Over the past centuries, the manufacturing processpizza has not changed significantly, unless you close your eyes to the fact that modern ovens have replaced the ancient hearth. Everything else, including the traditional manual preparation of dough and toppings, has remained unchanged. Classic Italian pizza is not made "in a hurry" and does not like fuss, the whole process should proceed thoughtfully and measuredly. Before making pizza at home, try to create in your kitchen that unique atmosphere that hovers in the kitchens of Italy. Or, at least, get into the appropriate mood. There are many ways to make pizza at home, but each housewife decides for herself how to make pizza, and which recipe will become her trump ace. Because a lot depends on the availability of free time, taste preferences and mood.
Nuances of home-made pizza
At home, pizza is prepared quite easilysimple, and any housewife can bake it - even one who does not have outstanding culinary talents. In the home kitchen, pizza can be baked in the oven or fried in a frying pan, cooked in the microwave or steamed - no one tells you what to do here, and you are free to do it your own way, choosing your own recipe and your own cooking method. If you decide to bake pizza in the oven, then you should make yeast dough. You can bake pizza in the oven in two ways - directly on a baking sheet or in a round baking pan. However, a thin baking pan will not work: its thickness should be at least three millimeters. If you bake pizza on a baking sheet, then it must be greased with oil (preferably vegetable oil). However, when preparing sweet pizza, you can use cooking fats, but be sure to sprinkle the baking sheet with flour so that the pizza does not burn. Whatever dough recipe you choose, the pizza crust is never rolled out. The dough is simply laid out on a baking sheet or frying pan and spread evenly over the entire surface with your hands. Before putting the pizza in the oven, it needs to be kept for 5-7 minutes. Sometimes the pizza is not put in the oven right away, but first the dough without the filling is baked until half-ready (so that a crispy crust forms). And only then is it taken out of the oven, the filling is laid out in layers and sent to the oven until ready. As a rule, it takes no more than half an hour to bake a pizza, but each pizza is special, and that is why one pizza recipe differs from another even in the cooking time. For example, pizza dough can be either thin or thick. Thin dough is baked in twenty minutes, and a thicker crust needs to be baked for almost an hour, but you need to reduce the heat.
Yeast dough for pizza
The classic pizza recipe is pizza made fromyeast dough. However, for pizza, this dough is made using a simplified scheme, and its recipe differs significantly from the recipe for rich dough for Russian pies. Therefore, homemade pizza can be an excellent alternative to baking from yeast dough. Ingredients:
- Flour - 1 glass;
- Salt - a quarter teaspoonful;
- Dry yeast - 1 teaspoon;
- Water (warm) - a third of the glass;
- Milk is a quarter cup;
- Olive oil - 1 tablespoon.
Preparation:Boil the milk, cool it to room temperature and pour it into a large bowl, diluting it with water. Then you need to add yeast and salt, pour in the sifted flour and mix everything. After that, add olive oil, knead the dough and leave it to rise for half an hour. Then put the ripened dough on a board sprinkled with flour and knead it thoroughly again. Baking time largely depends on the filling. If its layer is thin enough, the pizza will cook quickly, a denser or very voluminous filling will require more baking time.
Home-made pizza toppings
Pizza toppings can be divided into liquid (withsauces) and thick (dry). Liquid or sweet fillings require preparatory evaporation (about ten minutes), which means the baking time will increase. In this case, the temperature in the oven is slightly lowered so that the dough does not burn. Dry fillings are prepared like regular fillings for open pies. It is imperative to monitor the density of the liquid filling: it should not spread. For example, juice or syrup from berries and fruits will quickly be absorbed into the dough, which will seem damp. And if the liquid filling seeps through the crust, the pizza will burn. The optimal filling option is when its bottom layer is made up of denser meat or fish, and softer or juicier products (mushrooms, vegetables) on top. Then they will saturate the lower layers of the filling with their juice, but nothing will get to the bottom of the pan. If you are using a pizza recipe with toppings made from raw products (minced meat, fresh mushrooms) and those that are almost ready (sausage, canned fish), then the raw topping should be the last (top) layer. In this case, it is worth sprinkling it with cheese so that it does not remain open, but languishes, as if under a lid. If the dough crust is thin, then it is better to make a small layer of filling. This can be ready-made meat, ham, fish or dried fruits. A thick crust is ideal for a fluffy, multi-layered or raw filling. You can put a filling of vegetables and raw meat on a thick crust. And, naturally, no real pizza recipe can do without cheese. The cheese for pizza should be hard and fatty, and it is desirable to lay it in several layers. For example, you can sprinkle the first layer of cheese directly on the crust or put it between layers of different products. And the top layer of pizza is always and necessarily grated cheese, which should melt and turn the open pie into pizza. The filling for making sweet pizza is, as a rule, fresh fruit, thick jam or marmalade, which do not require long baking. The dough for sweet pizza can be curd or puff pastry, such dough turns out more delicious and bakes better. However, sweet pizza can already claim the title of the fruit pie we are accustomed to.
Homemade pizza in a frying pan and a couple
At home, a frying pan and an open firesometimes preferable to a baking sheet. The dough is easy to remove from the frying pan, it almost never burns, which means that you can bake different types of pizza on the stove and put any fillings in them. Before cooking, heat the frying pan to the desired temperature, grease it with a small amount of vegetable oil and heat it up. Roll out the dough into a thin layer, put it on the hot frying pan, and only then put the filling on it. Then cover the frying pan with a lid and reduce the heat so that the dough heats up evenly. It is better to use frying pans with glass lids, they are the most convenient for baking pizza. In a frying pan, pizza reaches readiness much faster than in the oven - only fifteen minutes. The readiness of the pizza is checked with a match or a toothpick, which is pierced in the thickest place of the crust. If the match is dry, then your pizza is ready. It is very convenient to bake sweet pizza in a frying pan: it does not flow, and you do not need to spend a lot of time on it. When baking pizza in a frying pan, you do not need to grease the top layer with mayonnaise or something similar. For many reasons, for example, due to health problems, some people cannot afford baked pizza, but sometimes the desire to try such a delicacy is very strong. In this case, you can make pizza in a double boiler or in a steamer. To make steamed pizza, use the recipe for light yeast-free dough. It is mixed only with eggs and milk, kept for a little while, spread in a fairly thick layer on the surface of the grate. Then the filling is placed on the crust, and the pizza is steamed for forty minutes. As you can see, at home you can cook pizza in the traditional way, make a quick pizza in a frying pan or a dietary steamed pizza. Start with what seems easier and simpler to you, and only then try other pizza recipes. You will definitely be able to make real pizza at home, especially if you cook it with pleasure. We recommend reading:
