).
Cut the dough into 180-250 grams / 6.3-6.8 ounces pieces and shape them into balls (I usually cut them into 200 grams / 7 ounces).
For each ball, stretch the top down and around the rest of the ball until the outer layer wraps around the other side. Pinch the two ends together and make a smooth ball.
Put your balls stitch-side down in a rising tray (alimentary case) dusted with flour and cover with a lid or a plastic wrap to prevent the ball from drying out (space out balls 8 cm /3 inches).
Let rise 4-6 hours.
Dust with flour the work bench and put a dough ball on it. Flip it over.
With a motion from the center to the outside, and with the pressure of the fingers of both the hands on the dough ball, shape into a thin flat disk and remind to DO NOT TOUCH THE EDGES or you won’t have your pizza napoletana crust (center is no more thick than 0.3cm/0.11 inches and edge is not more than 1-2 cm / 0.4-0.8 inches).
Do not use rolling-pin because the air included in the dough has to move from the centre towards the outer edge.
Cooking procedures (at home)
Put the pizza baking stone over the top rack of the oven.
Preheat oven to the highest possible temperature for at least 30 minutes (static).
3 minutes before putting pizza in the oven, switch the oven to the broil setting (switch on the grill). This allow to increase the stone temperature. (in pizzeria oven has to reach 485°C/905°F and pizza cooks in 60-90 seconds).
Return to the static setting when cooking pizza.
Take a pizza pan, put it upside down, or you can take an aluminium pizza peel (I do not suggest to use a wood one because pizza won’t slide easily into the oven), dust it with flour.
Lay down pizza into it and quickly add tomato sauce, mozzarella and other ingredients to your taste. Doing this quickly is important to prevent the dough from sticking on your surface.
Quickly open the oven, let slide pizza into the pizza baking stone, close the oven.
Let cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until the crust is quite crispy and has lost its white color (do not open the oven for the first 1-2 minutes).
Open the oven, put a fork in to the crust and slide out pizza into a plate.
Taste it…. isn’t it so delicious???
Remember… “home-made strikes back!“