Pizza in Teglia alla Romana
Now that winter's here (even though they call it autumn still), the wood fired oven is all wrapped up in its waterproof coat and our pizza is made in the kitchen oven.
Lately I've been making pizza in teglia alla Romana as I think it works better than pizza Napolitana in a domestic oven.
This style of pizza is made with a high hydration dough (80%) and strong flour (W 300-380). It is shaped as a big square or rectangle of considerable thickness on a baking sheet and usually double baked - white or with tomato sauce for the first bake and then the cheese is added for the final bake.
The pizza is cut into squares for serving.
There are many recipes to try; this is one I have used a few times, quite successfully (it's in Italian BTW). I like the way it is all same day - some recipes involve 24-48 hours in the fridge, which requires a lot of planning ahead.
For the flour I used 300g Caputo Manitoba Oro + 100g Pivetti Pizza & Focaccia in the sponge and 100g Pivetti in the main dough.
The dough really is very wet and initially somewhat tricky to handle, but it does get easier as the gluten develops!
Anyway here's a few pictures of my latest effort - probably a little too thick - I might reduce the dough quantity a bit next time.
Shaped dough with tomato sauce. This proves for 40 minutes before going into the oven with some basil leaves added prior to baking:
Cooked mushrooms, chopped olives, mozarella and a little pecorino romano added to the part cooked pizza:
After the final bake:
The crumb:
A nice crispy base:
Lance
Comments
That looks great Lance, I once tried this style of pizza but found that after stretching the dough and then transferring it to the pan I created a huge cloud of flour dust in my kitchen so decided not to do this style again. I'd be interested to hear how you do the stretching and transfer. I followed what Kristen posted on her IG account.
Benny
I've read that there are some fancy shaping methods, but I haven't watched any videos yet.
All I do is oil a baking sheet and turn out the dough from the bulk container directly onto it. Then use my spread fingers to spread the dough out with some gentle tugging at the edges so all the sheet is covered.
Lance
Version 2 made last week to a new recipe from la Confraternita della Pizza. Recipe here and I will also share my translated version (as a Word .docx file) here
I kept the hydration down to 75% and I think this is high enough to make good Pizza in Teglia. The crumb was superb - soft and melt in the mouth.
I made a thicker tomato sauce this time with some finely chopped onion, carrot and garlic and I think it goes better with this style of pizza.
Lance