I Sooo Love Pizza...
There is good reason why wood fired pizza’s are probably the best you can ever eat, when someone goes to the effort of firing up a oven you can rely on the fact they have done their homework on the best grade flour, olive oil and yeast for the dough. The fast wood fired cooking and highest quality dough ensures a light fresh chewy crust with a thin layer of your favourite toppings, just mouthwatering gorgeous.
I like to make the base tomato sauce with the most gorgeous deep full of flavour DOP San Marzano tomatoes, these grown on the slopes opposite Mount Vesuves in Valle del Samo Italy, I get my DOP tomatoes through google and I treat each can like gold...
Ingredients
(makes 6 pizzas)
Authenic Italian Pizza Dough
500g 00 Caputo flour
50g cold pressed olive oil
10g Himalayan sea salt
15g yeast, keep away from the salt
320g water
San Marzano Tomato Sauce
1 tin DOP san Marzano tomatoes
1 glut olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
1 clove Italian garlic grated
1 pinch Himalayan sea salt
Toppings
1 ball fresh di bufala campana mozzarella
100g fresh pepperoni
Or personal choice of toppings
Cooking In A Wood Fired Oven
Fire up your wood oven at least 1-2hrs before you are ready to cook. I like to have white glowing embers that only need a couple of logs periodically thrown on so that I can roughly control the temperature between 300 - 400 degrees Celsius. I never cook after throwing on a new log but as soon as the flames lower after five minutes or so then I gage how far to place the pizza in the oven, less flames then the pizza can go all the way in, hot fresh flames then cook your pizza nearer the oven door, position in the oven is how you can control the cooking heat.
Cooking In A Oven
A must is a pizza stone, pre heat your oven with the pizza stone in as hot as it can possibly go for at least 20 minutes before your going to cook. Place the pizza on the stone and bake for around 10-15 minutes, this is still a great pizza.
This is a brilliant old fashioned honest pizza dough, you can prove this dough for a minium of one hour and up to four hours after mixing on the side or once made pop in the fridge and prove for 24hrs so it is ready for the next day, just leave to come up to room tempretaure before use and even more helpful after proving on the side for one hour you can portion up the dough and freeze, then when needed defrost, leave to come up to room tempreature, roll out and use. These also make great flat breads, roll out and dry pan fry for a minute on each side and you will have gorgeous flat breads great for stuffing with salad, meats and kebabs...
Place all the ingredients in your mixer and using a dough hook knead for seven minutes, if doing by hand which I often do, bring all the ingredients together to form a sticky dough and turn our on a barely floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and springy around 7 minutes, try not to add in any extra flour, dough loves to be wet and will come soft, dry and smooth just keep kneading ! Leave to prove for one hour covered at room temperature.
Tomato Pizza Base Sauce
Next make the gorgeous San Marzano tomato base sauce, heat the olive oil in a pan, add the garlic and onions on a medium heat soften for around ten minutes, add the tomatoes crushing them with your hands, leave to gently simmer for five minutes, blitz to a smooth sauce and season with sea salt.
Making Your Pizza
Now your ready to rock and roll, divide the dough into 6 portions roll out each dough ball into a thin pizza base, spread a ladle of the San Marzano sauce over the base, top with torn pieces of the buffalo mozzarella and pepperoni, place on your pizza stone or in your pizza oven and cook until bubbling, remove and leave to rest for a minute then add the torn fresh basil leaves, that's it Ta da done...
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