Pizza, Pizza, Pizza - the big tops. Part One.

Ok, now that you have your dough and your sauce made you're ready to go and build a pizza.  Be scared, be VERY scared as the pizzademons know you are coming and if you don't come prepared then they'll smack you.  So get prepared!  As chefs would say, get your Mise en Place ready to go, or as Anthony Bourdain calls it, his meez.  At this point, to help keep the pizzademons at bay, a large glass of whatever kind of (good) wine that will go with your master creation should be poured and put to one side within easy reach.  If you're not a wine drinker (become one before you get too much older) then a large, very cold glass of your favourite beer will do but you need to add 2 peeled cloves of garlic on a thread hanging round your neck as well.  Good Luck and Buona fortuna.

From this point on you you need to think like an old world Italian, better still like a 'Napoletano'.  If for some reason you came to this blog thinking 'deep pan' or 'Chicago style' then drink your beer, suck on the garlic gloves and get back on your horse now, cowboy.  This is old school pizza - you should haver figured that out a few posts ago when I asked you to spend so long making your own dough and sauce from scratch.  Did I ask you to buy a ready made, deep pan piece of carpet underlay and a jar of Dolmio pizza sauce - did I?  If you're still here and reading this then, PHEW!! at least we are still 'on the same page' and thinking about real, pizza.  The kind that Giuseppe makes all his life and that we want to make and get as close as we can to 'Verace Pizza Napoletana' or Authentic Naples Pizza.

Enough yakking, let's create a pizza.  First, some toppings for your meez.

Some toppings - I used these for the pizza stone pizzas (coming later).  Clockwise from L-R as best I can.  Mushrooms, garlic oil, oregano, capers, black olives, the sauce, grated mozzarella, anchovies, salami, fried chicken breast pieces.

Now, let's get your bases ready to go.  Take one of your dough balls and... well I've just thought of another step I might need to put in here - how to stretch your pizza dough,  Damn, that will have to come later and you'll have to bare with me for now.

Turn out your ball of dough onto a lightly floured, smooth work surface.  Sprinkle more flour on top of the ball and then use your finger tips to flatten the ball and push out to shape.  Using only your finger tips at this time, use a flattening/pushing action while at the same time rotating the dough to try and keep it roughly round.  Do not use a rolling pin, you will regret it - just don't do it.  Once your pizza base is about 8 inches or so diameter, it will become harder to get much more shaping out of it with just your fingertips.  Start to use the flat of your hands and push and twist the pizza to stretch and rotate it at the same time.  You really need to 'feel' this and you are aiming for an even, thin base across more than 10 inches of the base with a thicker edge to the dough about a half inch to an inch wide at most all the way around the pizza.  (Idiot guide - 10+ inches of thin base across the centre of the pizza and an average of a one inch 'border' will give you about a 12 inch pizza)

I like to put my bases onto those thin plastic chopping boards (you can buy them in supermarkets) for moving about the work area.  I like to prepare all my bases first and then add the toppings.  I usually prepare 4 bases and then allow them to rest a little while before using them.

Next, it's time to get creative and this is now up to you.  Add some sauce and spread it about the base from the centre out but leaving the thicker edge clear.  You only want enough sauce so that the base is thinly covered.  If you were to turn the base upside down then almost nothing would fall off, it's that well spread out.  Then add the toppings of your choice.  Again, less is better and please, generally not more than 2 or 3 main ingredients as the focal point for your pizza with some other 'flavour/texture' toppings.  The more toppings you pile on the linger they take to cook - and pizza should cook quickly.  You'll see what I mean later.

Chicken, mushroom, capers, black olives and cheese with a little garlic oil on to.  Ready to cook.

There you go, a pizza ready to go into the oven.  Cook until it's ready in the hottest oven you have.  On a pizza stone in a domestic oven or right on the hearth of a wood fired oven.  That and more, coming soon.