Ladies and Gentlemen...the Queen

God save the Queen...of Pizza!

I am not joking about the royalty of this recipe. When I say Queen I really mean it. "According to popular tradition, in 1889, 28 years after the unification of Italy, during a visit to Naples of Queen Margherita of Savoy, wife of King Umberto I, chef Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi and his wife created  a pizza resembling the colours of the Italian flag, red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil), that they named it after the Queen, precisely Pizza Margherita".

So, today, here, on this royal blog I am going to explain you how to make what Raffaele Esposito made for the very first time 125 years ago: Pizza Margherita.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE BASE(to make 4/5 pizzas):

1kg white plain flour

1 tablespoon of yeast

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

2 teaspoons of sugar

1/2 litre of hot water

INGREDIENTS FOR THE TOPPINGS

400g chopped or plum tomatoes

500g of mozzarella

olive oil

fresh basil

METHOD:

To make the base let's start putting the flour into a large bowl, then stir in the salt and the yeast mixed with the two teaspoons of sugar. The sugar will help the yeasting of the dough.  Then add little by little the hot water and start to mix everything. We have to work well the dough, to make it smooth and  homogeneous. When we see it soft and smooth we can cover it with a tablespoon of vegetable oil, then we cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside. You have to leave the dough to rise at least for 3/4 hours.

While our dough is rising we can prepare the other ingredients for the topping of our pizzas.

When the dough is doubled in volume, we start to make dough balls, working with the flour on a pastry board. With the ingredients used we can make 4 or 5 dough balls. Let's rise the dough balls for another two hours and, when they doubled in volume we can roll out them on a floured surface with a rolling pin.  We put our base in a baking tray or a baking sheet and we had tomato sauce and diced mozzarella.

To bake our pizzas we pre-heat the oven to 240C/fan or 220C/gas. We bake for 8-10 minutes until crisp.

When is done we add fresh basil and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

BUON APPETITO!

TIPS:

1)  If the dough is too wet add a bit more flour and work it in.

2) If dough is too stretchy to roll out, just leave it for 10 minutes or more and try again.

3) Is really important that the oven is well preheated to make sure that the base cooks on both sides. If the topping cooked before base, simply cover it with foil to avoid burning and give it another 5 minutes.

TIPS ON  TOPPINGS

As Italian, I would like to recommend you to use simple products. Guys please, don't use my mum recipe to make Hawaiian pizza, or meatball pizza, or pizza with chicken. I beg you, in Italy we don't make these kind of pizzas. The secret is simple but tasty.

As you can see in the video I put on top salami napoli (salame in italian). Is not pepperoni. I have to admit, the first time I've heard of pepperoni pizza I thought that was a pizza with peppers on top and not with a kind of spicy salami. FYI we call pepperoni pizza as Diavola (female devil).

Anyhow...one thing that should never miss on the top is mozzarella.  Whatever toppings are you using, don't forget to add at the end chopped mozzarella.

To eat a fresh pizza just add to a cooked base with mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, rocket salad and grated parmesan.

However, if you want to eat a classical pizza, try the Napoletana, with tomato sauce, capers, black olives, anchovies and garlic (NOTE: this is the only pizza without mozzarella on the top).

You can have an easy four season pizza with tomato sauce, sliced cooked ham, black olives, baby artichokes and mushroom.

But if you want to eat something really special and surprise your guests...and also you don't mind about money, make a fantastic pizza with Parma ham, buffalo mozzarella and grated parmesan...

Mmm mouth-watering!!!

Pizza Margherita