Pizza recipe from Puglia with tipo 00 dough

Although the pizza originally came from Naples, the best I ever ate was in Puglia, Cisternino to be more specific. I come back quite often now, to enjoy the pizza’s from Happy Point (what’s in a name) at the Piazza dei Navigatore. If you ever visit Puglia, be sure to taste these pizza’s.

Here’s the recipe for the pizza “Napolitano” and the “Primavera”.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 250 gram (8.8 oz.)of flour (only use tipo 00!)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon yeast (fresh or dried, when fresh use half a teaspoon)
• 140 milliliters (4.7 fl.oz.) of hand warm water
• olive oil (extra virgin) according to taste, at least 2 spoons

Start kneading all the ingredients till an elastic ball emerges. Divide it into 2 balls. Let it rise for about 2 hours in a warm and moist place. For even better results, let it rise for a day in the refrigerator. Put some extra water or olive oil in the bowl before you put it away.

But a ball on a floured surface and flatten it with soft movements. The dough should still be a little sticky, so you need to put a lot of flour on it while stretching it from the center outwards. No need to use a roll-on, the dough should be flexibele enough to let you flatten it with your hands or by tossing it around! Make it as flat as possible, about 1 or 2 millimetres.

Put it on baking plate and top it with fresh, squeezed, tomatoes, squeezed mozzarella and fresh basil. If you don’t squeeze (just with your bare hands) the tomatoes and mozzarella, your pizza will be to wet after baking. The trick for a good tasty Italian pizza is not to use to much topping! If you use mozzarella di bufala, put it on AFTER you baked the pizza! Delicious!

For the “Napolitano” add some capers and anchovy. Bake you pizza in an preheated oven. It should be  as hot as possible, as a wood burning pizza oven is about 400 degrees Celsius (750 degrees Fahrenheit. At about 300 degrees Celsius (575 degrees Fahrenheit) in a convection oven your pizza should be ready in about 7 minutes. In a wood burning oven the pizza should be ready in about 2 minutes. Try out for yourself.

Ingredients for the topping:

• Tomatoes, for best results San Marzano
• Mozzarella, for best results mozzarella di bufala (pay attention, mozzarella di bufalo should be squeezed even better)
• Capers
• Anchovy fillets

For the “Primavera” you just use the tomato and mozzarella topping till the pizza is baked. Just before serving you put some diced fresh cherry tomatoes, rucola (rocket), prosciutto crudo (e.g. Parma ham) and Parmesan or grana cheese flakes on top. Ingredients for the the topping:

• Tomatoes, for best results San Marzano
• Mozzarella, for best results mozzarella di bufala (pay attention, mozzarella di bufalo should be squeezed even better)
• Grana or Parmesan cheese
• Rucola (rocket lettuce)
• Prusciotto crudo, for best results we recommend Parma ham.

Both pizza’s should be finished off with some extra virgin olive oil.

Buon appetito!