Cooking secrets: homemade pizza. Italian pizza - all the secrets of making delicious pastries

Pizza is incredibly popular, almost becoming a fast food. You can taste several varieties in almost any restaurant. There are also specialized establishments where they cook only pizza in a real wood-fired oven.

How to choose the right pizza from the variety of offers? What is the best option for cooking at home? That's what we'll talk about today.

Everyone knows that the birthplace of pizza is Italy, or rather, Naples. It was there that, driven by a patriotic impulse, the inhabitants came up with the classic Margherita pizza in the colors of the national flag and named it after the queen.

In essence, pizza is an easy-to-make dish made from the leftovers of everything that is at home. Pizza dough is made in haste from flour, olive oil and a pinch of salt, finely chopped fresh vegetables, mushrooms and ham. Tomato sauce. Yes, and definitely cheese. The cheese melts in the oven, binds all the components, gives the filling juiciness and a unique viscous structure.

So, what to look for if you want to please your guests with delicious homemade pizza.

How to cook the right pizza

1. Thin pizza dough

It is very important. And it concerns not only the dough itself, but also the filling layer. Don't forget that pizza cooks quickly. The cheese melts and you're done. A thick layer of dough will not bake. If you put too much stuffing in, the same thing will happen. You will never get a delicious crispy crust if you don't keep the right proportions.

1. Wood burning oven or a good pizza oven

Ideally, pizza should be baked on an iron sheet in a dome-shaped wood-fired oven. The heat is well distributed there. The dough does not burn, bakes quickly and evenly. But not even all restaurants can boast of such equipment. Therefore, we advise you to cook pizza in the oven with convection mode at a temperature of 220 -250 degrees. Cooking time is approximately 10-15 minutes. The oven must be preheated.

1. Proper pizza sauce

There are two basic sauces for pizza - red tomato and white for variations with seafood. You can experiment a lot, but the easiest way is to take a ready-made Italian sauce with herbs or high-quality tomato paste. You can add your own spices and garlic to it to taste. Cream-based white sauce is suitable for stuffing with mushrooms, chicken, fish.

1. Pizza topping secrets

For God's sake, don't put pickles and mayonnaise on your pizza. It is these variations that are often called "Moscow" and "Home" in the menu of establishments of dubious quality. Of course, you can put bacon, but it will no longer be pizza in its classic version.

Fresh vegetables and mushrooms, finely chopped meat or chicken, thin slices of ham go well. And all this is crowned with a viscous melted cheese, which gives the filling a juiciness. It is better to cut the ingredients into strips or slices, rather than cubes. So it is much more convenient to divide the finished pizza into pieces and eat it.

1. Choosing pizza cheese

The perfect pizza is made with fresh mozzarella. Delicate curd cheese has a neutral taste, absorbs aromas well, melts slightly. For a more savory taste, you can take a hard cheese like "Edam" or get Pecorino Romano. According to the rules of good manners, you can not add cheese to the "fish" pizza, with salmon and seafood. It is better to add more herbs and spices. Dill is also an exclusively Russian invention. Italians have been fine with parsley and oregano for centuries.

We hope our tips will help you cook really delicious pizza in the best traditions of Italy!

In this article you will find everything about what pizza is, the history of the dish, what types of pizza exist, the most popular pizza recipes, how to prepare pizza dough, what can be included in the filling and how pizza is prepared in Italy.

Pizza - all the secrets and methods of cooking an Italian dish

Nowadays, pizza is a very popular dish.

She is loved by adults and children. It can be prepared at home using one or another recipe.

And you can order it ready-made directly with home delivery.

There are even separate establishments called pizzerias where you can taste real Italian pizza.

This dish is always welcome on the table.

It is quite suitable for eating on a normal day. But it can also become a decoration of any festive table.

What is pizza?

Pizza is a dish of Italian national cuisine and is a round pastry with an open top, covered with a filling with various ingredients (tomatoes, sausage, chicken, cheese, anchovies, seafood, olives, etc.)

The name of the dish comes from two Italian words, which in translation mean "plate" and "square".

History of pizza

Anyone who thinks that pizza is a modern dish is deeply mistaken.

Its existence has been known for thousands of years.

Italy is the birthplace of pizza.

In the beginning, it was the food of ordinary people.

On a cake of dough, a filling of cheese and tomatoes was laid out, poured with olive oil and sprinkled with spices.

