BYJessica DeMay/ Posted: November 22, 2020 / Updated: August 2, 2021
Neapolitan Pizza Recipe
A true, authentic Neapolitan-style pizza requires the use of specific ingredients and cooking methods. Fortunately, none are too difficult to deem it impossible to make your own Neapolitan pizza at home. We’ve discovered the best, fool-proof recipe for pizza lovers who don’t want to have to dine out to eat the real thing.
An oven that reaches 750-900 degrees F (trust us on this, get an Ooni oven).
A dough scraper
A wooden spatula
An IR thermometer so you can keep track of how hot it is in the oven
A round metal spatula so you can turn the pizza in the oven
Important!
The amount of flour in the recipe is based on Tipo "00" flour. It is possible to use all-purpose flour as well, but then make sure you add a little bit more water.
Don't forget to rest the dough at least one hour before you took it out of the fridge. Now after you've created the dough and it's ready to be used, follow these steps.
1. Stretching the Dough
Dust a working surface lightly with some semolina flour and place your dough ball there. Now press down in the middle of the dough ball using your fingertips. Try to imagine you're pushing all the air to the sides of the pizza, to create a slightly elevated edge. By doing this, you're creating a characteristic Neapolitan crust where the edges are light and filled with air. These light and fluffy edges are called cornicione in Italian.
2. Adding the tomato sauce
Now add two spoons of tomato sauce, and using the backside of the spoon, create a circular motion from the middle and outwards towards the edges of the pizza. The whole base needs to have tomato sauce on it, except for the edges. Just don't overdo it, and also keep away the sauce from the middle as much as you can, otherwise, your pizza will turn out too soggy.
3. Adding the toppings
Now you can add some olive oil to the pizza and top it with some pecorino romano, or some parmesan cheese. Some pizzaiolos like to have a mix of both kinds of cheese, giving the pizza a unique flavor.
Next up, cut up some fresh mozzarella and spread it over the top of the pizza. Again, keep it away from the middle to prevent your pizza from becoming heavy and soggy in the middle. Also don't overdo it, you don't want to use more than 75g-100g of mozzarella on a regular Neapolitan pizza.
Now quickly transfer your pizza to your pizza peel and shove it into your oven. We recommend using the Ooni Karu 16, it is the only portable pizza oven recommended by the AVPN for domestic use.
After you take the pizza out of the oven, top it off with some fresh basil.
Pro Tips:
Heat it at full power for about 15 minutes and make sure that the stone is 750 degrees (F) in the middle, if the stone is much hotter than that 900-930F, If you want to cool it down a bit, just set a room temperature cast iron skillet on the stone for 20 seconds.
Then turn the flame down to just over half and push in the pizza.
Then count to 20 and then spin the pizza a quarter turn, wait about 15 seconds, and repeat until you have baked all sides.
Take out the pizza and check if it has an even color, if it does not, you can put in the part that needs a little more color and wait a few seconds until it looks good.
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Jessica DeMay
Jessica is the lead content creator of Dishcrawl. She has lived in Italy (Napoli) for 7 years and has since become absolutely obsessed with pizza.
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