Pizza
I am often in awe of cooking and posting iconic national dishes. I never know if I’m preparing the food correctly and if the dish deserves the name of a national dish. This time the task was made very easy for me. These pizzas, in which preparation I was present and helped a little, are made in Tuscany, using a real pizza oven, which reaches a temperature of approximately 500 degrees C.
I am thankful to Mark Liechti and his family for hosting me in their Tuscan home in Scarperia e San Piero where I enjoyed real Italian hospitality with equally great food.
The pizzas I write about in this post were made as the main dish for Mark’s birthday party.
What characterizes Italian pizza for me is the simplicity of its preparation. Few components, a simple preparation method, varied selection of components from which the guests could put together their favorite pizzas.
Some ingredients in the pizza toppings are mandatory, such as seasoned tomato sauce and mozzarella, otherwise, the variety of toppings we used for the preparation of pizzas was very large. For example, one of my big favorites was pizza, which was prepared without tomato sauce, but with salted Tuscany lard seasoned with rosemary and herbs, on top of which fresh arugula was added for serving. All kinds of other pizza toppings, red onion, oven-roasted pepper, tomato, tiny meatballs made from Italian sausage, tuna, and for the kids, wheels cut from wiener sausages, etc. were all represented and it was possible to put together wonderful delicious variations. The pizza was cooked quickly, in two minutes. After the oven cooled down, it took maybe a minute longer to cook, but the high heat of the oven and the delicious ingredients resulted in a great food combination.
After baking, it was possible to sprinkle salt, pepper, and olive oil on top of the pizza. During the evening, 30 such pizzas disappeared into the stomachs of diners, followed by a wonderful dessert.
In this post, I will not cover the complete preparation of the pizza but will limit myself to the preparation of the dough.
Preparation time: about 2-3 hours
Level: Easy
Quantity: for two
Ingredients:
50 g wholemeal flour
150 g tipo 0 pizza flour
800 g tipo 00 pizza flour
1 tablespoon of dry yeast, dissolved in a small amount of milk
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
2 tbsp olive oil
500 ml of room-temperature water
Preparation:
- Dissolve the yeast in a little milk and sugar mixture, and pour the flour mixture, salt, and olive oil into a bowl.
- Add water and knead the dough until smooth. Pour the dough onto the work surface and knead for at least 5 minutes until the dough is uniform and smooth and quite stiff.
- Grind the dough into balls of equal size, cover with a towel, and leave to rise in a warm place. When the dough balls have risen to about double their size, shape the dough ball on a floured work surface into a thin pizza base using a rolling pin and your hands, add the toppings, bake, season, cut open and enjoy with good company.
Ready!!
