Recipe for Margherita pizza in a wood oven

A simple and tasty recipe: let’s talk about pizza margherita.

Pizza has ancient origins. The term seems to derive from the Latin verb “pinsare”, that is to crush. It can have different shapes and toppings but pizza margherita is undoubtedly the most famous one.

The pizza with tomato, mozzarella and basil was created by a Neapolitan pizza maker in 1889 in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy.
Fun Fact: the 3 ingredients represent the tricolor of the Italian flag.

Chef Mattia Poggi shows us how to prepare it quickly and easily in the Pulcinella Clementi wood oven.

• Difficulty:‌ ‌Medium‌ ‌
• Preparation time:‌ ‌20‌ ‌minutes‌ ‌
• Baking time:‌ ‌2‌ ‌-‌ ‌3‌ ‌minutes 
• Portions:‌ ‌2‌ ‌-‌ ‌3‌ people
• Cost:‌ Economic‌

INGREDIENTS

• Wheat flower ‌500‌ ‌gr
• Salt
• 6gr yeast
• Water
• Tomato sauce
• 1‌/2 ‌mozzarella ‌
• Extra virgin olive oil to taste
• 2 – 3 leaves of basil

 

PREPARATION:

1) First of all let’s take a bowl in which to dissolve the yeast with water. Remember that the water must be lukewarm. Pour the water (about ½ liter) into the bowl and dissolve the yeast with your hands. Be careful, we mustn’t add salt now or it will burn the yeast!

2) Pour some flour into the bowl and start to knead with your fingertips. Now, as long as there is water, we can put the salt without taking any risks. If we want to make a gluten-free pizza it will be necessary to use a gluten-free flour base.

3) Let’s add a little more flour until we reach the right dough consistency. In order to understand if the obtained consistency is good, we need to make sure it is very soft.

4) Once the dough is created we can roll it out by hand.

5) Once the dough has been rolled out, place it in a bowl to rise and cover with a cloth.

6) At this point we can decide the rising time. We recommend leavening for 12 hours in the refrigerator. After this period of time, remove the dough from the refrigerator, put it in the oven and wait a couple of hours. Once the leavening time is over, we can form the buns. Once made, we must dip them in flour one by one and let them rest for an hour.

If we do not have that much time at our disposal, we can let the dough rise for just a few hours, 4 can be fine. In order for the dough to become soft and elastic, halfway through the leavening process, about 2 hours in, form the rolls and let them rise for another 2 hours.

However, in case you made a dough with gluten free flour, it should be known that this type of dough tends to have a lower and slower leavening. Therefore at least one night is needed for the leavening process to be complete. It is also fundamental to leave the dough outside the fridge, preferably inside the oven.

7) While the leavening of the pizza buns is finished, we can start turning on our oven. The best ovens for baking pizza at home are wood fired direct ovens for Neapolitan pizza and Roman pizza, while indirect  ovens are recommended for sliced pizza and pan pizza. Wood ovens are to be preferred because traditional ovens, even if ventilated, tend to make pizza too dry.

For optimal cooking, the oven must be at 350/400°C. A Clementi wood oven takes 15/20 minutes to reach a temperature of 400°C.

The secret to perfect pizza cooking also lies in the way the oven is lit. By lighting the fire in the center of the firestone floor and moving the embers to the left side of the oven, we will quickly reach the right temperature both in the baking chamber and on the firestone. In this way we will obtain a pizza perfectly cooked in the center, along the edges and that will remain good, digestible and crispy.

8) Once the desired temperature has been reached we can roll out the buns. It is a good idea to always use your fingertips to spread them out. Another method to make them even softer and more elastic is to drop them from a small height onto your work space.

9)  Once we have finished rolling out the buns we can start with the toppings. We put some tomato sauce on top of the pizza base and a pinch of salt. Add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a little mozzarella cheese frayed by hand, so that it melts well. Finally a few leaves of basil.

10) At this point you can bake the pizza in our wood oven. The cooking time for a pizza is 2-3 minutes. You must remember to turn it with the shovel, as the pizza cooks only on one side. Turn it from time to time with the shovel and raise it to look at the whitest areas by putting them on the fire side. In order to make the pizza cook more evenly, try to keep the pizza in the same area of the oven, being careful not to get too close or too far away from the heat source.

11) Once out of the oven, we can add a few more leaves of fresh basil and serve our homemade pizza. Enjoy!

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