“When the moon hit the sky, like a big pizza pie… That’s amore!”

As a famous song sings, pizza is the most loved food in the world. Moreover, it is one of the Italian dishes that the whole world knows about Italy.

An extremely tasty food that meets the needs of even the most refined palates. She entered the Guinness Book of World Records several times: from the largest in the world to the one that traveled the most kilometers to be delivered.

Pizza is eaten with knife and fork, but in casual settings it is cut into wedges to be eaten while held in the hand. The pizza is suitable for every occasion and every company, but its history is very old, let’s see it together.

Pizza: a little bit of history

The term pizza was first recorded in the 10th century in a Latin manuscript from the Southern Italian town of Gaeta in Lazio, on the border with Campania. Nowadays, pizza is the most famous Italian word in the world.

According to some, the word “pizza” would derive from pinsa, in the Neapolitan dialect past participle of the Latin verb pinsere or of the verb pansere, that is, to crush. For others, the word derives from Hebrew, Arabic and Greek. it would share the same root of the pita and therefore belong to the same category of bread or focaccia.

If you think about it, in fact, pizza takes its origin from the bread, it can be considered a variation of more thin bread. It takes place at the time of Roman and Etruschi.

The first pizza that we known was created in the eighteenth century in Naples. It was a very popular food among both the rich and the poor. The pizza was loved by the Savoia King too. The legends tells that the name of our most famous pizza Margherita is coming from the Queen Margherita di Savoia. In the 1889 the pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito dedicated to her the pizza. It is representing the three colors of the flag of Italy: tomato sauce for the red, mozzarella for the white, a leaf of basil for the green.

Pizza: napoletana or romana?

Each time that we think pizza we associate this dish to Naples, but even Rome has its traditional pizza. In fact there are some differences between the two kind of pizza. The first, the Neapolitan one, is soft and well growth with a high and soft edge; the second, the Roman one, is very thin and crunchy: for this reason it is called scrocchiarella (crunchy yummy), as the Roman say.

Neapolitan pizza is the only type of Italian pizza recognized nationally and in Europe. Since February 4, 2010, in fact, it is officially recognized as a traditional specialty guaranteed by the European Union. A particular Roman specialty is the so-called “white pizza”, which looks like a kind of focaccia without seasoning in addition to salt and oil, but which can be filled to taste.

Pizza: the recipe

Ingredients

100 grams of 00 flour

1 grams of yeast

50 ml of water (half glass)

1 pinch of salt

1 drop of extra virgin olive oil

 

Preparing time 30 min
Cooking time 30 min
Serves 1

 

Directions

Put the flour in a pyramid shape in the centre of you plate and create a hole.

Then add half of the water available and melt the yeast on it.

Add a pinch of salt, the oil and start kneading starting from the middle, and add the rest of the water gradually.

Knead for 5 minutes until you get a uniform and smooth dough.

Close the dough ball as shown during the lesson and leave it rise for almost 8 hours,

4 hours outside the fridge and the rest of the time on the fridge for a maximum 48 total hours.

Baking

Preheat the oven up at the highest level (220°), roll the dough out on the baking tray with a drop of oil, otherwise, use baking paper.

For the first 15 minutes bake the dough in the lowest part of the oven with tomato sauce and all other ingredients except from the mozzarella cheese, after the 15 minutes add the mozzarella cheese and bake for other 5 minutes in the middle part of the oven.  

Type of pizza

• Marinara: tomato sauce, oregano, garlic
• Capricciosa: tomato sauce, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, black olives, ham, artichokes
• Diavola: tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, spicy salami
• Napoli: tomato sauce, anchovies and capers
• Crostino: mozzarella cheese, ham
• Quattro formaggi (Four cheeses): mozzarella cheese, gorgonzola and various cheeses)
• Patate: mozzarella cheese, potatoes
• Fiori di zucca: mozzarella cheese, salted anchovies, pumpink flowers
• Ortolana: mozzarella cheese, grilled zucchini, grilled eggplants, grilled pepperoni, various grilled vegetables

We recommend our pizza class in Rome where you will learne how to make the dough and roll it out to cook your favorite pizza.

Enjoy your own pizza!