Pizza Recipes - Italian Margherita or Cheese Pizza with Mushrooms

It is worth noting that pizzerias in Italy can be found as often as pigeons. And there are millions of pigeons in this country. You don't have to go far to eat pizza in Italy. It is enough to turn your head and look for the inscription Pizzeria. In Minsk, ordering pizza, of course, is not so easy, but also not difficult. But with a dish prepared with your own hands and with your soul, nothing can be compared, especially since making pizza is easy. Chef Roman Shusta gave us a master class on cooking perhaps the most famous dish of Italian cuisine in the kitchen of the Gourmet School of Good Taste.

We would like to thank the Gourmet Cooking School and the Royal Oak Pub for help in filming.

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Oh, those culinary controversies! They didn't skip the pizza either. Most of the controversy concerns the discoverers of this dish. But the fact that pizza comes from Naples has already been proven. In addition, the oldest pizzeria is still operating in Naples - Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba (Antica pizzeria Port Alba). It is believed that it was opened in 1830, although the numbers above the entrance to it show 1738. The most famous and widespread pizza in Naples is the Margherita.

Roman Shusta

It was Margarita that we decided to cook with the chef of one of the Minsk restaurants Roman Shusta. By the way, he himself admits that he cooked pizza only a few times in his life, for himself and his loved ones. This, one might say, is a culinary experiment for him, especially for a wide audience. The thing is that there is no pizza on the menu of the restaurant where Roman creates your culinary dishes. It is worth noting that the experiment was a success.

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No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to cook a real Margarita. It is served exclusively at Pizzeria Port'Alba. Pizza masters (they are called pizzaiolo) are almost holy people. They cook "Margarita" only in a special oven and exclusively on wood. Their dish, baked in a special oven, sprinkled with mozzarella (mozzarelladi bufala), with the addition of oval tomatoes and seasoned with Mediterranean basil, is beyond praise. No matter how hard you try, your "Margarita" will only look like.

Pizza "Margherita"

We will need:

For test:
flour (from durum wheat) - 90 grams;
yeast (dry) - 1 gram;
olive oil - a tablespoon;
salt - a pinch;
water - 50 grams.

For filling:
tomatoes - 400 grams;
salt - a pinch;
pepper - to taste;
basil - 1 bunch;
mozzarella - 200 grams.

Cooking method:

• 01 The secret to a good pizza, be it homemade or classic, always as a dough. For pizza, we have prepared a classic dough made from durum wheat flour, yeast, olive oil, salt and water. All ingredients must be mixed together. By the way, we took the proportions for a ball of dough of 130 grams, it will make 1 small pizza. The ingredient list can be increased.

• 02 The dough is kneaded exclusively by hand and rolled out in a thin layer (usually up to half a centimeter thickness).

• 03 For the filling, prepare the tomato sauce. To do this, beat the tomatoes, salt, pepper in a blender until smooth.
• 04 Spread the tomato mixture on the dough, sprinkle with grated cheese and put the basil.

• 05 Preheat the oven to the maximum, approximately 225 degrees, and set the pizza for 10-12 minutes. This time will be enough.

The classic pizza is the one that is baked in the Pompeian wood-fired oven, the heat from which is reflected from the roof of the oven and falls on the pizza. It is prepared very quickly - it takes only a few minutes. In a conventional oven, this takes a little over 10 minutes.

Ready "Margarita" can be decorated with herbs and sprinkled with olive oil. By the way, they noticed that pizza as a symbol of Italy resembles the culinary flag of the country. The white color of the pizza is mozzarella cheese, a young Italian cheese from the Campania region. Red - tomato sauce or ripe red tomatoes. Green - basil, the main culinary herb of Italy.

"Margherita" - the first pizza and the simplest. Later, in different countries, they began to add their own ingredients to this dish. To prepare pizza with mushrooms, you need to spread the mushrooms on a layer of tomato sauce, and only then sprinkle them with mozzarella cheese.

Thin pizza dough - recipe without yeast

We will need:

water - 100 milliliters;
olive oil - 4 tablespoons;
flour - 1.5 cups;
baking powder - 1 teaspoon;
salt - half a teaspoon.

Cooking method:

• 01 Sift flour and mix with baking powder.
• 02 Make a hole in the flour and pour in oil (olive, but you can also replace it with sunflower oil) and water.
• 03 Knead the dough. You will have to knead it with your hands for about 6 minutes. Then we roll up the ball and leave it in the cold for 30 minutes.
• 04 Then we roll out the dough according to the size of the baking sheet and spread the filling on the base.
• 05 Cooking in the oven preheated to 200–250 degrees. The pizza will be ready in 10-20 minutes.

