As a pizza lover, there's nothing better than a simple, delicious homemade margherita pizza. A bit of tomato sauce plus creamy mozzarella, red pepper flakes for a touch of heat, and I personally like to add julienned fresh basil. Pizza isn't always easy to make, especially the crust, but Deb Perelman of SmittenKitchen.com breaks it down into a recipe fit for even the novice cook.
PIZZA MARGHERITA
For the dough:
Makes enough for one small, thin crust pizza. Double it if you like your pizza thick and bready.
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
For the sauce:
8 to 10 ounces (1 cup plus) canned or carton-ed tomato puree (I love Pomi strained tomatoes. Inexpensive, nice cardboard packaging, and great quality but there are tons of other brands out there too)
1 minced garlic clove
Salt to taste
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 ball (1 pound) fresh mozzarella, very thinly sliced or torn into strands
For the fixings:
White Button mushrooms (four thinly sliced button ones will cover a pizza)
Couple basil leaves
Drizzle of olive oil
Place yeast in a bowl and add warm water, and stir. Then add in sugar and stir. Let sit for 10 minutes until mixture looks murky and a bit cloudy.
Then add salt and stir and flour until incorporated. Stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.
If you are finding this step difficult, one of the best tricks I picked up from my bread-making class is to simply pause. Leave the dough in a lightly-floured spot, put the empty bowl upside-down on top of it and come back in 2 to 5 minutes, at which point you will find the dough a lot more lovable.
Knead it for just a minute or two, massaging a bit of the olive oil on to the ball while shaping to make it more pliable.
Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it — one-bowl recipe! — dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.
Dump it back on the floured counter (yup, I leave mine messy), and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes.
Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal and preheat your oven to its top temperature. Roll out the pizza, spoon on the sauce and cheese and toss on whatever topping and seasonings you like. (I always err on the side of skimpy with toppings so to not weight down the dough too much, or if I have multiple toppings, to keep them very thinly sliced.) Bake it for about 10 minutes until it’s lightly blistered and impossible to resist.
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