Pizza · Elaborata
Neapolitan Pizza at Home
Pizza Napoletana
- Preparation
- 40 min, plus 24 h fermentation
- Cooking
- 8 min per pizza
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Elaborata
Naples guards its pizza with the seriousness of a constitution: a long-fermented dough of 00 flour, crushed San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte, basil, and ferocious heat. A domestic oven will never reach 450 degrees, but with a steel or stone and a patient cold rise, it comes honourably close. The reward is a cornicione — the puffed rim — blistered, tender, and alive.
- 01
Make a slow dough
Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour, and bring it together before working in the salt. Knead for ten minutes until smooth and elastic, then rest, covered, for one hour at room temperature. Divide into four balls of roughly 210 g each.
- 02
Let time do the work
Place the dough balls in a lightly oiled, covered container and refrigerate for twenty-four hours. This cold fermentation builds the flavour and the fragile, open crumb that defines Naples. Bring them back to room temperature two hours before baking.
- 03
Prepare a raw tomato base
Crush the San Marzano tomatoes by hand with a pinch of salt — nothing more. Neapolitan tradition never cooks the sauce before it meets the oven. Set a pizza steel or stone on the top shelf and heat the oven at its absolute maximum for a full hour.
- 04
Open the dough by hand
On a dusting of semolina, press each ball from the centre outwards with your fingertips, pushing the air into the rim. Stretch to about 28 cm, leaving the cornicione untouched. A rolling pin would crush everything the fermentation built.
- 05
Dress with restraint
Spread a thin veil of tomato, scatter over the drained fior di latte, and add a drop of olive oil. Less is the rule; a heavy pizza steams instead of blistering. The basil goes on after the oven, so it perfumes rather than burns.
- 06
Bake at full fury
Slide the pizza onto the screaming-hot steel and switch the oven to grill. Bake for six to eight minutes until the rim is puffed and leopard-spotted with char. Finish with basil and a thread of olive oil, then repeat with the remaining dough.
To Serve
Serve each pizza whole and uncut, Naples-style, with a knife and fork and no apologies. Eat it within minutes — this is a dish with a heartbeat.
With Wine
In Naples it would be a cold Falanghina or a light, barely chilled Piedirosso — easy, saline wines that respect the char of the crust.
Per serving
- Energy
- 780 kcal
- Protein
- 30 g
- Carbohydrate
- 100 g
- Fat
- 28 g
