Colorful, comforting, and infinitely tasty, it is a little wonder that pizza is one of the world’s most beloved dishes. It made its first cross-cultural journey about 2,000 years earlier. For this week we bring you the recipe on how to make authentic Neapolitan Pizza!
Naples is the birthplace and the spiritual homeland—of pizza. “As I like to say, Neapolitan pizza doesn’t have inventors, fathers, or owners — it springs from the ingenuity of the Neapolitan people. Pizza in Naples and Naples is pizza. “says Antonio Pace, president and founder of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, an association set up in 1984 to preserve the Neapolitan pizza tradition.
Ingredients:
- Wheat flour
- Natural Neapolitan Yeast/ Brewer’s Yeast
- Salt
- Water
- tomato
- sliced mozzarella
- basil
- extra virgin olive oil
- Parmesan Cheese
Method:
- The genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of wheat flour (type 0 or 00, or a mixture of both), natural Neapolitan yeast or brewer’s yeast, salt, and water.
- For proper results, strong flour with high protein content (as used for bread-making rather than cakes) must be used.
- The dough must be needed by hand or with a low-speed mixer.
- After the rising process, the dough must be formed by hand without the help of a rolling pin or another machine and maybe no more than 3 millimeters (0.12 in) thick.
- There are different variants, but the original one is called Pizza Margherita, and it follows the essential rules for the ingredients, tomato, sliced mozzarella, basil, and extra virgin olive oil, sometimes with a sprinkle of Parmesan Cheese on top.
- The pizza must be baked for 60–90 seconds in a 485 °C (905 °F) wood-fired oven.
- When cooked, it should be soft, elastic, tender, and fragrant.
