Guillermo AmadorPizza: one of the most beloved dishes in the world, and it is due in large part to the fact that with just four ingredients (water, flour, salt and yeast) you can create a base that is so versatile no matter what your favorite flavors are, surely there is a pizza for you. There are pizzas with a thick dough, cheese stuffed dough, thin dough, crispy dough like a cracker, deep dish, and my favorite, the Neapolitan.
Neapolitan pizza is so famous and important in our gastronomic culture because it is considered the “original” pizza as we know it (you may find a very similar bread in Egypt, Greece and Rome, and so early as the year 500 A.C, on Ancient Rome, soldiers ate a bread with olive oil and herbs, similar to today’s Focaccia).
But the origin of the dish as we know it, originated right there, in Napoli. The Neapolitans made their pizza different adding in the second half of the XVII century the tomato that came from America. The tomato seeds that came from Peru and were planted in this area of Italy in 1770 gave rise to a variety known as the San Marzano tomato, whose low acidity made it ideal for preparing the already famous sauce.
The processes and ingredients to make a pizza that is close to the Neapolitan are defined by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana in its UNI 10791:98 standard, an institution founded in 1984, long after pizza became popular throughout the world after of making the jump over the Atlantic and to the United States.
Varieties and ways to do it, many. I particularly made it every Friday with a traditional dough that rests between one and 24 hours. The sauce is prepared with San Marzano tomatoes and the whole dish is baked in a homemade wood-fired oven whose internal temperatures exceed 700 degrees. The good news is that it is ready in only one or two minutes, and it really is a feast for the senses and for the family that sits down at the table to enjoy it.
Here I leave you the recipe for the dough and the tomato sauce, which you can even prepare in your home oven, taking it to at least 450 degrees.
Dough and Sauce Recipe for Neapolitan Pizza.
In each house the pizzas are made differently, and all of them are enjoyable: not just the ones made from scratch, but from the one that you order by phone, to the ones made with Pita bread as a base. We just have to enjoy their preparation and of course eating it, and sharing as a family around a table.
We asked several pizzaiolos (that’s what the person who prepares the pizza is called), what their recommendations were, why and how they make their pizzas. These were the questions:
1.- Why do you make pizzas, what is your motivation?
2.- Where do you make them, what type of oven do you use?
3.- What is your favorite pizza and where did you eat it?
Here are some of the replies we got, showing us that there are many ways to consider yourself a pizzaiolo:
We got so many and so good replies, that we are starting a section called Pizza Friday with the answers of each pizzaiolo of the week, starting this Friday.
Thanks to Chi NG, Adriana Aldrey-NG, Guadalupe Cuahonte-Garcia, Luis Contreras, Ricardo Cie, Maxx Luis Marin, @Pancasero, Zaha Cassis, José Camacho, Mirco Ferri, Pat y Vif, jess Gutierrez, Beth Santaella, Andy Moon, Leonardo Soteldo, Andres Puche, José bastardo, Luis Gonzalez, @ponteaqui, Miguel Sogbi, Sam Salazar, Albi Bravo, Guille Díaz, Claudia Noguera, Bea Rondon, María Eliaz, Valcarad, Good Bunny, and more.
So, what’s your favorite pizza?
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