Mietta's Italian Family Recipes by Mietta O’Donnell

Author:Mietta O’Donnell [O’Donnell, Mietta]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd
Published: 2015-11-08T16:00:00+00:00

PIZZA NAPOLETANA DOUGH

There is no potato in this dough, just flour, yeast and salt (and a tiny bit of sugar). The quantity of serves depends on how you use it. This amount will make a large tray.

10g yeast (you may need more in winter or when your kitchen is cold)

300ml warm water, approx. (plus extra on the side)

3g salt

1g sugar

350g flour

15ml oil

Dissolve the yeast in the water, as much as it absorbs – it might take more than the quantity given.

Add salt and sugar. Mix with your fingers and then pour the yeast/water mixture into the middle of the flour with a good spoon of olive oil (in the north of Italy, they used to use pork fat instead of oil in these doughs). Mix flour into the middle where the liquid is and keep adding and mixing in flour, from the outside in.

Keep some extra warm water on the side as you work. When you make this dough by hand, as the dough is kneading, you may find it helps to splash on a bit of water and keep turning the dough over. Work the dough fairly hard, keep pushing and turning till it forms into a ball. As you make the dough it should absorb all the flour on the bench.

The dough should be quite elastic. If it is too hard, break into it, open it up and add a bit more water. Then knead it again, put your fist into the water and then punch into the dough, turn and roll it. As it absorbs the water, the dough makes a popping noise.

It is a really sticky dough. Put a little flour out on to the bench when you have finished handling it.

Place in a bowl and cover. Leave in a warm place for up to two hours. You need to check carefully with this mixture because if the dough rises too much, it gets a little bit acid.

If you want to speed up the process, you can cover the bowl with a blanket or something warm and the dough will rise faster. But it always depends on the weather.

A draught in the kitchen can ruin dough making. If the dough catches cold, it stops and takes more time to start again. Once you start you need to keep going, you can’t stop and start.

Silvana recalls, ‘when the pasta was bad, in the old days, they would blame the weather. And they’d say that bread should be made before all the doors of the houses were open. I remember my mother used to get up very early to make the dough because my family had the habit of opening up all the windows as soon as they got up in the morning.’

After the dough has doubled again, punch it down and cut it into four pieces.

Take thin metal trays and oil them well.

Keep the dough pieces in a warm place. Take one at a time, knead back a bit, form into a round and then leave on pizza tray.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.