Pizza Margherita

The first time I read the name Pizza Margherita on a menu card at a restaurant I was quite puzzled...I wondered, do they actually add Margarita in a pizza? Sounds quite dumb but trust me I was quite amused to find that I wasn't the only one who had thought so. Apparently Margarita (the drink) and Margherita (the pizza) are world's apart from each other and even the spellings are different although they are pronounced the same. 

Pizza Margherita or Margherita Pizza is a really simple Pizza yet it's huge on flavor. You just need three main ingredients for this pizza, Mozerella (fresh is best), a flavorful Tomato pizza sauce and fresh Basil leaves. 

Here's what I found when I searched on trusted Google.com for why this pizza is named as such:

1. An often recounted story holds that on 11 June 1889, to honour the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Neapolitan pizzamaker Raffaele Esposito created the "Pizza Margherita", a pizza garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, to represent the national colours of Italy as on the Italian flag.

I love baking fresh homemade pizza and trying new toppings each time and this was a flavor I tried when we kept a simple backyard bbq gettogether with friends. These were ideally meant as an appetizer and got over so fast that I only managed to take some quick snaps on my Iphone camera, thank goodness for such smart phone cams. Even my lil'Appu loved this pizza and ate several slices.

The pizza crust recipe makes about 2 medium sized pizzas, I made 4 small pizzas. I just used some store bought Marinara sauce and Grated mozerella cheese for the toppings and used fresh Basil leaves from our garden.  Fresh Basil leaves is quite a must to bring out the flavor in this pizza...

PIZZA MARGHERITA

You'll Need

For Pizza Dough

½ cup Warm Water

2 ¼ teaspoon Instant  Yeast

4 cups Bread flour / All-purpose Flour plus more for dusting

1 ½ teaspoon Salt

1 ¼ cup water, at room temperature

2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

For Margherita Pizza topping

Preferred Pizza sauce (Marinara sauce)

Grated Mozerella as needed or use fresh Mozerella

Fresh Basil leaves, as needed

Salt as needed

Red chilli flakes / Seasoned Pizza flavoring herbs etc for garnish

Directions:

To make Pizza Dough

1.Take warm water in a small bowl and add the instant yeast and set it aside. (sometimes I add a pinch of sugar to help activate the yeast faster)

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment add the flour and salt and mix well.

3. Add the measured water at room temperature into the yeast mixture.

4. On a slow speed add the yeast-water mixture with olive oil into the flour and combine until a dough starts to form.

5. Switch to the dough hook and knead on low speed until the dough is smooth and elastic for about 5 minutes and transfer the dough onto a greased/oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap and let it rest and double in size for about 1 – 1 ½ hours.

Once doubled in size, deflate the dough gently and divide into equal parts (I divided the dough into 4 parts) and rolled the dough into balls and cover each ball with a damp cloth and let them rest again for 10minutes. (if not using all the dough balls, you can freeze them by individually wrapping in plastic wrap)

To make Pizza Margherita

1. Make the pizza rounds by dusting the work surface with some flour and rolling out with a rolling pin or dusted hands to desired size keeping the crust a little thick and brushed with some olive oil.  Place the pizza on a baking tray that is lightly sprinkled with some cornmeal or Sooji(rava) to prevent the dough from sticking.

2. Spoon the top of the pizza base with desired pizza sauce, I used marinara sauce bought from our local Kowalski store (it was perfectly seasoned and had a lovely flavor)

3. Tear some fresh Basil leaves and add them over the top of the marinara sauce.

4. Top with generous amounts of grated Mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the top.

5. Pre-heat the oven at 500F and then place the baking tray with the pizza on it and bake for about 10-12 mins or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. You may need to reduce or increase baking times depending on the size of your pizza.

6. If desired garnish the pizza with red chilli flakes or dried pizza seasoning for extra flavor. Cut into slices and serve hot!

Recipe Source:

Pizza Dough: Annies Eats

Pizza Toppings: My own

-Manju