Pizza is an ideal meal for a company: family dinner, get-togethers with friends, big party. First, everyone loves her – well, almost everyone. Second, pizza is a lot of fun to make. It’s very simple and you can experiment along the way. And the result is guaranteed to be delicious. In this article, we will reveal the secrets of making real Italian pizza and share the tips of professional chefs.
- Homemade pizza starts with the dough. Of course, you can buy a ready-made semi-finished product in a store. But it’s much more interesting to make it yourself. By the way, it takes a few days for real pizza makers to make pizza, and it’s the dough that matters. They knead it and leave it to rise for a few days. You will say – but I want pizza here and now. Well, there is a special life hack for this. To make the dough rise faster, you can heat it up in the oven. Heat the stove to 70 degrees. Then cool for 10 minutes and place the dough in the oven. Make sure that the temperature is not higher than this mark, otherwise, the yeast will die. You can put a tray with warm water under the baking sheet – then the dough will be even more tender and fluffy.
- Is the dough ready? Remove the rolling pin! This is not a joke: Italian chefs do not roll out the dough with a rolling pin, but knead it with their fingers and then unwind it, thanks to which the cake takes on the look we are used to. By the way, perfectly round pizzas are the prerogative of fast food. It is difficult to achieve the shape of the correct circle by hand, so the pizza from the hands of a real pizza maker can be a little uneven – this is a sign of its authenticity. Well, if you don’t have a special round board, it doesn’t matter. Homemade pizza is good because it can be anything – even round, even rectangular, in the shape of a baking sheet.
- The thickness of the dough according to the classic recipe of Italian pizza is 3 mm in the center, up to 2 cm at the edges.
- As you know, all people are divided into two categories: those who eat the pizza crust, and those who leave it on the plate. Personally, we think crisp is the tastiest thing in dough! She is also needed to hold a piece and not get your hands dirty. Therefore, when you smear the dough with sauce and spread the filling, do not fill the whole cake – leave 1.5 – 2 cm around the edges. Here’s how to make the crust really crunchy. Turn the baking sheet upside down. Cover it with parchment and sprinkle it with cornflour. And put the pizza on top. Then we put it in the oven for 10 minutes, and voila: the crunch is no worse than in the best Italian pizzeria.
- By the way, it is also better to reheat yesterday’s pizza in the oven. In the microwave, it loses its crunchiness, becomes dry and hard. And if you put it on the same parchment and put it in the oven for 5 – 8 minutes, it will be just as tasty as yesterday.
- There are many recipes for pizza dough. We offer classic – easy and quick to prepare. You will need five ingredients: flour, yeast, olive oil, salt, and water. The main thing here is flour: we advise you not to skimp on it and take a good, Italian one.
- Dissolve a bag of yeast in 125 ml of warm water. Pour flour in a slide into a deep bowl, season with salt. Make a small indentation in the center of the slide and carefully pour the water and yeast into it. Stir the mixture with a fork. Then, when the dough begins to turn out, knead it with your hands. Add flour, if necessary, until it becomes one piece. Pour olive oil into a bowl and knead for another 10 minutes. After that, the dough will become elastic and smooth. Wait for it to rise and you can cook.
