Prepare Neapolitan Pizza At Home
Neapolitan pizza has now crossed all borders, to become one of the favorite dishes of the whole world. Would you like to learn how to prepare Neapolitan pizza at home? Read on to discover the recipe step by step.
The main feature of the Neapolitan pizza has to do with the dough, with a high and soft edge, very different from that of the Roman pizza, which instead has a thin and crunchy dough (in some places in the world, this is known as the classic pizza cooked in a stone oven).
Pizza
Difficulty of preparation : medium
Preparation time (including rising of the dough): + 24 hours
Let’s find out together how to prepare a real Italian pizza; in this case, the Neapolitan variety which has a higher and more spongy dough. In this article we propose the classic and famous pizza margherita, but, of course, you can vary the ingredients according to your tastes, adding any kind.
If you are on a diet, do not deprive yourself from time to time of the pleasure of eating a homemade pizza. You just have to pay attention to the ingredients with which you season it to choose the best version, so that you can maintain the ideal weight.
Ingredients for 2 large pizzas
- 450 g of soft wheat flour
- 250 ml of water
- 12 g of salt
- 2.5 g of fresh yeast
- Extra virgin olive oil (as required)
- 400 g of chopped tomato
- 250 g of mozzarella
- Fresh basil (to taste)
- Salt and oregano (to taste)
Prepare the dough
- Pour some water into a bowl and set the rest aside.
- Melt the yeast in the bowl with the water. Set aside.
- Pour the flour into a large bowl and add the dissolved yeast. Stir to combine them.
- Take the bowl with the water that you set aside in the first step and add the 12 grams of salt.
- Pour the water with the salt to the flour with the yeast. Stir with a wooden spoon.
- When you have a sticky dough, it’s time to use your hands. Work with your hands until it forms a ball.
- Pour some flour on the table and start kneading. You will have to knead for a while, until all the ingredients are well blended. The Neapolitan pizza makers say that the dough must be “slapped”.
- When you have managed to form a uniform ball, put the dough in a bowl, cover it with a cloth and let it rise for a day. During this rest period, the dough will triple its volume.
- After rising, flour the table again and put the dough on top.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. Place each part in a bowl, cover with a tea towel and let rise for another hour.
Prepare the pizza toppings
- Put the chopped tomato in a bowl and add two tablespoons of olive oil. Jumbled up.
- Add oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Prepare the pizza
- After the last rest period, take one of the doughs and roll it out on the floured table, giving it a round shape. If you don’t have a round pan, you can make a square or rectangular pizza. Do not knead the dough too much to prevent it from losing air.
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
- Place the pan that you will use to cook the pizza inside. The real Neapolitan pizza is cooked in a wood oven, but if like most mortals you don’t have one at home, you can use the electric oven: the result will still be excellent. If you have one, you can use a refractory pizza stone, in order to give a more crunchy texture to the bottom.
- Brush the pizza with two tablespoons of the sauce.
- Grease the pizza peel with olive oil to prevent the dough from sticking and put the pizza inside the oven. If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can place it directly on the preheated pan.
- Cook the dough for at least 8 minutes.
- Remove it from the oven and add the mozzarella.
- Put the pizza back in the oven to finish cooking for another 10 or 12 minutes.
- Decorate with basil leaves.
Ideas for preparing Neapolitan pizza
- To the recipe we have presented you can add all kinds of ingredients : mushrooms, cooked ham, artichokes, anchovies, olives, bacon, onion, peppers, sausage or … whatever comes to mind!
- You can replace mozzarella with many other cheeses.
- How about you putting rocket or radicchio in pizza to add vegetables to your diet.
Have fun with your creativity and prepare a Neapolitan pizza with all kinds of ingredients. You can even organize a pizza party and prepare all the variations you want!