In different parts of Italy and depending on the season, other products, fish and seafood, mushrooms were added to pizza.

Even the date is known when it ceased to be the food of commoners, but came out, so to speak, "into the light." It was 1772 and the credit for this belongs to the then ruling King Ferdinand I.

It was he who visited incognito the establishment of Antonio Testa, in which various dishes were prepared, including pizza. and gave the order to include this dish in the court menu, but, alas, the queen was against it, since pizza was the food of the poor.

In addition, one of the main reasons why they did not want to accept pizza at the royal court was the peculiarities of preparing the dough - they kneaded it with their feet !!!, and if without cutlery, with their hands.

All these questions were resolved by the nobleman Gennaro Spadacchini.

It was he who proposed to beat the dough with a pestle, and improved the fork, making it with four prongs. So she entered the diet of the nobility.

Types of pizza

Currently, Italian cuisine has over 2,000 types of pizza.

Four of them have become national treasures and are the most popular:

• marinara,
• margarita,
• Neapolitan,
• Four cheeses.

Pepperoni, Mason, Carciofi, Gogo, Calzone and many others are also known.

• Pizza Marinara

Despite the fact that the name of the pizza is translated from Italian as "sea", there is no seafood in it. This is the food of the poor fishermen of Naples, who, after a hard day's work, ate pizza stuffed with tomatoes, cheese, basil and dried oregano for dinner.

• Pizza Margherita

Between 1878 and 1900, Margherita of Savoy was the Queen of Italy. Once, arriving in Naples, she wanted to try pizza, a favorite dish of the people.

To fulfill the desire of the queen, a local culinary specialist, Pappino Brandi, was invited to the court. He made pizza in a patriotic style.

Its colors corresponded to the colors of the Italian flag: red - tomato, white - mozzarella, green - basil. It was this pizza that got the name "Margherita".

It is these two pizza recipes that have survived to this day, and they are the most popular.

Basic pizza ingredients

As everyone knows, pizza consists of two main components: the dough and the filling.

As a rule, pizza toppings always have three constant components: tomatoes or tomato sauce, cheese (most often) and basil.

Delicious toppings for pizza

Let's take a closer look at the main toppings for pizza:

• Pizza Margherita: tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, basil
• Pizza Marinara: tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, basil, dried oregano
• "Fruti di mare" - pizza with seafood (or translated from Italian - sea fruits): tomato sauce, tomatoes, mozzarella, parsley, basil, fresh thyme.
• "Salmone" (Italian Salmone - "salmon") - pizza with salmon: slightly salted or smoked salmon, as well as fillet of other red fish, moscrapone, lemon zest, arugula
• Carbonara is a famous Italian pasta based on smoked brisket, mozzarella and parmesan.
• "Fungi" - mushroom pizza. Mushrooms are suitable for its preparation. You can also use oyster mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, chanterelles or a mixture of them, mozzarella and.
• "Four Seasons" (quattro stagioni) - a "calendar" pizza divided into four segments, each of which is characterized by a certain time of the year and seasonal products: winter - mozzarella or mushrooms, as well as boiled eggs; spring - asparagus, spinach, artichokes; summer - cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers; autumn - olives, olives, canned corn.
• “Four Cheeses” (ai quattro formaggi) by analogy with the “Four Seasons” pizza - pizza is an assortment of cheeses with a variety of tastes: white mold cheese - brie, blue mold - gorgonzola, soft - mozzarella, and mature hard - parmesan .
• Pizza with canned fish - tuna in its own juice or oil or sardine, mozzarella, capers, tomato sauce.
• Pizza with salami - tomato sauce, mozzarella, sausage, cherry tomatoes, herbs.
• Pepperoni - Pizza is so named due to the use of a spicy variety of salami of Italian-American origin in the composition. In the southern regions of Italy, hot peppers are added to some types of sausage - pepperoni (Italian peperone - "capsicum") and paprika.
• Pizza Hearty - pizza sauce, mozzarella, bacon, ground beef, onions, tomatoes, fresh herbs
• Neapolitan - onions, tomatoes, onions, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, Swiss cheese, anchovy fillets in oil, olives.

What to put on pizza - homemade options

Of course, the list of toppings for making delicious homemade pizza does not end there. And you can experiment and prepare toppings to your taste.