Toppings: pizza with cheese

Option 1.

We will need:

pizza dough - 1 ball;
cheeses: gouda, edamer, Tilsiter, Domashny - 200 grams;
vegetable oil.

Cooking method:

• 01 Roll out the dough and place on a greased baking sheet.
• 02 Cut the cheese into strips and spread evenly on the tortilla.
• 03 Spray with oil and place in the oven for 15 minutes
  for 10-15 minutes.

Option 2.

We will need:

pizza dough - 250 grams;
mozzarella cheese - 150 grams;
blue cheese - 50 grams;
parmesan cheese - 50 grams;
feta cheese - 50 grams;
sour cream - 40 grams.

Cooking method:

• 01 Grate mozzarella and parmesan.
• 02 Cut blue cheese and feta into cubes.
• 03 Roll out the dough on the table and brush with sour cream on top. Then spread all the cheeses evenly.
• 04 Bake the pizza in the oven for 20 minutes.

Recipe for pizza with champignons and ham

We will need:

ham - 400 grams;
champignons - 300 grams;
tomatoes - 300 grams;
hard cheese - 100 grams;
garlic - 2 cloves;

White wine;
basil;
salt;
greenery;
frying oil.

Cooking method:

• 01 Finely chop the champignons, put them in a frying pan, greased with oil.
• 02 Add 1 clove of garlic and white wine to the pan, salt. Cover with a lid and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.
• 03 Cut another clove of garlic and fry in another pan with oil. We also put chopped tomatoes there and simmer for 10 minutes. Add basil and let the sauce cool down.
• 04 Lubricate the pizza base with tomato sauce, lay out thinly sliced ​​ham and mushrooms, sprinkle everything with cheese.
• 05 We put for 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 200 degrees.

Pizza with champignons in sour cream sauce

We will need:

dough - 250 grams;
champignons - 300 grams;
sour cream - 250 grams;
eggs - 2 pieces;

grated cheese - 5 tablespoons;
black pepper;
butter;
salt.

Cooking method:

• 01 Wash the mushrooms, dry and cut into slices. Set aside a few pieces, put the rest in a pan and simmer in butter.
• 02 Beat the eggs until light foam, salt and pepper. To them, add sour cream in a spoon, continuing to whisk. In the egg mass, mix 4 tbsp. l. cheese.
• 03 Roll out the dough into a layer 7–10 mm thick. We spread the base on a baking sheet, put the mushroom filling on it and pour everything with the egg-sour cream mixture. Then sprinkle with the remaining cheese and decorate with deferred slices of mushrooms.
• 04 Bake for 20 minutes in the oven at 220 degrees.

Pizza Sauce Recipes

The most suitable sauces for pizza are: tomato, mushroom, white and Neapolitan. Garlic or sour cream is suitable for salty pizza. Sour cream or mayonnaise sauce will complement the taste of pizza with sausage, fish and vegetables well. And soy sauce is usually served with pizza with rice or mushrooms.

white sauce

We will need:

meat broth - 1 liter;
flour - 50 grams;
butter -60 grams.

Cooking method:

• 01 Mix the flour with a little broth and butter. Gradually add the remaining broth.
• 02 Cook the sauce for 45-50 minutes at a low boil, stirring frequently. Remove foam and grease periodically. Strain the finished sauce.

Cooking method:

• 01 Pass the nuts through a meat grinder and mix with sour cream. We warm up a little.
• 02 Dilute the flour in a small amount of warm water, then pour 1 glass of water into the sauce. We make sure that there are no lumps. Mix everything and bring to a boil.



Some facts about modern pizza
in different countries

Pizza toppings vary depending on culinary preferences and the country.

• There are almost 70,000 pizzerias open in the US, and all of them are operating. In a second, this nation eats more than 350 slices of pizza. The pizza industry makes $30 billion a year. By the way, the most common pizza in America is pepperoni: with salami and cheese. In terms of popularity, the dish is second only to hamburgers. Anchovy pizza is the least in demand in America.
• The Japanese prefer fillings such as eel and squid.
• In Russia, pizza with pink salmon, onions, cheese, bacon and tomatoes is most often ordered.
• In Brazil, they love it with green peas.
• Australians love pineapple and shrimp, so they often have pizza with these toppings.
• In France, they like to add bacon and sour cream sauce to pizza, and aristocratic Englishmen like to add tuna and corn.
• In all countries, most often pizza is ordered on Independence Day, New Year and Halloween, as well as on the days of the finals of sports competitions.

Photographer: Irina Zabirashko, google.com