Pizza Napoletana

This is what a pizza looks like.

A pizza does not look like that!! My poor mamma turning over in the grave!!

Good pizza is actually very easy to make. The key is the dough... and the sauce... and the oven haha!! But yes, a good pizza only needs those three 'ingredients' to be perfect. It is not complicated like other recipes. Make sure you use the freshest and best ingredients you can get to make it truly good because unlike other foods, you cannot hide a bad crop of tomatoes on a pizza!! ;-)

Do you like pizza? Which is your favourite? Have you ever tried making your own pizza?

The dough

A basic pasta is simple and dictated by l’Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana: 

-flour (tipo 00: the finest grind available)

-water

-sea salt

-yeast 

The ingredients need to be weighed as opposed to measured in cups in order to ensure the correct proportions. However, each pizza restaurant uses different variations of the basic recipe to create a dough personalized to each chef’s own idea of perfection. 

With all the ingredients mixed together and after a resting period of at least six hours, the dough should be soft and elastic, but not sticky. Following traditional regulations, the dough must be kneaded and shaped by hand—no electric mixers or rolling pins allowed (tough luck for those of us who don’t know how to do the fancy wrist-hand motion that most skilled pizzaioli or pizza makers use)! 

The toppings

Despite the numerous variations of toppings available at most pizza restaurants in Italy, la pizza napoletana should only include the following variations of a couple of basic, fresh ingredients: 

The Marinara: San Marzano plum tomatoes (sauce), oregano, garlic and extra virgin olive oil 

The Margherita: San Marzano plum tomatoes (sauce), buffalo or cow’s milk mozzarella, basil and extra virgin olive oil 

With all of the toppings on the dough, you should still be able to see some of the tomato underneath the pieces of mozzarella and there should be a rim of dough running without toppings around the edge for your crust. 

The oven

After the toppings are added, the pizza is then put into a wood-burning oven at 485 degrees Celsius (close to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit). The whole baking process lasts for less than two minutes total and the pizza emerges hot from the oven with a perfectly golden and crispy outer crust. Sadly this process can’t be recreated in a regular home oven—which usually only reach 550 degrees Fahrenheit—but you can buy commercial ceramic “pizza stones” to help a pizza achieve a level of crispiness somewhat close to your Neapolitan favorite. 

Not feeling adventurous enough to make your own pizza? Check out the list of official Neapolitan pizzaioli at the website for l’Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (http://www.pizzanapoletana.org/). Buon appetito!

http://www.flonthego.com/2011/gourmet/03-01/la-pizza-napoletana/