The Neapolitan pizza recipe... with a chilled Cajun craft beer!

I dedicate this recipe to all lovers of true Neapolitan pizza like me... and to my dear friend Walter Scarpi, who with Gianfranco Amadori makes a very good craft beer in Marradi. A preview reserved for my Newsletter subscribers, which will only come out on the Perlage Suite blog in February! I don't compromise on pizza, and in fact I almost never go to pizzerias because I tend to find them very poor, especially in northern Italy where I live. That's why I started thinking about making Neapolitan pizza at home... and I searched the web and tried various recipes, but I always had rather poor results!

In pizza dough recipes you read about all sorts of ingredients, but you only need four things to make the dough: flour, water, salt and fresh brewer's yeast. So forget all the additions you've always made: no oil or sugar: they serve no purpose and spoil the dough!

So, based on the specifications of the Verace Pizza Napoletana (true Neapolitan pizza) I came up with my own recipe... because surely the one in the specifications is perfect, but it is unsuitable for home ovens (not to mention those who, like me, have a really terrible oven!). Did you know that original wood-fired ovens reach temperatures of 485°? What can our home ovens that barely touch 250° do? That's why to bake the Verace Pizza Napoletana at home, a few small adjustments were needed!

Ingredients for 4 pizzas tomato, buffalo, basil, oregano

Ingredients for the dough:

• Manitoba flour 500 grams
• Filtered water 300 grams
• fine salt 10 grams
• fresh brewer's yeast 6 grams

Ingredients for the filling

• 1 buffalo mozzarella of about 400 grams (about 100 grams per pizza)
• S. Marzano coarse tomato puree (or crushed tomato) about 400 grams (about 100 grams per pizza)
• basil and fresh oregano
• extra virgin olive oil (I used Orfanello di Brisighella)
• fine salt

Procedure:

1. Strain the water into a jug like this, then weigh out all the ingredients and dissolve the brewer's yeast in 50 grams of water.
2. Knead all the ingredients for about 10 minutes. If you are not lucky enough to have a boyfriend who gave you the planetary mixer for Christmas, you can buy it for almost half price with this offer on Amazon! I used mine Kenwood Chef Premier with the dough hook for 10 minutes, plus 5 minutes with the dough hook and I kept it at the lowest setting so as not to overheat the dough.
3. Never, never break the dough so as not to ruin the gluten mesh (I learned this the hard way: broken dough makes far fewer alveoli!) Consider that the dough must be moist but must not stick to your hands as you touch it! Shape it into a nice loaf.
4. Grease a bowl at least twice as high as your loaf (even higher is better). Carefully place the dough ball and close the bowl with cling film. Place it on a fairly high shelf in the refrigerator for at least 12 to 15 hours for the dough to mature.
5. Take the bowl out of the fridge and form 4 loaves by cutting the dough and without breaking it, then place each loaf in a bowl and cover again with cling film. Leave the bowls away from drafts at a temperature of about 20 degrees (room temperature) and let the dough rise for 12 hours before using it.
6. Roll out the loaf with your hands. You can tell that the dough ball has risen well if it can be rolled out without springing. Forbid the rolling pin to roll it out!!! Push the dough in the centre towards the edges and rotate it to help you! Imagine pushing the air towards the edge of the pizza to form the crust... stop when you have a dough of about 3 mm in the centre and 2 cm at the edges!
7. Turn the oven to maximum (mine reaches 250°) static and season the first pizza... (unfortunately I can only bake one at a time). Spread the tomato and sprinkle the buffalo mozzarella, basil and oregano. A pinch of salt and a trickle of oil. Then brush the crust with extra virgin olive oil and bake for 10 minutes on a round non-stick baking tray lightly greased with a little olive oil. Meanwhile, prepare the second pizza... and so on! Ah! I just bought this perforated baking tray on Amazon... I love it and it is perfect for baking Neapolitan pizza! I recommend you also buy the Kitchen Craft Master Class Non-stick Round Pizza Pan 32 cm 😉

1. Enjoy your meal!

Obviously you can season the pizzas however you like... I experimented with this dough and one that Francesco and I loved was with the addition of fresh mushrooms and sliced brie cheese (beginning of cooking) and speck (end of cooking). Here it is:

Finally, I made a variation with the ricotta-filled cornicione! All you need to do is mix 150 grams of ricotta with 50 grams of Parmesan cheese, a drizzle of oil, nutmeg or black pepper and put them in a pastry bag. Cut off the tip and put the ricotta mixture about 3 cm from the edge then fold it over! Here is the photo-recipe:

My perfect match? The delicious Cajun beer! In particular, I had a delicious bottle of Altura left in the fridge almost ice cold!

Altura towers above the others. It comes from another world. Elegant and fierce like a panther, it commands respect. Made from a classic Belgian recipe, it has citrus notes due to the use of bitter orange peel, softened with candied sugar, and field aromas due to the infusion of spices such as coriander. Persistent cream-coloured foam. Strong and very drinkable despite its high alcohol content.

Style:Belgian Tripel
Colour:pure gold
Body:full and intense
Alcohol: 8,5%
Plato: 20
IBU: 23
Serving temperature: 8-10 °C

Cajun Brewery

Truly special!!! Thanks to Walter and Gianfranco for their extraordinary work... 😉

Ah, since my fiancé gives me extraordinary gifts for cooking (which he then eats eh 😀 ) I take the opportunity to point out to him an item I put on my wishlist: Whirlpool PTF100 Refractory Oven Stone with Wooden Paddle pure spectacle for baking perfect pizzas... and it only costs 39 € (twice as much as the pan... but I think the Neapolitan pizza that comes out of it is more than twice as good!) Does anyone have it? The reviews on Amazon are great and have convinced me!

Try making the recipe and leave me a comment to tell me how it went! More importantly... how did you season your Neapolitan pizza? Can you post a photo of your result? It would give me immense pleasure!

See you soon,

Chiara