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How to make a real Pizz’ N’ Roll (rolled pizza)
Traditional Italian recipes with a modern twist: the new cookbook Big Mamma’s Cucina Popolare is packed with them. The Italian chefs at Big Mamma cook according to their mamas’ traditions, but with a contemporary signature. Like this rolled pizza with fontina, also known as Pizz’ N’ Roll.
door Lauretta Baarends
This delicious and generous rolled pizza can be divided into lots of small pizzas, making it ideal as a snack when friends come over.
How to make Neapolitan pizza dough
- Dissolve the yeast in 200 ml lukewarm water. Sift the flour and add half of it to the water. Gently mix the water and flour by hand until all the lumps have disappeared, then knead the dough thoroughly for 10 minutes. Add the remaining flour, olive oil and salt. Knead the dough for another 15 minutes, until it is very smooth and easily comes away from the work surface.
- Place the dough in a bowl, cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and let the dough rise for 2 hours in a warm place (approximately 24 °C).
- Dust a large bowl with flour. Divide the dough into two portions and place the dough balls in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a cloth or lid and let the dough rise for 6 hours in a warm place. The pizza dough will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.
Stretching and shaping pizza dough: - The Neapolitan way of making pizza is an art form (and has been recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage). Giuseppe Cutraro, our pizzaioli chef, ‘born and raised in Naples’, explains how to stretch and shape the dough. Giuseppe started in the trade at the age of fifteen, at the historic Starita a Materdei pizzeria in Naples. We will never match his pizza-making skills, but we can pretend:
- Start by dusting the work surface with flour.
- Place the dough on the work surface, stretch it out with your hands and shape it into a circle approximately 30 cm in diameter.
- Now comes the difficult part: spin the dough in the air with your hands. Contrary to what you might think, you do not have to throw the dough high into the air, even though it looks great.
- You can even do it on the work surface. Make a circle with the dough by turning it, or by repeatedly lifting and stretching the dough with your left hand while holding it with your right hand. This way, the dough is stretched evenly.
- Place the dough on the work surface and push with your finger from the center toward the edges, pushing the air toward the edges and creating a raised edge that will be light and risen when the pizza is ready. We pizzaioli call this a cornicione (cornice). It is the hallmark of a real Neapolitan pizza: wide edges, approximately 2 cm, that rise and puff up in the wood-fired pizza oven at a temperature of 430 °C.
How to make the Pizz’ N’ Roll’
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Roll out one portion of pizza dough on a floured work surface into a rectangle the size of a baking tray and 2 cm thick. Use a pastry brush to coat the top of the dough with olive oil. Sprinkle the dough with salt and pepper. Repeat the previous steps with the other three portions of dough.
- Distribute the fontina evenly over each sheet of dough. Sprinkle the coriander, dill, rosemary and 80 grams of grated Parmesan over it.
- Roll each rectangle up from the long side into a long roll. Use a large knife to cut the roll into slices approximately 5 cm thick.
- Grease a round baking tin 30 cm in diameter with a little melted butter.
- Place the dough rolls in the baking tin with the cut side facing up,
close together. Use a pastry brush to coat the tops of the dough rolls with melted butter and beaten egg yolks. Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan over them. Let the dough rolls rest at room temperature for 1 hour. Bake the rolled pizza in the oven for 30 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 160 °C and bake the rolled pizza for another 20 minutes.
Title: Big Mamma’s Cucina Popolare
Author: Big Mamma
Price: €35
Publisher: Good Cook
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