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Pizza Recipe from Lidia Bastianich’s “Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine”

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Pizza

Make 2 pizzas, serving 4

dough

  • 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowl
  • 3¼ to 3½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt

sauce

  • 1½ cups drained canned Italian plum tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, crushed by hand or through a food mill
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Sicilian on
  • the branch
  • ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled

topping

  • 1 pound fresh mozzarella, sliced
  • Fresh basil leaves
  • Freshly grated Grana Padano
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

In a spouted measuring cup, mix the yeast, sugar, and olive oil into 1¼ cups warm water (about 100 degrees, or just warm to the touch), and let sit until bubbly, about 3 minutes.

Put 3 cups flour in a mixer fitted with the dough hook, and add the salt. Pour in the yeast mixture, and mix at medium speed until a rough, sticky ball of dough comes together, about 1 min- ute, adding a little more flour or water as neces- sary. Let rest 5 minutes in the mixer, then mix on low until the dough is no longer sticky, about 1 minute. Oil your hands, transfer the dough to the counter, and knead until very smooth, about 30 seconds. Transfer to an oiled bowl, and cover the surface of the bowl with plastic wrap. Refriger-ate at least 4 hours or overnight. Slowly leavened dough is tastier.

Before making the pizza bring the dough to room temperature. Stir together the sauce ingre- dients in a bowl, and let the flavors blend at room temperature.  Preheat  the  oven  to  500  degrees with a pizza stone on the bottom rack. (If you don’t have a pizza stone, use an inverted sheet pan.) Punch the dough down, divide it in half, and let it rest on the counter and come to room temperature.

Stretch  one  pizza  on  a  sheet  of  parchment paper on a pizza peel or the back of a sheet pan to approximately a 10-inch round shape (it’s okay if it’s irregular and more of an oval or a square). Fish the garlic from the sauce, and discard. Spread half of the sauce on the pizza, and top with the moz- zarella, a few torn fresh basil leaves, and a light sprinkle  of  grated  cheese.  Drizzle  lightly  with olive oil. Slide the pizza onto the stone (still on the parchment), and bake until the crust is browned on the underside and the cheese is browned and bubbly, about 8 to 10 minutes. Repeat with the remaining ball of dough. (You may have a little bit of sauce left, depending on how wide you’ve stretched your pizza; you just want a light coating of sauce.)

You can add whatever toppings you like to the pizzas—salumi, grilled vegetables, olives, capers, anchovies, etc. Just go sparingly, because an over- loaded pizza will be soggy.

Excerpted from Lidia’s Mastering The Art of Italian Cuisine: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Great Italian Cook by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich with Tanya Bastianich Manuali. Copyright © 2015 by Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Appetite by Random House, a division of Penguin Random House Canada, Ltd., Toronto. All rights reserved.