Today I want to talk about the Italian food par excellence that has made Italy well known in the world… the famous Pizza!
I learned from the Italians that the best pizza is the one made in a wood oven, but you can also make it at home, and it’s delicious!
Making pizza at home is really easy and fast and requires no special skills but only good simple ingredients: water, flour, oil and yeast are enough. But my trick is to do it without haste, after all, everything we prepare with love for our family, friends, guests and customers is more delicious when done with love and care!
You can prepare your pizza as you like simply by adding tomato, mozzarella and oregano or enriching it with the most delicious ingredients such as mushrooms, olives, ham, artichokes, etc. By the way… in Italy we don’t use chicken on the Pizza (and in Pasta)! It’s an foreigner tradition to do so!
Today we will learn how to prepare our basic recipe for the original Italian pizza dough.
With the following recipe you can prepare 4 pizzas.
DIFFICULTY: average
OUTCOME: 4 round pizzas
PREPARATION: 3:30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
400 grams of soft wheat flour type “0”
200 ml of warm water
20 gr of olive oil
10 g fresh brewer’s yeast (a pinch of sugar to activate the yeast)
8 gr of salt
Flour for dusting the workbench
PREPARATION
Let’s begin! Mix the lukewarm water with the sugar and yeast and let it rest for a few minutes to ferment. After this time, the mixture will have grown and will have bubbles on the surface, which means it is ready to use.
Put the flour in a large bowl and mix well with the salt, add the oil and lukewarm water, the sugar and yeast mixture. Knead everything for 10 minutes (on a marble surface or a wooden cutting board for food) or until the dough is elastic and smooth.
First fermentation: 2 hours
Make a ball and put the dough in another clean bowl lightly greased with oil. Cover the dough with a wet film or tea towel and let it rise until doubled in volume (for about 2 hours). Look for a warm, humid place in the house to leave the dough.
Tip: On cold days a suggestion is to heat the oven for 5 to 10 minutes first, then turn it off. When the temperature inside the oven is hot, place the container with the dough inside on the central shelf, cover with a damp cloth, close the oven door and let the dough rise.
To humidify the place, fill a pan with hot water and place it on the lowest shelf of the oven.
Now that I live in Norway, I use this tip a lot to help the dough grow faster. I think it is also a valuable suggestion for winter in other countries!
Second fermentation: 1 hour
After this time, knead the dough again for 5 to 10 minutes. Divide the dough into 4 parts, cover with a damp cloth and let it rise for about 1 hour.
I remembered that my mom, if I remember correctly, would put a blanket or wool blanket over the dough. I also think it works . Have you tried?
After these two fermentations our pizza dough is ready 🙂
Now just roll out the dough bases with the help of a wooden rolling pin and shape the pizza as desired (round or square) leaving the edges slightly higher. Grease the pizza pan with a drizzle of oil and arrange the dough evenly with your fingers.
Note: at this stage try to not knead the dough too much, otherwise it will become too elastic and it will hardly rise.
Why double fermentation?
You know when you eat bread, pizza or any other pasta recipe and feel that yeasty taste? So, to prevent the pizza from having a yeast-like smell and taste, double fermentation is required. This will make your pizza even lighter and more digestible.
PS. You can omit the yeast by extending the fermentation to 5-6 hours.
Do you want to have an even better dough?
Use Manitoba flour, with the proportion: 70% flour type “0” and 30% Manitoba flour. It will be a hit with friends and family!
A note: unfortunately the quality of the photos is not good 🙁 it got dark because here in Norway it was late afternoon. I don’t know if you know, but with the arrival of autumn the days become more short, the sky gets darker, with bad lighting for photos and videos. I don’t have good equipment yet but I intend to improve it.
Hope you like it and enjoy your meal! 🙂
If you want other original recipes always check here on my website!
Don’t forget to leave your comment!
