What’s number one food worldwide? Who doesn’t know pizza? Who doesn’t like pizza? I could really eat it every day!!! Considering you can change toppings, you never get bored of it!
Now we come to the painful part. I sow so many fake Italian pizzas around! Pizza with strange cheeses, pizzas with ketchup or with other wacky ingredients, like pineapple. We don’t put pineapple on pizza! Never! It’s not Italian!!!!!
I’m not obviously talking about Pizza Hut or similar. They have made their own pizza recipe without selling it as an Italian typical recipe. Some Italians may criticize me but I must confess that, when I go abroad I always go at least once to Pizza Hut because I adore their deep pan pizza. I eat it with all the ingredients I don’t find in Italy, like meatballs, meat, chicken…
I tell you how to make simple homemade pizza margherita! It’s easy, but be careful to quantities.
- 500 g flour
- 1 cube fresh yeast (12 g)
- Salt
- Water (almost 300 g)
if you have a kneading machine, you can use it. If you don’t, you can do the same thing using your hands. I have my beloved Kenwood and it makes a perfect pizza dough.
First of all, put the flour, the yeast melted with some water and add most of the remaining water (flour can require different quantities of water. While you mix it all, add salt. Don’t use warm water! Don’t put salt and yeast at the same time.
The dough must be soft, elastic and not sticky!
Now, the most important part!
Put the dough in a bowl and cover it with cellophane. Afrter 30/40 minutes knead it, falding it as if it was a piece of paper. Leave it rest for at least 8 hours. Sometimes I make it rise for 24 hours, in the fridge overnight and some hours out of the fridge. I learnt this fridge thing from Bonci, top of pizza to walk.
If you don’t let it rise the right time, the dough will rise in your stomach, making digestion difficult and making you very very thirsty and upset.
Take the dough, put it on a baking pan and let it rest covered with an apron for another 30 minutes. it must be covered because the air damages the dough. Now you can roll it out. Use your hands and fingers, enlarging it in a soft way.
Top it with some tomato sauce (just made with tomato, no other ingredients), salt, mozzarella cheese, basil or oregano. This is the topping for a margherita.
If you want you can put other things, like ham, mushrooms, artichokes…
Put in a preheated oven (highest temperature) for almost 10/15 minutes. It can be less or more. It depends of the thickness of the pizza, of the oven and so on. Try the crust with a finger.
If it’s a bit raw it will be difficult to digest and not very nice to taste.
If it’s overcooked, it will be burned or too crispy.
The oven must be static, otherwise the dough will have difficulties with rising. You may use a bit of steam if you have the right oven.
