Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Genuine Italian Pizza Dough- Recipe

The secret to a good pizza is making genuine Italian pizza dough. Can this only be learned through years of experience? Absolutely not. All you need is the right formula, the correct ingredients, and a good working oven. Unfortunately an Italian cook would never tell you that as it is a rare thing of an Italian to pass on a good, easy recipe. Well here is a real recipe on making genuine Italian pizza dough from an Italian...me!

You can literally make the dough in five minutes time.
Here are the ingredients:

Lucia's Genuine Italian Pizza Dough and Pizza

Dough
3 full cups of flour (type 0)
1 cube of fresh yeast
luke warm water (1 cup approx)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Dash of salt

Topping
tomato sauce or peeled tomatoes (1 can)
olive oil
dash of salt
dry mozzarella

Preheat oven at 400 degrees.

Makes approx 2 medium size pizzas.

Heat 1 cup of water with the fresh yeast. It should be only luke warm and not hot. Use a fork to break up the yeast as best as possible in the water.

Take a mixing bowl and add flour, make a hole in the middle where you will then add the water and yeast mixture slowly, working the flour first with a fork and then slowly with your hands. The mixture should be sticky and not dry. If it is dry, add more lukewarm water. If it is too liquidy, add more flour. The consistency is key. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to help knead the dough. Leave it in a ball in the same mixing bowl and cover with a clean dry kithen towel.

Let rise at least 1 hour, but two hours is best.

After dough has risen rework it kneading it and put some olive oil on your hands to work it.

Butter the pizza pan and then drizzle flour on it. You can now shape the dough on the pan. Use a bit of olive oil to help you shape it, making sure it does not tear. The dough should be thin but not so much as to tear.

Next place tomato mixture (tomato, olive oil, salt) on the dough evenly.
Lastly, evenly scatter grated mozzarella cheese over pizza

Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Raise bottom of pizza to make sure is not white.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great dough! Did it today and it turned out above expectations. I craved for a self-made pizza and wanted a new dough formulation... I used active dry yeast (one teaspoon) instead of fresh which was not at hand. Also topping and sauce where self created...
Thanks for a great idea on a fabulous dough.