So, the question is why it turns out this way: are you going to make a pizza, and a hot sandwich comes out? What do Italians put in dough, or what secrets do they know that they end up with a thin, crunchy base that melts in the mouth? Let's take a look at this issue. So, real pizza must be baked in a wood-fired oven. The required temperature regime (485 degrees) is created there. In such an oven, pizza is baked in one and a half minutes. But don't despair. We can approximate the conditions for baking products in the presence of an ordinary oven - gas or electric. But the Italian pizza dough takes the most effort. This is where you have to work. Because everything else - the composition of the filling and the baking process - is sheer trifles. So, put on an apron and get to work.

If you want your Italian pizza dough to be as close to ideal as possible, and you only have a gas oven at your disposal, stock up on two baking sheets. At the top, set the mold with the product. Place an empty baking sheet at the bottom. It will heat up and give off heat upward, thereby compensating for the rather low temperature of conventional ovens (up to 250 degrees). You can use a stone instead of a baking sheet. And, of course, it is necessary to increase the baking time - about ten minutes. Cakes - those served in an Italian pizzeria should be thin and moderately crispy. But there are many lovers of thick and fluffy dough. Outwardly, the product resembles an ordinary baking, but how satisfying! In some regions of Italy, pizza dough is made without yeast. Here we look at a variety of recipes.

Take a not too large bowl and pour a glass of boiled warm water into it. Dissolve a pinch of salt and two teaspoons of sugar in it. We put the yeast. It is best to keep the bacteria culture fresh. Then we need 25 grams. If you are using dry yeast, one teaspoon will be needed. This is a dough. Sprinkle it with one tablespoon of flour. We put it in a place where it is warm and there are no drafts. When foam appears on the surface, it means that the yeast has fermented, and it is time to prepare the pizza dough. The Italian recipe instructs us to put two glasses of flour into a large bowl, add a little salt and add three soup spoons of oil (olive oil, of course). Add to a large bowl and dough. We begin to knead. It is very important here to feel the density of the dough with your hands. No chef will tell you exactly how much flour you need - after all, the properties of different varieties are very different. The dough should become pliable and pliable. If it is too liquid, add flour, if it is rubbery, add water. Knead for at least ten minutes.

Roll out dough for authentic Italian pizza

This is a real art, since we will not have to use a rolling pin. But first you need to let the test come up. Lubricate the bowl with vegetable oil. We form the dough into a bun. We also grease it with oil and put it in a bowl. Cover with cling film and put in a warm place. What's happening? After an hour or an hour and a half, the dough will approximately triple in volume. We crush it and divide it into parts. Usually, three pizza crusts come out of this amount of dough. Grease a baking sheet with olive oil, and heat the oven to maximum. Sprinkle the countertop with flour and lay out the first piece of dough. We form a cake. Using your knuckles, pull it out by the edges until you get an Italian pizza dough - thin in the middle, thickened at the edges. Stretch the cake, give it a round shape. We transfer to a baking sheet. Lubricate with tomato paste, decorate with filling, sprinkle with cheese. Roll the edges of the pizza up and place the baking sheet in the oven.

Lush cakes

This recipe also has its own "adepts". In a jug, mix a glass (225 ml) of warm water with two tablespoons of olive oil (you can use a mixer). In a large bowl, mix together 300 grams of flour, a pinch of salt, and a teaspoon of dry yeast. Add water and oil from the jug. Knead until smooth. Put it on a floured countertop. We continue to knead for about three more minutes. We transfer the bun into a bowl greased with olive oil, cover with foil and put in a warm place protected from drafts. After forty minutes, when the lush Italian pizza dough doubles, we take it out and knead it again. Roll out with a rolling pin to make a circle with a diameter of 30 centimeters.

Yeast-free dough

This should be the basis for a real Italian pizza. Yeast-free dough is made in various ways, but they all boil down to one thing: beer bacteria are replaced by fermented milk. Here is the first recipe: with sour cream. Beat two eggs with a spoonful of salt. Dissolve soda in a glass of sour cream (on the tip of a knife). We dissolve two tablespoons of butter. We connect all three components. Gradually add two glasses of flour and knead the dough. It should be elastic, pliable. Roll it out and put it in a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil. We make pizza and bake. The cakes will come out moderately lush.

Italian pizza dough without yeast (with milk)

In a large bowl, combine two glasses of flour and a spoonful of salt. In a separate container, beat two eggs, warm milk (100 milliliters) and olive oil (two tablespoons, no more). Pour this mixture into flour. Knead slightly until smooth. We transfer to the work surface, sprinkled with flour. Knead for about ten minutes. The dough will be sticky at first, but then it will become smooth and elastic. Moisten a towel with cold water so that it becomes damp (but not wet). We wrap a bun in it and leave it for a quarter of an hour. After that, we knead and roll it into a thin layer. This pizza base will come out crispy like puff pastry.

Step 1: prepare the dough.

Sift the required amount of wheat flour into a deep bowl using a fine mesh sieve. Add salt, sugar, granulated yeast to it and stir the products with a whisk until smooth.
Turn on the level of the stove to medium temperature and place on it a small saucepan with the required amount of clean distilled water, you do not need to bring the liquid to a boil, just heat it up up to 40 - 45 degrees, yeast will not rise in hot water! Connect the heated liquid with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and stir the ingredients until smooth. Pour the slurry into a bowl of dry ingredients.
Knead to a homogeneous dough, first with a tablespoon, and when it becomes difficult for you to mix, grasp the dough with clean hands.
Transfer it to a kitchen table sprinkled with sifted wheat flour and knead the dough for 2 to 3 minutes.
Rinse the bowl in which you originally made the first batch under running water, pat dry with paper kitchen towels and brush 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. Place the kneaded dough in the prepared bowl, cover with a tea towel and place in a warm place for 40 minutes, for example near a switched on stove. During this time, the flour semi-finished product will increase in size by about 1.5 - 2 times.

Step 2: prepare the filling.

Under running water, rinse the peeled onions, bell peppers and cherry tomatoes, dry the ingredients with paper kitchen towels and cut off at the last two places where the stalks were attached or attached. After gutting the pepper from the seeds, put it on a cutting board, and cut into strips up to 5 millimeters, do the same with onions. For more convenient chopping, you can cut the tomatoes into halves.
If desired, place 5 - 6 tomato halves on a plate and set them aside, they will serve as an additional decoration for your pizza. Transfer the rest of the tomatoes to a clean and dry blender bowl, add to them all the spices indicated in the ingredients, tomato paste and salt to taste. Chop and mix the food, turning on the kitchen appliance to the maximum until a homogeneous mushy consistency, this process will take about 1 - 2 minutes. Pour the resulting mixture into a bowl, taste and, if necessary, add more spices and salt. Arrange the vegetable slices on plates.
For pizza, it is best to use high-quality, well-smoked sausage, for example, with salt, peel it from cling film, place on a cutting board, cut with a knife into rings thick from 3 to 5 millimeters and transfer to a plate.
Open a jar of olives, use a tablespoon to take out the amount of fruit you need, place them on a cutting board and cut into rings thick up to 5 millimeters... Transfer the slices to a separate plate.
Remove the paraffin rind from hard cheese and grate it directly into a plate using a coarse grater. Preheat the oven up to 200 - 220 degrees Celsius.

Step 3: roll out the dough.

After 40 minutes, transfer the dough to a floured kitchen counter and re-knead for 1 - 2 minutes. Divide it with a knife by 2 equal by weight of the part and roll them with a rolling pin into layers thick up to 1.5 centimeters... Take a nonstick aluminum baking sheet and sprinkle a little sifted wheat flour over it. Gently wrap the dough around the rolling pin and transfer it to a baking sheet prepared for baking.

Step 4: shape the pizza.

First, divide the filling ingredients into 2 servings by eye. Pour half of the tomato chopped with herbs onto the surface of the dough. Then sprinkle the grated cheese on the greased layer.
On top of it, in an artistic mess, place sausage rings, onion half rings, salad peppers, chopped olives and halves of cherry tomatoes. You can add canned corn or peas if desired.

Step 5: bake the pizza.

Make sure your oven is preheated to the correct temperature and place a baking sheet of pizza that is still raw in it. Bake flour product 25 - 30 minutes or until the crust of the first ruddy, light shade of beige. Use a tea towel to remove the baking sheet of the finished pizza from the oven and place it on a cutting board. Let the flour product cool down a little, quite enough 45 minutes. Then cut the pizza into portions and enjoy! Prepare the second pizza in the same way.

Step 6: serve pizza in Italian.

Pizza in Italian is served hot, after cooking you can transfer it to a large flat dish and then cut into portions, or cut a fragrant pizza immediately and serve in portions on separate plates. It is pleasant to savor this yummy with light aperitifs, it can be beer, delicate semi-sweet red or white wine, cocktails with a small amount of alcohol. Supporters of a non-alcoholic lifestyle can taste this dish with juices, tea or under a cup of aromatic coffee. Not expensive, practical and delicious! Bon Appetit!

- - The filling for this type of pizza can be supplemented with any canned or pickled vegetables, such as cucumber, hot pepper, pieces of eggplant, garlic.

- - Instead of cherry tomatoes, you can use regular tomatoes with dense walls.

- - The spices and herbs indicated in this recipe are not essential, you can use your favorite seasoning composition.

- - Instead of salted sausage, you can use fried bacon, any kind of stew, boiled and chopped meat or any other type of sausage, it all depends on your taste.

- - You can add olive oil or melted butter to the dough instead of vegetable oil.

- - You can simplify the preparation of this dish if, instead of yeast dough, you use semi-prepared pizza crusts, which can be purchased at any store.

Since the moment pizza gained worldwide popularity, recipes from restaurants have rapidly migrated to the home cooking of housewives from all over the world. But ideally delicious pizza, the same as in a restaurant, does not always come out. Traditional or classic pizza, which is prepared in a pizzeria, is distinguished mainly by the dough. In a cafe or restaurant, we get a pizza that has a thin and crispy dough, with a golden crust and a soft core. At home, we get out of the oven a lush, ruddy base, which is very tasty, but differs from the ideal and resembles

In order to cook the most delicious classic pizza at home, you need to figure out what it is, how to properly prepare the dough, and what recipes are available.

What is Italian pizza?

Italian pizza is a national dish that dates back several centuries of its existence. The dish looks like an open baked flatbread from which the filling is laid on top. Today, pizza is a world famous dish with over a thousand recipes. But the classic pizza recipe is considered the benchmark.

Classic dough recipe

The most important thing in making the right pizza is the right recipe and special technology that will prepare the perfect pizza dough. The classic recipe can be used as a basis for preparing various types of food. For the test you will need:

• boiled water at a temperature of 40 ° C - 0.3 l;
• dry or live yeast - 10 g or 0.5 pack;
• granulated sugar - 20 g;
• salt - 1 teaspoon;
• solid flour - 1 glass;
• soft flour - 1 glass;
• vegetable oil - 30 ml.

First of all, the dough is prepared. Pour warm water into a deep bowl, add sugar, yeast and add one tablespoon of both types of flour. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly and leave in a warm place to approach.

After a quarter of an hour, the yeast will dissolve in the bowl and foam forms on the surface. In another vessel, flour, salt, oil and the dough that has come up are mixed. The dough is kneaded. One of the important factors affecting its quality is the correct consistency. The result should be a soft and elastic pizza dough. The classic Italian recipe implies a thin base that is easier to roll out of pliable dough.

How to properly prepare a workpiece?

Typically, the above classic homemade pizza recipe involves cooking five or six bases. Such a volume cannot always be cooked and eaten in one go, so it is recommended to make blanks that can be stored in the freezer for up to 6 months.

So, the first step is to form a ball from the dough. The lump should be about fifteen centimeters in diameter. The ball must be rolled in flour, then laid on a dry surface, for example, on a cutting board and buried in with your fingers, at a distance of one centimeter from the edge. With the other hand, lightly press and pull the dough to the side, turning it.

Step two is stretching. As soon as the ball becomes a disk shape, it is necessary to continue to stretch it in different directions, until its diameter increases to a size of twenty-five centimeters. In this case, the main thing is not to try to level the base sheet, it will be in special tubercles, otherwise the dough will lose air, and the pizza will turn out to be not pretty and without peculiar spots on the crust.

Step three is formation. Having laid the resulting disc of dough on the knuckles, at a distance of a couple of centimeters from the edges, you need to start twisting the base, fingering under it with your hands at a high pace. In the process of such manipulations, it will become thinner and expand. As soon as the dough has reached the size of thirty centimeters, put it on a cutting board in flour.

Now the base is almost ready, like the classic itself, which can be changed depending on the availability of food in the refrigerator.

Classic pizza

In order for the Italian pizza to come out, you can turn on the music and, enjoying the pleasant atmosphere, start preparing the dish.

How to make the basis is already extremely clear, but the rest needs to be figured out. First, prepare the sauce:

• tomatoes - 2 pieces;
• vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• hot ground pepper - a pinch;
• oregano, basil, or other Italian spices to taste
• salt and sugar - 1 teaspoon each.

The filling can usually be anything from cheese and olives to sausages, meat or seafood. But the classic Italian pizza contains (one hundred and fifty grams) and one tomato.

To make the sauce, the skin is removed from the tomato and the seeds are taken out (this is not necessary, but this is the classic recipe). Then the tomatoes are cut into small cubes and sent to the frying pan for frying, previously greased with olive oil. Tomatoes give juice. As the sauce boils down, stir it, and after fifteen minutes, as soon as it thickens, add salt, sugar, spices and garlic to it. The proportions are not indicated in the recipe, as the sauce is made to taste.
Tomato and Mozzarella filling should be cut into thin slices and put on a prepared base, previously greased with sauce.

Ready, but raw pizza, send to the preheated oven and bake at a temperature of 220 to 230 degrees Celsius for ten minutes.

Pizza thin

How to make the classic Italian pizza dough is already known, and the preparation of the sauce is usually standard. Now about the filling. Several types of filling are used, from which it acquires a unique taste.

You will need:

• tomato sauce - 100 g;
• ham - 70 g;
• cheese - 30 g;
• tomatoes - 2 pieces;
• olives - 30 g;
• olives 30 g;
• mushrooms (champignons) - 50 g;
• vegetable oil (for greasing the baking sheet) - 1 tablespoon.

On the prepared blank, greased with sauce or tomato paste, all the filling is laid out in random order. The ham and vegetables are cut into cubes before laying out. Finally, rub the cheese on top. Bake in the oven at about 220 degrees Celsius for eight minutes.

Pizza "4 cheese"

The classic pizza called “4 cheeses” is especially popular with us. It has a delicate flavor and aroma of four different cheeses.

For cooking you will need:

• cheeses "Mozzarella", "Parmesan", "Dor Blue", "Emmental" - 100 g each;
• (spices) - to taste;
• tomato - 1 piece;
• vegetable oil.

There are four recommended types of cheese in the classic Italian pizza recipe, but some of them may not be on hand, and this is not a problem. Cheese can be replaced with analogues.

So, we rub each type of cheese on a grater, and the soft one can be crumbled with your hands. Cheese is laid out on the finished base in layers, spices are sprinkled, and a tomato cut into slices is laid on top. Bake for up to fifteen minutes in the oven at 200 degrees.

Secrets of delicious pizza

1. For thin and crispy pizza, place two trays in the heated oven, one with the pizza on top and one empty below.
2. The process of kneading the dough requires a good mood, you can turn on music, but not loudly, but in the background.
3. The flour must be sieved so that the dough is homogeneous.
4. Fresh yeast is always better than dry yeast. But in the absence of these, you can replace it.
5. When kneading the dough, first add only half of the flour, and mix the rest gradually.
6. It is advisable to replace vegetable sunflower oil with olive oil. It has less flavor and will be invisible when baked.
7. The process of kneading the dough must be continued until it stops sticking to your hands. It must be remembered that the pizza should not be torn during the kneading and base formation stage. The dough needs to be soft and elastic.

Outcome

To summarize, we can say that classic pizza can be made at home. You just need to adhere to some rules, and a persistent and attentive hostess will turn out an excellent Italian dinner. Experimenting with fillings is not only possible, but also necessary. After all, the classics love perfection.

After that I was sure that it was impossible to do something like this at home. Don't even try. But suddenly? And I decided to try it all the same. I re-read a bunch of articles, recipes and started experimenting.

And you know what? You can make excellent Neapolitan pizza at home! Yes, it will not smell like an oven, and it will not be “just like in Naples”. And yet it will be cool. Better even than many local pizzerias.

But first you need to understand the nuances. So, what ingredients make up the perfect pizza?

Temperature... Pizza is a creation of fire. According to the official recipe of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (The Real Neapolitan Pizza Association), the pizza must be baked in a wood-fired oven at 485 ° C. In normal household conditions, we need at least 250 ° C, which is the maximum temperature of most ovens. The higher the better. Therefore, before baking the pizza, we thoroughly preheat the oven (along with the baking sheet) at the maximum temperature, not less than half an hour.

Baking time. The pizza is baked in the oven in a couple of minutes. In a conventional oven, this time will have to be increased to 6-8 minutes (depending on the size of the pizza). And not a minute longer. Recipes with a 20-minute baking of pizza cause a real irritation in me :) Because this is no longer pizza, but a flat cake with a refried filling. The whole essence of pizza is in a soft elastic dough and a juicy filling, the moisture from which has not had time to evaporate.

Baking surface.Now it is clear that the baking sheet should be hot by the time of baking. As soon as the pizza touches him, she immediately the same should start preparing.Every second counts.If you put the pizza in the oven on a cold baking sheet - everythinggone. While the baking sheet with the dough is warming up, the filling will already evaporate and dry out.Therefore, we warm up the baking sheet in advance with the oven.(Of course, ideally one should use stone for pizza / bread, which ensures the most even heating of the doughand the formation of a thin crisp. But this is ideally,well anda well-heated baking sheet also works well).

Flour... The Neapolitan pizza dough has a very characteristic crumb structure: elastic, “chewy”, bread-like, porous and aromatic. All these properties are influenced by the quantity and quality of gluten, which is released from wheat protein during kneading. It helps the dough to create a stretchable frame that traps the bubbles of carbon dioxide, so that after baking, an elastic, airy, resilient crumb is obtained. The higher the protein content in the flour, the “stronger” it is, the more porous and elastic the dough will be.

For a proper pizza dough, you need flour with a protein content of at least 12 g per 100 g. For example, ordinary (Ukrainian, Russian) premium flour contains only 9% protein. In addition, the moisture content of our flour is much lower (for the same amount of water, more flour is needed), which also does not improve the structure of the dough. It is not very convenient to work with it, tk. the dough is not elastic and breaks easily, and the crumb turns out to be finely porous and crumbly.

