“San Giovanni” in Florence and Pizza!
The bread oven featured in this episode is about six hundred years old! It is here that all the bread for the different families living and working on the estate was baked every week… Now, we use it almost for everything we want to cook near a fire or over a great set of charcoal: Lamb, Sheep, Veal, Bread, Cecina (garbanzo beans flat bread) and yes, Pizza! No steak can be cooked in this oven, it is way too hot, and it would cook through your 3 inches thick “Chianina Steak” in a snap… no good!During our Summer vacation in Italy we decided to host a pizza party, it was a lot of fun, and a lot of work… the evening revolved around the oven, everybody got to try to create their own pizza, and again, it was an evening that made for very good memories.
The beautiful thing about pizza is that you can be creative (within limits..no pineapple please), look on the table, pick your ingredients, feel in control, be in touch with your stomach and allow it to “tell you” what is the mood of the evening.
In Italy we all love to have occasionally our creative moment with flatbreads and pizzas, and this is the reason why, it is very easy to find in your local grocery store, fresh dough ready to be rolled on a table and cooked to your likings… Therefore, since we bought our dough at the supermarket, the “making” of it is not featured on the video, however, here is Nonna Lola’s recipe for it.
Have fun, and let the kids play too!
INGREDIENTI
PIZZA DOUGH
Serves 6: Prep Time: 20 min + 3 hours for rising the Dough
PIZZA
Mix the flour and the salt, and "sift" it onto the table.
Use some of your water to melt the yeast: in a little cup microwave about 1/4 cup of water and mix in the yeast, stir well.
Add the cold water, the olive oil and the yeast water to the flour, work well the dough with your hands, until it becomes soft and it start loosing its stickiness.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with a dishrag and let it rest in a warm place (not direct sunlight though) for about 3 hours... the dough will double its volume. It is now ready to be rolled on a surface to a thickness of your liking (use flour for dusting) and cooked.
If you do have an electric oven, you might want to make it as hot as you can, jacking the temperature well above 500º, and cook your pizza in a baking sheet. If you are working with a gas oven, you should probably buy yourself a baking stone and lay it on the bottom of it, right over the fire.
Cooking time is usually between 3 and 5 minutes, you might want to rotate the pizza 180º to ensure an even cooking process.
About Tomatoes and Mozzarella:
We usually use pelati tomatoes, well blended with a mixer, and seasoned with salt and pepper. Since we do always have some sauce leftovers, we never add oregano to it, just in case we decide to use the tomatoes a couple of days later to make a pasta sauce... also, oregano is not one of our favorite herbs.
We also grind the mozzarella, instead of slicing it... By doing this we ensure that the dough does not get wet when the cheese starts melting, and also, ground cheese is easier to spread evenly on the pizza.
The Pizzas That We Made...
Margherita - Tomatoes, Mozzarella, olive oil. Add Basil before serving.
Napoli - Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Capers, Anchovies, Olive Oil, Oregano.
Herbs Covaccino - Mozzarella, Rosemary, Sage, Olive Oil (Onion optional).
Potatoes and Stracchino - Slices of Boiled Potatoes, Stracchino or other soft spreadable cheese, Red Onion, Sage, Olive Oil.
Stracchino and Sausage - Stracchino, Pork Sausage, White Onion, Sage, Olive Oil.
Tomatoes and Bufala - Fresh Tomatoes sliced thin, Bufala Mozzarella sliced thin (Bufala is too soft to be ground), Olive Oil. Add Basil before serving.
And for your munchies, or to help you finish the bottle of Grappa in front of you...
Nutella Pizza - No Olive Oil on this one!
Buon Appetito!
Debi and Gabriele
