Pizza Margherita

Neapolitan-Style Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil Pizza for a Home Oven

A Neapolitan pizza is mostly crust: a thin, soft centre and a puffed, blistered rim, with a little tomato, a little cheese and a few basil leaves. In Naples it bakes in about a minute. At home the best you can do is the hottest oven you have and a slab of stone or steel heated until it is ferociously hot.

The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana sets out the dough in terms of a litre of water: 1.6 to 1.8 kg of flour, 40 to 60 g of salt and a very small amount of yeast, formed into balls of 200 to 280 g and left for 8 to 24 hours. The pizza is baked in a wood-fired oven at 430 to 480°C for 60 to 90 seconds. Tomatoes are crushed by hand, the mozzarella is sliced and the basil goes on fresh.

For a domestic oven, Saveur's recipe heats a pizza stone for at least 40 minutes at the oven's maximum and rests the dough overnight in the fridge.

Ingredients

For the dough

  • 600 g type 00 pizza flour or strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 360 ml cold water
  • 16 g fine sea salt
  • 2 g fresh yeast, or a pinch (about 0.7 g) of fast-action dried yeast

For the topping

  • 400 g tin of San Marzano or other good plum tomatoes
  • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
  • 320 g mozzarella (fior di latte or buffalo), drained and patted dry, torn or sliced
  • A handful of basil leaves
  • 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

  1. Mix the dough Dissolve the salt in the water in a large bowl. Add about a tenth of the flour, then the yeast, and stir. Add the remaining flour gradually and knead for 10 to 15 minutes, until smooth, soft and no longer sticky.
  2. First rise Cover and leave at room temperature for 2 hours.
  3. Ball and rest Divide into four pieces of about 240 g and shape each into a tight ball. Put them in a lightly floured lidded container, well spaced, and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours. Take them out 2 hours before baking.
  4. Heat the oven Put the stone or steel on a shelf in the top third of the oven and heat to the maximum, at least 250°C (230°C fan), for 45 minutes. Crush the tomatoes by hand with the salt.
  5. Shape On a floured surface, press a ball out from the centre with your fingertips, leaving a 2 cm rim untouched, then stretch it over your knuckles to about 28 cm. Do not use a rolling pin; it flattens the rim.
  6. Top and bake Lay the base on a floured board. Spread 3 tbsp of tomato over it, scatter with a quarter of the mozzarella and a few basil leaves and add 1 tbsp oil in a spiral. Slide onto the hot stone and bake for 6 to 9 minutes, until the rim is puffed and browned in spots and the cheese is bubbling. Repeat with the others, letting the stone reheat for 5 minutes between pizzas.

Less topping is better. A loaded base will not cook through.

If you have a grill in the top of the oven, switch it on for the last minute to blister the rim.

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