Books - The Little Pizza Cookbook

Introduction

Pizza began life as a fast food, eaten hot on the backstreets of Naples. Today it is found all over the world, but it is still in Naples that skilled pizzaioli (pizza-makers) use wonderful local tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil to produce the finest of pizzas.

P izza, in the sense of a flat bread covered with toppings, has probably been around since the ancient Greeks and Romans, and many regions developed their own versions. However, it is the pizza of Naples that has come to be regarded as the true pizza. The first Neapolitan pizzas were white, made with garlic, lard, salt and anchovies. It was the tomato that was to transform pizza and the Neapolitans were the first Europeans to embrace this new fruit, growing them from seeds brought from the New World. The first tomato pizza was probably the classic marinara.

By the mid-nineteenth century, pizzerias had opened in Naples and wandering vendors sold slices to people on the streets. A way of life was born for the Neapolitans and their pizza began to achieve wider notoriety, with visitors venturing into poor neighbourhoods to sample this new food. When Queen Margherita visited in 1889, she too wanted to try the famous pizza. A pizzaiolo named Raffaele Esposito was summoned and he created a pizza of mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and basil based on the colours of the Italian flaglater to be named after the Queen.

Pizza is the classic fast food and today in Naples traditional round pizzas are baked to order, then folded into quarters and wrapped in paper to take away. Elsewhere, it is more usual to find pizza a taglio pizza that has been baked in a large tray and sold by the slice. Probably originating in Rome, pizza a taglio can be ordered by weight in many places and reheated as a snack or lunch.

Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (The True Neapolitan Pizza Association) has been set up to safeguard the pizza. Their guidelines include that the dough must be made only from flour, yeast, salt and, water and it must not be worked by machine. Pizzas are to be cooked directly on the floor of a brick-or stone-lined wood-fired oven and the temperature must exceed 400C (750F /Gas 6). The cornicione (border) must be high and soft and the whole crust not too crisp. A pizza should take only 12 minutes to cook and should be brown and crisp with the ingredients melted together.

Emigrating Neapolitans took pizza with them to America and, by the 1950s, pizza could probably be found more easily in America than in the north of Italy. When the rest of Italy did take to pizza, they adapted it to their own tastes: the Roman pizza has more topping, is thinner and crisper, and does not have a border.

Traditional

Traditional pizzas often include those ingredients that we instantly associate with a great-tasting pizzarich, chunky tomato paste, fresh aromatic basil and thick, stringy mozzarella cheese.

Pizza napoletana

Neapolitana pizza

The true Pizza Napoletana has just two ingredients: tomato sauce and cheese. This recipe is one of many variations and adds olives, anchovies and capers to the basic topping.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 12 minutes

Makes: two 30 cm (12 in) square pizzas (serves 46)

1 quantity

1 quantity

340 g (12 oz/22/3 cups) coarsely grated mozzarella cheese

125 g (4 oz/1 cup) pitted black olives

60 g (2 oz/1/3 cup) capers, rinsed, drained

16 anchovy fillets, drained on paper towel, halved lengthways

Preheat the oven to 220C (425F/Gas 7). Place two large, heavy baking trays in the oven to heat.

Cut the dough into two even portions and shape each into a ball. Press each ball to flatten, then use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out each ball on a piece of non-stick baking paper to a 30 cm (12 in) square. Spread the pizzas evenly with the pizza sauce, then top with the mozzarella cheese, olives, capers and anchovies.

Remove the trays from the oven one at a time to keep them as hot as possible and carefully slide one pizza (still on the baking paper) onto each tray.

Bake for 12 minutes, swapping the trays around halfway through cooking, or until the bases are crisp and golden, and the mozzarella cheese is bubbling. Serve immediately.