PART 3 - Cooking
You should have turned on your oven by now.
Of course, better it is, better the result will be; but even with a bad oven you'll get a great pizza if the rest of the recipe is strictly followed.
Set it to 200 degrees C (400 F) or a little more.
Now, depending on the flavour, you may add some ingredients to the pizzas. Basically any other ingredients you may want to add, except any kind of cheese, speck and some other exceptions.
But first, we must define another very important concept: it's got to be PIZZA flavoured with other stuff, not OTHER STUFF flavoured with pizza, okay?
Pizza = pastry, tomato and mozzarella. You may add what you want on it, but you must not cover the layer completely! This ain't an American hamburger: a mountain of other stuff over it is a nonsense, it wouldn't be pizza anymore. Just cut the additional ingredients in small pieces and distribute them around.
A little final touch: you can add a few extra tears of oil to the borders of the pizza (where there isn't any tomato) if you want.
So, when you're ready, and your oven is ready as well, start putting the tins in it.
Cooking can take 10, 15 minutes. It heavily depends on the oven. Remember also that when the oven is very warm, it will take less time to cook (remember when you put in your 2nd or 3rd pizza, they'll cook faster)
You can judge if it's cooked or not wearing a glove and cautiously touching a border of the pizza with a fork.
It's hard to explain when's too soft or too hard, you'll learn with experience (and possibly failures). Just remember that if it's soft like the pastry it's clearly early, while if it's a kind of hard and it's turning yellowish, it's already too late.
In fact, you shouldn't cook it completely: when it's NEARLY ready you must take it out, put the mozzarella on it, and put it in again (possibly rotating it 180° for a more homogeneous cooking).
Let's stop one moment: I've just mentioned mozzarella, but in fact I skipped its description.
You MUST use mozzarella, and not any other kind of cheese (except buffalo mozzarella, which is even better)
You need 2 mozzarellas (125gr each) per tin, more or less. It depends on the size of the tin anyway.
So, as soon as you insert your first pizza in the oven, while you wait, put the mozzarellas on a dish, and cut them into very little pieces (NOT slices).
Summarizing: pastry+tomato+other into the oven; when it's almost cooked, add mozzarella and put it inside again for a couple of minutes. It's just the time to make it melt: you can judge looking at it. If it's turning yellow or brown, you're burning it.
Timing is very important: sometimes you'll take it out too early to put mozzarella, and you'll have to choose a compromise between a raw pastry and a burned topping.
PART 4 - Variants and flavours
Let see what can do and what you can't.
(in [] ingredients that you must put in when the pizza is almost cooked (such as mozzarella); in {} ingredients you must put even later. The rest goes in together with tomato).
Keep in mine that extra ingredients are always cut into little pieces
The basic favour is Margherita.
Ingredients: tomato, [mozzarella]
if you want, add oreganum. A bit of basil too if you want.
In my own opinion, some of the best flavours:
Ham and Mushrooms
Ingredients: tomato, cooked ham, champignons, [mozzarella]
Ham
Ingredients: tomato, cooked ham, [mozzarella]
Napoletana
Ingredients: tomato, capers, salted anchovies (salted, not fresh!), [mozzarella]
As this will result is a very salty pizza, it's recommended not to add salt to tomato
Cherry tomatos and buffalo mozzarella
Ingredients: tomato, cherry tomatos, [buffalo mozzarella]
As this will result is a little saltless pizza, it's recommended to add salt on or inside cherry tomatos too.
Buffalo mozzarella is more expensive, but it's worth the cost!
Napoletana + Cherry tomatos and buffalo mozzarella
Ingredients: tomato, cherry tomatos, capers, salted anchovies, [buffalo mozzarella]
No need for less or more salt here: the extra water produced by cherry tomatos and mozzarella mets with the extra salt caused by capers and anchovies, creating a perfect mix!
Raw ham, cherry tomatos and buffalo mozzarella
Ingredients: tomato, cherry tomatos, [buffalo mozzarella], {raw ham}
Raw ham (such as Parma ham) is already very salted and doesn't need to be cooked (it would dry otherwise)
Sausage
Ingredients: tomato, fresh pork sausage, [mozzarella]
Sausage and Ceps
Ingredients: tomato, fresh pork sausage, cep (Boletus / porcini, whatever you call them) mushrooms, [mozzarella]
Salami
Ingredients: tomato, hot salami, [mozzarella]
Don't add too many salamis around, like in American pizzas.
Würstel
Ingredients: tomato, würstel (the frankfurter hot dog sausage, you know), [mozzarella]
Würstel and Arugula
Ingredients: tomato, würstel, [mozzarella], {arugula / rucola salad}
Speck and Mascarpone
Ingredients: tomato, [mozzarella], [mascarpone cheese], {speck}
Believe me, this flavour is definitely one of the best!
Speck, in case you don't know, is a kind of smoked pork ham; mascarpone cream melts with salted speck perfectly.
Though not a classic, it has become a very popular flavour in Italy
Speck and Brie
Ingredients: tomato, [mozzarella], [brie cheese], {speck}
Norma
Ingredients: tomato, [mozzarella], [ricotta cheese], {fried aubergines / eggplants}
Now, some examples of how pizza
MUST NOT be:
A few forbidden ingredients:
pineapple or any other kind of fruit
egg
chicken
cinnamon
meat
pasta
french fries
ketchup
mayonnaise
beef
pork
kebab
feta
fish
chocolate
or other strange things
Now some variants.
You know, every good pizzeria has its own secrets and they're usually jealous of them.
Here are some related to the pastry.
- Milk:
Replace part of the water you needed in the pastry with milk. The result is a pastry more similar to milk dough bread.
- Potato:
You should boil one potato and press it with a spoon.
Replace some water with the water you used to boil it, and some flour with mashed potato.
If the pastry becomes too flabby, add a little flour.
- Beer/Coke:
May seem weird, but if you replace some water with beer (not too much! Or it will become bitter) or coke, the pastry will become a little sweeter and softer.
Anyway you can make experiments yourself.
I usually use one potato and some butter.