Pizza Napoletana

A slack 24-hour dough baked in about a minute, with almost nothing on it.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (fior di latte).

Ingredients

• 600 g type 00 flour
• 390 ml water
• 2 g fresh yeast
• 18 g salt
• 400 g San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand
• 300 g fior di latte, torn and drained
• fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

1. Dissolve the salt in the water, add a tenth of the flour, then the yeast, then the rest of the flour. Mix to a shaggy mass and knead 15 minutes until smooth.
2. THE DOUGH IS 65 PER CENT WATER AND IT WILL FEEL TOO WET. That slackness is what gives the puffed rim; a dough stiff enough to handle comfortably bakes flat.
3. Rest 2 hours, divide into four 250 g balls, and PROVE THEM 24 HOURS in the fridge, then 4 hours at room temperature.
4. Open each ball BY HAND, pressing from the centre outwards and leaving a 2 cm rim untouched. Never a rolling pin, which presses out the gas the rim needs.
5. Crush the tomatoes by hand and use them RAW. No cooking, no herbs in them, no sugar — the sauce cooks on the pizza.
6. Top with sauce, torn mozzarella, basil and a thread of oil, and no more. Three or four things, because nothing survives a bake this short.
7. BAKE AS HOT AS YOU CAN GET, 450C to 480C, FOR 60 TO 90 SECONDS. This is the whole dish: the heat puffs the rim and chars it in spots before the middle dries out. In a domestic oven at 250C on a steel, give it 6 minutes and accept that it is a different thing.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes