Rami's Recipe Book

Margherita Pizza

—

by

panda
in

Yield: 2 12″ pizzas

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

  • 1 1/4 tsp instant yeast
  • 1 cup water
  • 250g AP flour
  • 115g cake flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp sugar

Sauce & Topping

  • 28oz can diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 1 clove garlic (optional)
  • 1 bunch basil
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 8oz fresh mozarella

 

Instructions

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in the water.
  2. In a food processor, mix flour, salt, and sugar to combine.  (About 5 seconds)
  3. Run the processor while slowly adding the liquid.  Continue to run until a nice satiny, fairly sticky ball forms, about 1.5 to 2 minutes.  It should not stick to the sides of the bowl.
  4. You can add water or flour 1 tablespoon at a time if the dough is too dry or sticky. Try not to over process the dough.
  5. Turn out onto a floured surface.  Make 2 balls, sprinkle them with flour, and cover with a slightly damp towel or paper towel.
  6. Let rise until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
  7. Preheat the oven and pizza stone to 500F.

Prep the tomatoes

  1. Pour the can of tomatoes into the processor and pulse until crushed.  (About 3-5 short pulses.)
  2. Transfer to a strainer and set over bowl to drain while you wait for the dough to rise.  If you think about it, stir it around a couple times.

Prep the toppings

  1. When the dough is getting close to doubled, start on the pizza toppings:
  2. Slice the mozzarella into 1/2 cm thick slices.
  3. Finely dice the garlic. (Optional.)
  4. Finely chop about 1/4 of the basil.  (This should end up being around 1 tbsp.)
  5. Roughly chop the remaining basil.
  6. In a bowl, combine the tomatoes, sugar, garlic, basil, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Assemble the pizza

  1. Flatten the pizza with the palms of your hands into an 8″ disc.
  2. Use your fingers to extend the outer edges, rotating as you go, until you have a 12″ round.  This process pushes the dough out to the edges, forming the outer crust.  Try to get the bottom as thin as you can, but be careful not to tear it.  Better slightly thick than torn!
  3. Flour the pizza peel generously and place the round on the peel.*
  4. Spread a thin layer of sauce on the dough.
  5. Transfer to pizza stone and bake for 5 minutes.
  6. Remove from oven, then place half the slices of mozzarella.  Bake another 4 minutes.
  7. Sprinkle the basil on top, quickly without removing from oven.  Bake another 1 minute.
  8. Remove, drizzle with some high quality extra-virgin olive oil if desired, and serve immediately.

 

NOTES:

  • Unlike a more typical kneading process, it’s not necessary for the water we dissolve the yeast in to be overly warm, as the food processor produces the heat necessary for the yeast to be happy.
  • A flat cookie sheet or even an inverted edged cookie sheet will do in a pinch if you don’t have a pizza peel.

Try 1 tsp salt in dough next time.

Try rolling out dough to get it thin and even next time?