Modern housewives add a variety of toppings to pizza:

• You can add to the filling for homemade pizza: boiled meat, chicken, fried minced meat, ham, bacon, sausages, bacon, pickles, olives, garlic, and even boiled cereals (rice or buckwheat)
• Of the cheeses used for cooking, you can take not only mozzarella, but also parmesan, provolone, cheddar, feta, etc.
• From fruits and vegetables: artichokes, eggplant, capers, olives, garlic, onions, tomatoes, sweet and bitter peppers, spinach and even pineapples.

Here are some interesting home options:

Meat:

• 300 g beef
• 200 g cheese
• 70 g tomato paste
• parsley
• ground black pepper

Sytnaya:

• 200 g of boiled meat and tomatoes
• 150 g cheese
• 100 g mushrooms and bell pepper
• 2 boiled eggs
• 1 head of onion
• 5 tsp mayonnaise
• tomato sauce

Pizza with sausage:

• 200 g smoked sausage (salami)
• 150 g mozzarella and gouda
• 50 g champignons
• 2 tomatoes

Pizza with cottage cheese:

• 300 g cottage cheese,
• 100 g ham
• 200 g cheese of different varieties,
• nutmeg (at the tip of a teaspoon), salt, pepper.

Pizza dough

Pizza can be prepared from various types of dough:

1. yeast,
2. yeast-free
3. fresh,
4. on kefir,
5. puff
6. even sand.

Consider the basic rules for preparing pizza dough.

Good pizza requires a number of nuances:

• Ideal for soft wheat flour.
• Do not be too lazy to pre-sift the flour through a sieve: the dough will be more magnificent
• In order for the dough to “rise” better, it is necessary to dissolve the yeast in boiled water with a temperature of 35 degrees.
• Yeast is added dry or diluted.
• Remember that the yeast dough must be kneaded until it begins to lag behind the walls. In order for the dough to turn out elastic, it must be kneaded for a long time.
• It is better to take unrefined olive oil.
• The dough rolls out quite thinly and is additionally stretched in the hands.
• A glass (250 mg) of liquid and three glasses of flour make 3 large pizzas (about 25 cm in diameter), for each of which you can choose a different topping.
• In their homeland, pizza is baked using a wood-fired oven. At a temperature of more than 300 degrees, it is baked in 4 minutes. In the oven, the cooking time will be 10-12 minutes at t 250 C and 5-7 minutes at 300 C.
• The highest temperature and the shortest baking time are the basic rules for baking pizza.
• Do not put too much toppings on the pizza, otherwise it will not bake through.

Pizza Dough Recipes

• Yeast-free dough

Most often, pizza is cooked on yeast dough without sourdough. You can find a detailed step-by-step recipe for a very tasty pizza dough.

• Unleavened pizza dough

Take: 1 cup flour, 3 tbsp. spoons of sour milk or sour cream, 1 egg, 3 tbsp. tablespoons butter, 1 package baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon sweet red pepper, 1/2 teaspoon salt, a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Knead the dough from all the components, decorate the side.

• Kefir pizza dough

Take: 2.5 cups of flour, 0.5 l of kefir, 2 eggs, 0.5 teaspoon of soda, 0.5 teaspoon of salt.

Knead the dough from all the components, leave for 1 hour, then roll out a thin layer, put the filling (any) and bake until done.

• Sand dough for pizza

Take: 1 cup flour, 2 tbsp. spoons of sour cream or 2 tbsp. spoons of cold water, 1 egg yolk, 100 g butter, 1/2 teaspoon sweet red pepper, 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Knead the dough from all the components, refrigerate for 30 minutes. Then roll out the dough into a round cake and put it on the bottom of a detachable form or pan. Roll out the dough scraps into a narrow strip and form the edge of the pizza out of it.

Before putting the filling, hold for 8-10 minutes in a moderately hot oven.

• Curd dough for pizza

Take: 1.5 cups flour, 125 g low-fat cottage cheese, 3 tbsp. tablespoons of olive oil, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of salt. Knead the dough from all the components and roll into a thin cake. Bake for 20 minutes.

Features of cooking real Italian pizza

Pizza is the culinary heritage of Italy, and in order to preserve the classic pizza recipes unchanged, the state adopted a special law that regulates the following rules:

• A real pizza should have a thin crust. At the same time, it is not rolled out, but rotated and thrown up by hands.
• It should only be round in shape and up to 35 cm in diameter.
• As a filling, special varieties of tomatoes, flour and a certain mozzarella cheese from the southern regions are used.
• Of the spices, only garlic, basil, oregano are added.
• When cooking pizza, only olive oil is used.

