Pizza Napolitana

Buy or find
“00” flour, 1kg
Dried yeast powder, 2gm
Water, 700ml
Salt, 38gm, 30g for dough, 8g for sauce. I often use less. (4g salt is around half a tsp.)
Whole tomatoes, 2 400g cans (these really must be San Marzano tomatoes, several brands including Mutti produce these)
Fresh basil leaves, 10, washed
Olive oil, 1 /2 tsp
Parmesan cheese, 150g, finely grated
Flor di Latte mozzarella cheese, 350g, chopped into cubes **

Do
Make the dough

Making the dough is easy and involves the following three steps: Creating a shaggy dough, kneading the dough and shaping the dough.

Create a shaggy dough.

Combine 30g salt, yeast and 100g flour in a large bowl and stir to combine.

Add water and stir using the handle of a wooden spoon to combine. (Make sure that you don’t add a drop more water than 700 ml, the dough will become too hard to manage.)

Add remaining flour and stir using the handle of a wooden spoon, stirring in a circular motion until you have a shaggy dough.

Knead the dough.

Ultra hydrated dough can be difficult to knead but not if you use the following folding technique.

Cover the bowl with plastic or place the bowl inside a plastic bag and leave to sit for 5 minutes.

Complete the first fold.

(How to complete the first fold.)

Remove the bowl from the bag.

Wet your fingers in a bowl of water or under the running tap.

Gather underneath a portion of the dough and fold it up and over itself towards the centre of the bowl.

Rotate the bowl 1 quarter turn (90 degrees).

Repeat rotating and folding the dough until you have worked your way around the bowl and each portion of dough  (more or less) has been folded towards the centre of the bowl.

Cover the bowl again and leave to sit for five minutes. Room temperature is fine, you want to avoid drafts.

Complete the second fold by repeating the first fold instructions above.

Complete the third fold by repeating the first fold instructions above.

Complete the fourth fold by by repeating the first fold instructions above and leave to rest for 19-20 hours at room temperature out of any draft.

After the dough has rested, you have two options. You can use the dough today or refrigerate it and use it another day. I find it easier to work with cold dough and prefer storing it in the fridge until needed but the choice is yours.

Decide whether you are cooking the pizza today or tomorrow.

(How to shape the dough if you are using the dough today.)

Tip the dough onto a floured surface.

Divide the dough into 6-8 balls of roughly equal size.

Cover and leave them to rise for another 3-4 hours.

Place each ball of dough on a floured plastic chopping sheet. I usually fit 3 balls per sheet.

Dust the balls with flour.

Cover the sheets with glad wrap to make sure little or no air can get in.

(How to shape the dough if you are using the dough tomorrow or the next day.)

Tip the dough into a plastic container and leave for between 24 and 48 hours.

Make the sauce

(How to make the sauce.)

Tip the tomatoes into a large bowl and add the salt.

Gently crush the tomatoes, using your hands, until you have a roughly uniform mixture.

Add the basil leaves and oil and mix together until well combined (I do this using clean hands).

Cover the bowl and leave for 3-4 hours at room temperature or even a little longer.

Make the pizza

Making the pizza consists of three steps. Preheating the oven, shaping the dough and cooking the pizza.

I like to use either a rectangular baking tray or a cast iron skillet to make these pizzas. Each of these cooking surfaces creates a different effect and both are very good.

(How to preheat the oven.)

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees celsius (use the top and bottom element setting, ie not fan forced). Allow the oven to heat up for 30-40 minutes, you want a very very hot oven.

Switch your oven to the grill setting 5 minutes before you want to cook your pizza.

Shape the dough.

(How to shape the dough.)

Take one of the balls of dough or cut off 1/6 of the refrigerated dough using a dough scraper or knife and place on a floured benchtop or board.

Sprinkle a little flour over the dough and press and stretch the dough out into the desired shape.

Lift the dough occasionally while you do this to prevent the dough from sticking to the benchtop.

Add another dusting of flour if the dough is sticking to the bench or your fingers. You can use a rolling pin rather than pressing and stretching with your fingers. I find a combination of using the rolling pin and hand stretching works by firstly rolling the dough with the pin until almost the size you would like, then finishing the shaping job using your fingers and hands.

Push the dough out at the edges to create a raised rim. In Italian this rim is called cornicione. In order to achieve a great cornicione, the centre of the pizza dough should be slightly thinner than the outer edges after rolling or stretching.

Cook the pizza.

(How to cook the pizza.)

Drizzle a small amount of oil over the tray or skillet.

Lift the dough from the bench and carefully place onto the tray. This type of dough with 70 percent water is quite stretchy so take care when you lift the dough from the bench and place it on the baking tray.

Reinforce the cornicione by pressing the dough out at the edges again.

Place the pizza pan on the stovetop over a high heat while you add the toppings. At this point you can place the pizza pan on the stovetop over a high heat while you add the toppings. This will assist the base in becoming crunchy. A standard oven does not reach the same high temperature as a pizza oven, using the stovetop crisping technique compensates for this.

Place the desired amount of sauce on the pizza, (I use about 2 tbs).

Sprinkle a small handful of parmesan cheese over the sauce.

Sprinkle the desired amount of cubed cheeses over the sauce. Don’t overdo the amount of cheese, less is more with this type of pizza.

Place the tray in the oven and cook for about 5 minutes on the grill setting and then 2-3 minutes on the fan setting and then another 2-3 minutes on the grill setting. Rotate the tray once or twice during the cooking period to ensure that the pizza browns evenly. The pizza should have very crispy browned edges and melted cheese. (I rotate the pan halfway through each halfway through the first grill cooking period and also halfway through the fan cooking period. Sometimes the pizza cooks more quickly, you will need to keep an eye on the top crust and cheese burning.

Remove the tray or skillet from the oven and place on the stovetop over medium high heat to briefly continue making the base crispy. Make sure you don’t burn the base.

Remove the pizza from the pan and place on a chopping board to cut into slices.

Repeat with the remaining dough.

Serve pizza Napolitana to your favourite people and enjoy.

* For the sauce, you want 1g salt per 100g tomatoes.

** You want cheese with relatively high moisture content to prevent it from burning in the hot oven.

The cast iron pan needs to be hot before you add your dough.

Refrigerate the dough in a flat container to make it easier to cut the portion of dough with a dough scraper.

Tomato sauce loses its flavour after it has been refrigerated. Really only is optimal for 8-12 hours.

The 70 percent hydrated dough can be a little temperamental to use, use a lightly floured surface and sprinkle flour on the dough when shaping it. You don’t need a large amount of flour sprinkled just a light sprinkle.

Using less salt in the dough makes it more fluffy (and is good for people who need to lower their salt intake, you can reduce the salt to a tiny pinch if necessary).

Add very finely sliced mushroom over the sauce and parmesan for a mushroom pizza.

This pizza is also great with some rocket strewn over the top of the pizza after it comes out of the oven.

I have been having some success without the second rising of the dough, you can explore this as well.

If you don’t have 19-20 hours to let the dough rise, add 1/2 tsp of sugar to the flour salt and yeast and you can leave it for 3-4 hours and then refrigerate the dough until needed. The 19-20 hours and no sugar gives a much better result.

This dough keeps well in the fridge for 2-3 days.

If you are needing multiple pizzas to be ready at once. Cook the pizza as per recipe above and transfer to a wire rack as soon as it comes out of the oven. Turn your second oven or separate grill to the high setting and reheat the pizzas by placing them under the grill for 2 minutes then 2 minutes on the stove top. Watching as always for the base or the top burning.