Wednesday 28 April 2010

Sergio's Napoletan Pizza


All Together !!
Last week, we organized not a pizza workshop, but a Neapolitan pizza workshop. If you don't know, the secret of a good pizza , try to remember, is the simplicity of a well leavened dough, well prepared and well cooked: whatever you put above is sparing quantity and good quality.

The ingredients for a good mix are as follows:
- 1 l. water
- 2 kg of flour
- 20 g of fresh yeast (7 of the dry)
- 50 g of salt
The quantities may be increased or decreased according to need, as well as the yeast is reduced if the ambient temperature is above 23-25C( like in summer).

A mixture obtained according to the recipe would produce 3.070 kg of pasta ready enough to prepare 4 pans from oven to a suitable home.

To make the dough, either carry two containers in which in each one you pour half of the flour . Divide as well the water in two containers where you will dissolve in one the salt and the yeast in the other. Pour the saline solution in a container of flour and the yeast solution in the other one. Stir separately until the two mixtures are substantial, then combine the two mixtures and continue to stir until the dough will be smooth, velvety and moist correctly.
Pizza with Pistacchio Pesto


At this point the dough can be cut to form little portion with the weight desired depending on the thickness of pizza that you want to have after cooking. Before the leavening, you can put the dough in the fridge at 2-6C to proceed to the maturation of the dough, according to the fridge temperature, there are respectively 24 to 6-8 hours. For the leavening, it is important to make the little portion of dough rest for about 3 hours at constant temperature (23 ° C). If the dough has been in the fridge to mature for a quick rise, after removing from refrigerator, stir it a bit before to start the leavening phase.


Pizza with Fresh Egg
Now start the artistic part, which is stretching the pizza and coat it with your favorites ingredients.... Here, the leavened dough must be stretched out with finger pressure to obtain a homogeneous layer that reaches the sides of the container, which of course, should be lightly oiled before laying the dough.
Sweet Pizza (Nutella - Raspberries marmelade)

The last operation (baking) is the most important as it allows, if properly executed, enhances the entire products quality.

In the home oven, the baking temperature will be around 250 ° C for a period ranging between 12-15 minutes.
Moreover, it is important that the cooking should happen in two different times:
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes just the dough with tomato over, if red, or just coated with oil, if white.
- Remove the pan from the oven, make the stuffing according to the recipe you want to achieve, then put the pan in the oven to finish cooking the pasta and ingredients with the remaining time.
If you want to taste the perfume and fragrance in all its intensity, the pizza must be consumed fresh from the oven.

Now enjoy the results.... the lucky persons to enjoy this event were Awen, Melanie, Alex, Giuliana, Antonello (our nearly neapolitan advisor), Kike and Demetrio (which did a wonderful sicilian pistacchio pesto... which is the base for a pizza typical from Catania).