Italian Pizza Margherita was named after the Queen of Italy. In 1889 a pizza maker in Naples made this pizza to represent the colors of the Italian flag red, white and green, in honor of the Queen. She loved it and the rest is history. It is made with simple ingredients, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and basil. Now Pizza is supposed to made in a wood burning oven, this recipe can be made in your regular oven but technically it is not a real pizza but as close as you can get without a wood burning one. A funny story when I first made this. The dough recipe suggests you mound up the flour like a Mountain and make a crater to accept the yeast and liquid. Well my crater was not big enough and Mt. Vesuvius erupted, yeast water breaking through the mountain like a molten lava. I used everything at my disposal to contain the lava spewing from the mountain. It ended up just fine, perhaps it was the cross I made in the dough when left to rise. An old Italian trick! The lesson, make sure you make a large enough crater in your mountain to escape the drama of the eruption! Of course you can top it with whatever you like, but Pizza Margherita is simple and delicious!
Italian Pizza Margherita
Ingredients
- 600 mL of warm water
- 7 cups 1kg flour, type “00 or sifted all purpose flour
- 2.5 – 3 tablespoons 25 grams of fresh yeast or 2 teaspoons (7-8 grams) of dried yeast.
- 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- For the sauce:
- 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 medium onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 can Peeled whole tomatoes in puree san marzano if you can find them, roughly chopped
- sprig of fresh thyme
- sprig of fresh basil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
- for the pizza:
- 1 1 lb fresh mozzarella cheese
- handful of fresh torn basil
Instructions
- Sprinkle the yeast into a medium bowl with the warm water. Not too hot or cold, warm is what the yeast likes best. Stir until the yeast dissolves.
- Place almost all of the flour on the table in the shape of a volcano. (Think Mt. Vesuvius)
- Make a giant crater big enough to hold the liquid. Pour the yeast-and-warm-water mix, along with the other ingredients, into the “crater” of the volcano.
- Knead everything together for 10 to 15 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic, keeping your surface floured.
- Grease up a bowl with some olive oil and put the dough inside. Turn the dough around so the top is slightly oiled.
- Cover the bowl and put the dough aside to let it rest for at least four or five hours.This is a good time to make your sauce see directions below
- Make a cross on top of the dough with a knife. An old Italian tradition, this is a way of “blessing the bread.”
- Preheat the oven to 400°F
- Dump the dough out of the bowl and back onto the floured surface. Punch it down, getting rid of any bubbles.
- Divide the dough in half and let it rest for a few minutes.
- Roll each section into a 12-inch disc. You can make it as thin as you like but it will rise in the oven a bit.
- Transfer the dough onto an oiled pizza pan or baking sheet.
- Add tomato sauce, Brush the edges of the crust with a little bit of olive oil.
- Bake each pizza for about 10 minutes, then add slices of mozzarella cheese on top.
- Let the pizzas bake until the crust is browned and the cheese is melted. By lifting up the pizza to peek underneath, you can make sure the bottom has browned, too.
- Remove your pizzas from the oven and garnish with a few basil leaves. And enjoy!
- For the sauce:
- Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Saute the onion and garlic until just lightly browned
- Add the tomatoes and herb sprigs and bring to a boil
- Lower the heat and simmer covered for 10 minutes
- Remove the herb sprigs and stir in the salt and add pepper to taste
