Three of us Magikitos got together to do some cooking. One brought the flour, another put some music on, and Anselmo turned up with a pineapple under his arm.
“Before we begin, I'd like to open a debate.”
We put him in charge of weighing the salt. Giving someone a job can save an awful lot of arguing.
For three pizzas about thirty centimetres across, we weighed out 500 g of strong bread flour or pizza flour, 300 g of water, 12 g of salt and 1 g of instant dried yeast. Baking powder won't work for this dough. “You can have the day off,” we told the tub.
We rolled our sleeves up as far as our elbows would let us.
The Dough Soon Sorted Us Out
We mixed the flour and yeast, added the water and salt, and kneaded for about ten minutes. We pushed, folded and turned it until the dough was smooth and stretchy. It was a bit sticky at first. Anselmo wanted to fix that by tipping in half a sack of flour.
“Keep going and we'll be eating a paving slab.”
Slightly damp hands and a dough scraper did the job. If the dough starts putting up a fight, we cover it, leave it for ten minutes and come back. Sometimes the cleverest thing a cook can do is get out of the way.
We put it in a container with room to grow, covered it and left it in the fridge for 24-48 hours, at about 4 °C. Slow fermentation develops the flavour. The yeast produces the gas that makes the dough puff up.
Anselmo opened the fridge six times to give it some encouragement.
“Come on, gorgeous. We're starving.”
“Just shut the bloody door. We'll never eat at this rate.”
On pizza day, we divided the dough into three balls and left them covered at room temperature, around 20-22 °C, for about three to five hours. They should be puffy, soft and easy to stretch. A cold kitchen means a longer wait. We look at the dough, not just the clock.
The Crust Gets Left Alone
We dusted the table with a little flour and pressed each ball outwards from the middle, leaving the rim untouched. We stretched it by hand until the centre was thin. “You're off duty,” we told the rolling pin.
If the dough springs back, we give it ten or fifteen minutes. Pulling harder just gives you a pizza with a hole in it.
We managed one round pizza, one oval one and one that looked like a map of Portugal. “That one's international,” Anselmo said. They all fitted in the oven. Good enough.
We added a thin layer of crushed tomatoes seasoned with salt, well-drained mozzarella and a drizzle of oil. Two or three tablespoons of tomato and about seventy grams of mozzarella per pizza were plenty.
Anselmo started building a mountain of cheese.
We took the summit off. Too many wet toppings can leave the middle soggy and undercooked. We wanted to pick up a slice without having to scrape it off the table with a spoon afterwards.
How Hot Should the Oven Be for Pizza?
In a home oven, we aim for 250-275 °C, depending on how high it goes, with a pizza stone or steel preheating inside for 45-60 minutes. A thin pizza usually takes about 7-10 minutes, but the oven, the thickness and the colour of the base matter more than the timer. In a dedicated pizza oven, with the stone at around 450 °C, it can take just 60-90 seconds, with frequent turning.
The hot stone cooks the underside too. That's how you stop the cheese getting all the applause while the dough underneath is still raw.
We put each pizza on a peel dusted with a little semolina, checked that it slid freely and got it straight into the oven. Then we watched. The crust puffed up, the cheese bubbled and even Anselmo stopped talking.
Once the base was cooked and golden, we took it out, added fresh basil and waited a minute before cutting it.
Anselmo lifted the first slice.
“That was worth the wait.”
We nodded. We'd spent two days planning dinner and three seconds working out how to grab the biggest piece.
