Pizza Napoletana (almost)
Introduction
Pizza napoletana dates back to at least the 1800s when it was first produced in Naples, Italy. During the last couple centuries, p
izza napoletana has gained a special status in the pizza world. Indeed, there is now an Italian regulatory body named the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) that certifies and ensures that pizzerias are producing napoletana pizzas to precise specifications carefully curated over the centuries. Although a true pizza napoletana must be cooked in a traditional Italian wood-fired oven at an optimal temperature of 905ºF, the recipe below is my attempt at recreating this ancient master-piece at home. Although I've tried to follow the AVPNs
specifications as close as possible, there are a lot of home hacks in here, many of which were inspired by the bay's own Tony Gemignani (see the section on Pizza Napoletana in "The Pizza Bible") and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats. Let me know if you discover any new tricks to get this pizza even closer to perfection! - Ian Winters
Materials
Procedure
In the table below, write down how many pizzas you'll make and how big you want each pizza to be (typically ~225-250g), then collect the following quantities of pizza dough reagents:
Whisk yeast into 80-85ºF warm water in a bowl or measuring cup (should get frothy; if not, yeast is likely dead).
Add flour and malt to the bowl of a Stand Mixer.
Mix flour/malt on the lowest setting of the Stand Mixer with a dough hook attachment and slowly add most of the ice cold water, reserving a little water to rinse out the container containing the dissolved yeast.
While the Stand Mixer is still mixing slowly, add the yeast mixture to the dough, rinse out yeast bowl with the reserved water, and add to the dough.
CRITICALMix until liquids are roughly incorporated (~1 minute or a little longer if making a large batch) then stop. Do not overmix.
Remove the dough off the hook and set in Stand Mixer bowl, then scrape down sides of bowl with spatula to recollect dough pieces.
CRITICALAdd salt and mix on slow for 1 minute. Dough should be whole ball on hook by now and salt grains should be dissolved in dough. If you can still feel the salt grains in the dough when you pinch it between your fingers, mix again very briefly. Do not overmix.
CRITICALRemove from mixer then knead for 2-3 mins by pressing down the dough, folding the dough over itself along the longest axis, then repeating (only add a small amount of flour if totally necessary to work with the dough if it's too sticky). Do not over knead.
PAUSELet the fully formed dough ball rise at room temperature (20-25ºC) for 20 minutes with a damp cloth over it to prevent the surface from drying out.
Cut the dough into the desired number of pieces.
CRITICALAt this point, gluten proteins in the flour should have aggregated to form a network or matrix inside the dough. The goal is now to carefully shape each dough ball in such a way that you encapsulate the ball in a tight, unbroken gluten matrix that will be able to hold gas bubbles produced during yeast fermentation. To do this, stretch one face of the dough piece around the rest of the piece, tucking it under and pinching it slightly so that the piece of dough becomes a tight sphere. The surface of the dough should be smooth.
Put the fully formed dough balls in a tray or on a baking sheet and cover with cling wrap so moisture doesn't escape.
PAUSEAllow the dough balls to cold-rise at ~4ºC for 48-72 hrs (if you need a pizza fix ASAP, you can warm rise the dough at room temperature for ~4 hrs, until balls have approximately doubled in size--how fast this happens will vary a lot depending primarily on the ambient room temperature and the yeast)
After fermentation, bring the dough balls to a cold room temp (~60-65ºF).
Meanwhile, place two pizza steels or stones on separate oven racks, one as close to the top broiler as you can while still being able to slide a pizza in (if you only have one pizza steel/stone, put it on this rack), and the other somewhere in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven on the hottest setting (e.x. 550ºF). It can take up to an hour for the steels or stones to reach this oven temperature so plan accordingly.
To open and stretch out each dough ball, gently remove it from the tray and place it on a pile of flour on smooth surface. Coat both sides of the dough ball with flour. Gently press the ball down to form a thick disk if it isn't already in that configuration after fermentation.
CRITICALAfter fermentation, the dough should be full of little gas bubbles from the yeast. The goal for this step is to expand the dough ball into a pizza crust while maintaining as many of those bubbles in the dough as possible. The key is to gently press and shape the dough in such a way that you are moving bubbles around within the crust as opposed to letting them escape by simply squishing them. Do not use a rolling pin unless you want pita bread for breakfast (or dinner).
To expand the dough, first use your fingers to create a slight indentation all the way around the dough disk about an inch from the edge. Now use your finger tips to press the dough from about one thirds of the way out from the center of the dough all the way to the first indentation as if you are trying to move air bubbles into the last 1 inch of dough on the edge that will become the crust (you don't want to thin out the very center of the dough too much since this part will stretch out by itself as you open the dough and you want to avoid any tearing in them middle). Continue this process for a few revolutions of the dough, gently pressing air into the crust and thinning out the dough. You can now use your hands to stretch out the crust a bit, and use cupped hand or fists to expand the dough further, making sure now to stretch out the middle of the dough too much. Continue until the dough is about 12 or 13 inches in diameter.
Before topping your pizzas, switch your oven to the highest broil setting to get the top pizza steel/stone as hot as possible before putting in the pizza.
At this point the pros will top their pizza's on the counter top and drag them onto a peel to throw into the oven. Using this method, you can top all of your pizzas and then shuffle them through the oven to crank out a bunch of hot pizzas in a short period of time. However, dragging uncooked pizza dough with sauce and toppings onto a pizza peel without losing 50% of your pies takes a lot of practice (cold dough and a cold well-floured marble countertop also helps). Instead, move your untopped pizza dough onto a lightly floured pizza peel and top it there. The beauty of pizza napoletana is its delicious simplicity so go easy on the number and quantity of toppings!
For a classic pizza napoletana, the Margherita or Marinara, hand crush the whole peeled canned D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes, removing any pieces of tomato that aren't soft or bright red. I usually add a little bit of fine sea salt to the crushed tomatoes but nothing else.
Once you've topped your pizza, carefully slide it onto the top pizza stone/steel with the top broiler kept on as high as possible during cooking. The pizza should be fully cooked in ~2 minutes so watch carefully. The pizza can be rotated 180º halfway through cooking. A fully cooked pizza will have a deep golden crust with a few large charred bubbles and many tiny, flakey air bubbles on the surface of the crust, a slightly thickened tomato sauce (if that was included), while the bottom of the crust is crispy and brown with a few areas of char.
A second pizza steel or stone (I use a steel on the top burner and a stone on the bottom) somewhere in the middle oven rack allows you to drop the pizza down to finish off the bottom of the crust if the top of the crust has cooked faster. This approach gives a little more wiggle room to get a nice crisp bottom crust.
Remove the pizza and let the pizza steam for a minute or two before digging in! Repeat the topping/cooking process for any other pizza doughs you made. Enjoy!