Cook with pleasure and let your homemade pizza be no worse than real Italian!

Bon appetit!

Pizza preparation by true Italian pizzaiolo takes several days. They quickly mix all the right ingredients for the dough and leave it to rise for a couple of days. And only then the dough is thoroughly kneaded for 20 minutes, carefully kneading each fold. Real masters do not roll out the dough with a rolling pin, but knead it with their fingers, stretch it and unwind it (the latter is especially liked by tourists, but this is not done at all for a spectacular spectacle - thus, the dough is saturated with oxygen).

In order to speed up the process of "raising" the dough at home, you can leave it in a barely preheated oven. Warm it up to 70-80C, then turn it off and after 7-10 minutes you can put the dough. If the temperature is higher, the yeast will die. You can put a tray with warm water down - yeast loves moisture. This can be done in the morning before leaving for work, and in the evening the dough will be ready for baking. Or at night to start the morning with delicious homemade pizza.

The dough thickness of a classic Neapolitan pizza is 3 mm in the center and 1-2 cm along the side, diameter 35 cm. These parameters, like the traditional recipe, are protected by a special status assigned by the EU to protect it from fakes. They are required to comply with all European restaurants and pizzerias.

The traditional way of making pizza is in a stone oven on hot stones. This is the secret of its perfect crispy crust, but at home you can make an equally crispy masterpiece. Only you need to bake it in a very hot oven, and even better under the grill. Instead of a stone, a regular baking sheet is useful, which needs to be heated in the oven. Place the pizza on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal, then on an upside-down baking sheet. In 10 minutes it will be ready, or even earlier.

If you have leftover dough, refrigerate it and use for another 1-2 days, changing the topping each time for variety. The dough can also be frozen, but after defrosting, the pizza will no longer turn out crispy, as excess moisture will remain in the dough.

Reheat yesterday's pizza in a very hot oven, then it will regain its former crunchiness. Lay it on parchment and put it in the oven for 8-10 minutes until the cheese starts to bubble. If you need to reheat a slice or two, use a toaster.

Italians, as everyone knows, are considered true connoisseurs of a round yeast cake with filling. But any gourmet is not averse to pampering himself with such a delicacy, no matter how much his eating habits differ from the standard ones.

Pizza will conquer with its versatility, because there are hundreds of thousands of recipes for vegetable, fruit, meat and cheese open pies.

But becoming a real pizzaiola is not so easy, you need to have valuable knowledge about your favorite snack - Italian pizza.

The final taste of the dish depends on the test. Therefore, the base is prepared from several varieties of wheat (regular and coarse) and spread on a hot baking sheet.

simple recipe

"The secret of delicious pizza is in its simplicity." All 4 ingredients are needed to make the dough:

• Warm water (500 ml)
• Salt (25 g)
• Flour (1 kg)
• Dry yeast (5 g)

"No eggs, cooking oil, other frills"

For filling:

• Tomatoes in their own juice
• Mozzarella
• grated parmesan
• fresh basil
• Olive oil

1. Dissolve yeast in water, add sugar and salt.
   

   Attention! “It is necessary to observe the correct proportion of flour and salt, otherwise its excess will suppress the action of yeast and the dough will not rise, and its deficiency will adversely affect the elasticity property. In Italy, sea salt is often used.”

2. Sift the flour, form a hill in the center of which we pour the liquid mixture. Knead, gradually adding water over 20 minutes, leave for half an hour.
3. We thin the dough, forming an impromptu plate with sides. Lay out the filling.
4. Bake at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with herbs and cheese.

Conclusion

Previously, food for the poor, now an adored delicacy, is a guest of honor in every home. Pizza will brighten up a winter evening well, feed a dozen guests and become the main dish at an incendiary party. And to cook it, you need quite a bit - confidence and good mood, and, of course, ours. Cook with love and you'll be fine.

Pizza is a popular dish, and therefore quite simple in composition: dough base, sauce, cheese and toppings. However, making pizza at home is often difficult. Despite the fact that pizza recipes for every taste are widespread, few people manage to cook the same tasty and aromatic dish at home as in a pizzeria.