And here is a clear difference (on the left - pizza made from medium-strength flour, 12 g of protein, on the right - from weak flour, 9 g of protein)

The structure of the dough after resting (above - medium-strength flour, below - light flour):

How to choose the right flour? Should it be Italian? Not necessary. It's just that it should be flour from soft wheat, finely ground, with a protein content of at least 12 g per 100 g. Domestic flour marked “for baking bread”, for example, may be suitable - its protein content is higher. We look at the composition. Well, if you choose from Italian flour, then it should be “typo 00” (fine grinding) with the above percentage of protein. There are ready-made mixes, on which it is written: “for pizza”. Over time, you can start experimenting, trying to mix different types of flour (for example, weak Ukrainian flour can be “enhanced” with flour with a high protein content). For example, I like the strong flour pizza (14 g of protein) manitoba for long-term proofing, it is used for baking bread, croissants, etc. The dough from it turns out to be very aromatic and indescribably “chewy”, like Meller caramels :)

Proofing time. During the proving of the dough, a fermentation process takes place, which forms the taste and aroma. Roughly speaking, the longer the dough is allowed to stand, the tastier and more flavorful the pizza will be :) This process can take from 3 to 12 hours. For myself, I determined that four hours is quite enough, but if there is an opportunity to stand for longer, so much the better. The dough is still the main element of pizza, and it should be tasty enough so that it would not be a shame to serve the pizza with at least one salt and olive oil.

Filling... 1) Pizza spends only a few minutes in the oven. Therefore, if the filling needs heat treatment (raw meat, mushrooms, tough vegetables, etc.), we do it in advance. The meat must already be cooked, the mushrooms are fried, etc. 2) By the time of baking, we prepare and cut everything. So that the filling remains only to be thrown onto the formed base - and immediately into the oven. The filling on raw dough should take a few seconds - otherwise the dough can become “dull”. 3) Do not be greedy and do not heap a mountain of filling :) We distribute it evenly over the base in one layer. If there is too much filling, neither she nor the dough will have time to cook.

Parchment... Prepare the parchment for baking in advance and sprinkle it with corn flour - the pizza dough is very sticky, only hard coarse flour will help here. We transfer the formed base onto parchment with flour - and only then we spread the filling. An attempt to transfer the base with the filling into the oven without parchment will most likely end abnormally :)

Phew, well, now you can go directly to the recipe. It is obscenely simple :)

Ingredients:

250 g fine flour, at least 12 g protein per 100 g (however, you can also cook with ordinary flour - it will still be nice, but you will need a little more of it)
10 g fresh yeast (dry yeast 3 times less)
160 ml warm clean water (filtered or boiled)
1/3 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Corn flour for sprinkling
A few tablespoons of tomato sauce (trade wind from fresh tomatoes, from tomatoes in their own juice, ready from a can, etc.)
100-130 g mozzarella
Olive oil
Or any other filling to your taste

Output: 2 small pizzas with a diameter of about 25-30 cm

Preparation:

1. Grind yeast, mix with sugar. Fill with warm (human body temperature) water, stir until dissolved. Sift flour. Pour the liquid with yeast into the flour, mix.

2. Add salt. And we begin to knead with a mixer with dough attachments or a kitchen processor - the first 3-4 minutes at a low speed, then we increase the speed and knead for another minutes 5 (if with hands - only 12-15 minutes) until the dough begins to gather in a lump.

If you use regular, weak, flour, you will have to add it, because the dough will be sticky. Add an incomplete tablespoon, stirring after each addition. We stop when the dough stops spreading and gathers in a lump (in total, 3-5 tablespoons may be needed, it is important not to overdo it).

The dough will remain slightly sticky - this is normal. We grease the spacious dishes with vegetable oil, form a ball out of the dough, dust with flour and transfer to the dishes. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to stand for at least 4 hours (increase in cool time).

3. Half an hour before the end of the proofing, preheat the oven with a baking sheet at the maximum temperature. With hands greased in vegetable oil, remove the dough from the dishes. We knead a little. The dough is soft, elastic and resilient.

