Recipe of the week: Neapolitan-style pizza
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This sourdough pizza recipe creates the perfect thin and crispy base.
Craving Italian-style thin and crispy pizza? This sourdough pizza recipe is topped with a simple tomato sauce, mozzarella and (optional for meat eaters) salami slices.
Ingredients:
(makes four pizzas)
For the base: 100g white sourdough starter, 400g strong white flour; 7g table salt; 260g tepid water; Semolina
For the topping:
3 garlic cloves; 1tbsp good olive oil; 400g tomato passata; Salt and pepper; 2 x 125g balls of mozzarella; Cured meat or salami; Basil leaves
Method:
It’s best to make your dough at least 24 hours before your pizza. The dough can keep for four days.
1. Make the dough. In a large bowl, weigh out your flour and add the table salt. Mix these together then add the tepid water and starter. Use a wooden spoon to combine everything into a wet and sticky dough. Cover the bowl, then leave it for at least one hour at room temperature.
2. It should remain soft and sticky. I’d do a couple of stretches and folds, and watch it rise over about six to eight hours at room temperature. It should be very bubbly and sticky. At this point, cover with a plastic bag, put it in the fridge and leave it.
3. Make your pizza sauce. Peel and finely chop your garlic and place this in a pan with the oil. Gently infuse over the lowest heat for five minutes. Add your passata, stir and simmer. Add salt and pepper. Chop your mozzarella into slices and place this in some paper towels to dry.
4. Dust the work surface with plenty of semolina or flour. Turn your dough out on top, and then add more semolina and flour again. Divide your dough and coat each of these with semolina too. Preheat your grill as hot as it goes with the door as close to closed as possible, and then get a cast-iron pan onto your hob to heat as hot as you dare.
5. Work quickly. Dust some semolina on a tray. Take a piece of dough and stretch it flat. You want the centre of the dough almost translucent, and you should leave a 1cm-thick rim around the edge to give a good puff and stop the sauce leaking. Spread some sauce on, then mozzarella and some slices of cured meat or salami and basil leaves, if you like.
6. Gently slide this onto your pan. Move this under your grill, and shut the door. Cook for two minutes.
Sourdough From Scratch by James Morton, photography by Andy Sewell, is published by Quadrille, priced £12.