Features of Italian pizza

Pizza is one of the world's most popular dishes that has won the hearts of millions with its delicious taste. Probably, in any corner of the world you can find a cafe that serves pizza. However, far from everywhere and not always this dish is truly tasty. Often people are offered a "rubber" pale dough, somehow smeared with tomato sauce and sprinkled with cheese.

With the filling, everything is much simpler: it just has to be prepared from suitable products. Natural tomato sauce without unnecessary additives, fragrant low-melting cheese (ideally mozzarella) and all other ingredients must be fresh and of high quality.

cooking at home

Professional pizzaioli (pizza makers) are unanimous: in order to give the dough a unique aroma and the famous soft-crispy texture, a special wood-fired oven is needed. Only such an oven allows you to achieve the high temperature required for baking pizza.

Even the most desperate pizza lovers will not be able to install a suitable oven in a city apartment. But you can bake your favorite delicacy in a conventional oven. Of course, such a pizza will be somewhat inferior in taste to the one cooked according to the original technology, but it will still be deliciously delicious. The first thing you need is a properly prepared dough.

Pizza Dough Secrets

The only correct recipe for pizza dough does not exist even in the homeland of pizza - in Naples. Each cook empirically chooses the most suitable recipe for himself. Some add a little grated raw potato to the dough, others put spices, others - melted lard . But in any case, the classic pizza dough is made from wheat flour, water, olive oil, salt, sugar and yeast. Other types of dough, including puff pastry, are not accepted for making real pizza.

In Italy, you can find special flour for pizza on sale - this is a mixture of ordinary wheat flour with durum wheat flour. In extreme cases, you can use ordinary wheat flour of the highest, first or second grade.

First you need to prepare the yeast: mix it with sugar (preferably with powdered sugar) and warm water, leave for a while so that foam appears on the surface. Sifted flour should be mixed with salt and put on a work surface in a slide. In the center of the mound, you need to make a recess where warm water pours in, in which yeast and sugar are mixed. Using a fork, the flour from the edges is carefully added to the liquid. Lastly, oil is added to the dough. When the mixture becomes dense, knead the dough with your hands.

Kneading the dough is not an easy process, it requires serious physical preparation. The dough must be kneaded very carefully so that it does not stick to your hands. As a rule, this takes at least ten to fifteen minutes. After that, the dough should be put in a bowl, covered with a towel and left for an hour at room temperature so that it fits.

After an hour, the dough should double in size. This means that you can proceed to its further processing. The dough must be thrown onto the table with force, stretched, twisted and kneaded. In this case, you can’t use a rolling pin: all manipulations are done only by hand.

When the dough becomes elastic and will not tear, it must be turned into a cake. For this, a rolling pin is also not used: you must first knead a lump of dough into a cake, and then stretch this cake along the edges. Such processing allows you to save air bubbles in the thickness of the dough, which the rolling pin would inevitably damage. The size of a classic pizza is 26 cm. At the edges, such a flatbread should be thicker than in the middle. So, the normal thickness of the central part of the pizza is 2 mm, while the thickness of the edges can reach up to 8 mm.

Filling

You can start pizza with any products, the tastes of which are in harmony with each other. But you should not get carried away with "complex" fillings: it is better to use no more than three components. First, the dough should be smeared with sauce (in most cases, tomato sauce with garlic is used). - It's easy to make your own. The sauce should not be too thin, otherwise it will soak into the dough and make it difficult to bake. This also applies to the rest of the filling: all components must be dry.

Cheese in a real pizza is placed between the dough smeared with sauce and the filling. It holds the filling together with the dough and prevents the bottom of the pizza from getting wet. In addition, this way the cheese does not burn and does not freeze with an unattractive crust. Toppings are sometimes sprinkled with grated spicy cheese, such as parmesan.

Another secret: the filling must be lightly sprinkled with olive oil. This will give the pizza an appetizing golden crust. Many people think that it would be useful to add spicy Italian herbs: basil, oregano , thyme.

Baking

If it was not possible to acquire a special oven, pizza can be baked in the oven at maximum temperature. Ovens with hot air circulation are best suited for baking pizza. Pizza should be put in a very hot oven, and you need to take it out as soon as the mozzarella melts and starts to bubble, and the dough around the edges acquires a pleasant golden hue. It is not recommended to keep pizza in the oven for too long.

Maria Bykova