4. Divide into two equal parts and form balls from them. Look how it stretches :) Put the first ball on the work surface, sprinkled with flour (or even better with flour + a little corn flour, so then it will be easier to wipe off the dough remnants :). With the palm we make such a depression.

5. Now we begin to stretch the dough from the center to the edges and form the base for the pizza, being careful not to press on the sides. We use the second palm as a limiter, moving it around the circumference of the base so that the shape does not creep out and remains more or less rounded. Turn the dough periodically and stretch it on the other side.

Like this

6. The base can be lifted and it will stretch due to its own weight. If the dough does not stretch well (this sometimes happens), it is enough to leave it to rest for 10-15 minutes so that the gluten “relaxes” and start again.

7. In general, we stretch as best we can, leaving only the ring of the sides thick :) The base should be thin enough, in the center - no more than 3 mm, and then about 5 mm. If, from excessive zeal, a hole has formed somewhere, it's okay, we will cover it with a piece of dough.

We spread the formed base on parchment sprinkled with corn flour for baking. Spread the tomato sauce evenly, sprinkle with olive oil, add dried basil and / or oregano. We spread the sliced ​​mozzarella. And once again pour it well with olive oil. Only good! The more oil, the tastier and juicier :)

8. And immediately send to the preheated oven for 6 minutes. Do not be confused by the pale sides - the dough will be ready. We cut it up and eat it immediately, rumbling.

The whole procedure, with the exception of the dough proofing time, takes 20-25 minutes: 10 minutes for kneading and 10 minutes for forming the base.

After proving and forming balls, the dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap, frozen and used as needed. Freezing and defrosting does not affect the taste and consistency of the dough in any way, but it is brutally convenient :) It remains only to take the dough out of the freezer in advance, form the base, sketch the fillings - and you're done.

Anyone who has visited Italy at least once will forever remember the rich and deep taste of Italian cuisine! Hot pasta with melting cheese and fresh tomatoes, the famous onion soup, the most delicate Tiramisu dessert, a rich collection of traditional Italian wines and, of course, pizza!

Birth story

If you go to Italy for the sake of real pizza, you can be a little disappointed. it the dish, which is firmly entrenched in the menu of Russian pizzerias, has nothing to do with its Italian counterpart... And, according to many travelers, our product tastes better! Unexpected, right?

Chefs have long adapted the recipe to Russian taste preferences. And we love pizza with rich, varied fillings. Traditional Italian pizza is a thin dough and an even thinner layer of filling from two or three components.

To understand why Italian pizza looks like this, you need to go back to history. Many centuries ago this dish in Italy was considered a meal for the poor... And only then, falling in love with King Ferdinand II, it was able to get into the royal court.

True, the king worked hard to prove to Queen Margaret the dignity of such a delicacy. Had to come up with a new way to knead dough with a whisk(before he was interfered with with his feet) and make special forks so that the royals do not get their fingers dirty.

And what tools are needed today to make a real Italian pizza at home using any of the recipes?

Tools and components

If you rarely cook, you can use the most ordinary kitchen utensils that are in every home:

• a flat table surface or a large cutting board for rolling out the dough;
• rolling pin;
• convenient deep mixing bowls;
• grater;
• knife;
• stove with oven.

Professional chefs preparing pizza in a special oven that heats up to almost 500 degrees as well as a special round knife for slicing the finished product.

But you can make pizza without these tools. The main thing is to choose fresh products and add some inspiration to them!

And on our website you will find a recipe for the classic. Try to cook this dish like in a real Italian restaurant!

Dough

So what products do we need? According to the classic dough recipe for a real thin Italian pizza, you need to prepare the following ingredients:

• clean water (1 glass);
• flour (1 glass);
• natural olive oil;
• salt (1 teaspoon);
• sugar (1 teaspoon);
• dry yeast (1 teaspoon).

