Authentic Margherita pizza recipe
Winner of our recent Pizza Taste Test, this authentic Margherita is everything we love about pizza: crisp base, chewy dough and fresh-as-a-daisy topping.
This recipe will make 5-6 individual pizzas, and involves cooking in a frying pan!
Top tip: if you go to your local supermarket and ask them at the bakery section for some fresh yeast, they'll give you some.
Ingredients
For the dough- 850 g 00 flour
- 500 ml room temp water
- 5 g salt
- 5 g fresh yeast
- 1 can of good quality plum tomatoes (pref San Marzano)
- 1 pinch of salt
- 5 basil leaves
- 3 balls mozzarella
- 15 basil leaves
- 1 cup parmesan
- 1 cup olive oil
Details
- Cuisine: Italian
- Recipe Type: Main
- Difficulty: Medium
- Preparation Time: 30 mins
- Cooking Time: 5 mins
- Serves: 5
Step-by-step
- For the dough: dissolve the yeast into the water. Combine the flour, water and salt together in a bowl before turning out onto a floured work surface and knead for 15 minutes, until you have a smooth and elastic dough. Leave to rest for 15 minutes.
- Cut into 220-260g pieces and roll into tight dough balls. Place in a dish and cover with cling film and a tea towel.
- Leave to prove for 12-24 hours until the dough balls have completely relaxed and increased in size (by 2/3).
- For the tomato sauce: put all the ingredients in a blender. Pulse, don't blend - you want a sauce with a rough texture.
- To cook: get a large non-stick frying pan on a high heat and preheat your grill. Roll or stretch out your dough ball and lay in the bottom of the hot pan.
- Spread a good spoonful of the tomato sauce onto the base (leaving a 1" crust). Season with a pinch of Parmesan.
- Scatter with 2-3 basil leaves.
- Break half a mozzarella ball onto the pizza with a trickle of olive oil.
- Cook on the hob until the base is browned, then put straight under hot grill to finish, about 1-2 minutes. Enjoy!
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