Slightly heat up the water and add a spoonful of flour, salt, sugar and yeast to it... For convenience, it is best to use a deep bowl. When the yeast ferments (and this will happen literally in 10 minutes), we carefully add the remaining flour and olive oil to it.

Knead the resulting dough. It should work out quite thick... Then we roll it out and start preparing the filling.

How to properly prepare Italian yeast dough for real pizza at home - watch the video:

But the filling for Italian pizza depends on which recipe for cooking at home you choose.

Filling options

We bring to your attention two traditional recipes for delicious real Italian pizza on a thin crust in the oven with a photo of the results.

With seafood

To implement this recipe, we need: frozen peeled shrimp, boiled mussels, squid, 1-2 types of cheese, pitted olives, bell peppers, ketchup or tomato paste, spices to taste. Instead of shrimp, mussels and squid, you can use the ready-made Sea Cocktail mixture.

When all the components are ready, go directly to cooking:

• Take the prepared dough and transfer it to a baking sheet, which must first be treated with oil.
• Slightly sprinkle the dough with flour and grease with ketchup or tomato paste.
• Lay out the seafood in an even layer... We should not have empty spaces on the circle.
• We distribute pre-cut into small squares over the surface of the circle bell pepper.
• Add olives.
• On a coarse grater grate cheese and sprinkle generously im a future culinary masterpiece.
• Add to taste spices- salt, pepper, aromatic herbs.
• Preheat the oven and put the pizza in it for 15-20 minutes.

"Four seasons"

This recipe will become especially popular in homes where each family member has their own special taste preferences... This type was invented many centuries ago and you can still find such a pizza in any classic pizzeria.

The peculiarity of this recipe is in a subtle combination of several tastes at once. Therefore, for cooking, we need: pickled artichokes, salami, cherry tomatoes, Mozzarella cheese, fresh mushrooms, bell peppers, ketchup, an egg.

• We spread the rolled dough on a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil.
• Apply a thin layer of ketchup and make small cuts on the circle of our future pizza... We should have four identical sectors.
• Boil a hard-boiled egg and cut it into small pieces.
• We fill the first sector our pizza with sliced ​​egg and mushrooms (which we also pre-cut).
• Second sector fill with artichokes and whole olives.
• To the next sector we lay out the sausage cut into thin slices and the bell pepper, which should also be cut into small pieces.
• Last sector fill with cheese and tomatoes, cut in half.
• Sprinkle all the ingredients grated cheese, add pepper, salt and herbs to taste.
• Putting our culinary creation in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

When our pizza is ready it is important to serve it correctly on the table... How can this be done?

Classic and unusual video recipes from the masters

"Margarita"

How to make the queen's classic Margarita Italian pizza:

"Sicilian"

Cooking Italian pizza according to the Sicilian traditional recipe:

With mushrooms and pepperoni

Let's get acquainted with the recipe for pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni - a masterpiece of Italian cuisine:

Fast for breakfast

Quick pizza for breakfast from Julia Vysotskaya with onions, peppers and zucchini:

Mini pizzas

Another recipe is small pizzas that are perfect for breakfast:

How to serve?

Have you ever ordered a pizza that tasted incredibly delicious? So delicious and fresh that you ate it with your hands straight out of the cardboard box?

The same serving rule will work with the homemade variation - you can simply present guests with a hot and delicious pizza that will be eaten in just five minutes. But you can do it beautifully:

• We lay out the finished product in a flat large plate or on a special wooden board-tray.
• Using a special round or regular knife, we cut the pizza into several identical pieces.
• We serve our product on the table hot (cheese must be stretched!).
• Various sauces and olive oil can be served with the pizza.
• In advance ask guests if they need cutlery... Many people prefer to eat this dish only with their hands.
• Don't forget to put napkins on the table.
• Serve to each guest small flat plate from which it would be convenient to eat pizza.