Italian pizzelle fritte

The anonymous creators of the Italian cooking bible The Silver Spoon have worked on an edition about the cuisine of Naples and the Amalfi Coast. One of the recipes from the book is these thick mini pizzas with homemade tomato sauce and Parmesan as a topping.

Method:

For the dough, stir the yeast into the water with the salt in a large bowl until everything has dissolved. Stir in the flour and olive oil and knead into a dough in 1 to 2 minutes. Shape it into a ball, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave the dough to rise in a warm place. Knead it again after 1 hour and leave it to stand for another hour; its volume should have doubled.

Divide the dough into 16 portions. Shape them into balls and flatten them into ovals approximately 7.5 centimetres long and 2 centimetres thick. Heat the 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large 30-centimetre frying pan.

Fry the mini pizzas in batches until browned on all sides (2 to 3 minutes), adding more oil if necessary. Remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and leave them to drain on kitchen paper.

Start with the sauce. Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized pan over a moderately low heat and fry the garlic until browned, about 2 minutes. Discard the cloves. Fry the tomatoes with a little salt for 10 minutes, mash them with a fork and cook them down over a high heat for 7 to 10 minutes.

Before serving, arrange the mini pizzas in layers on a serving dish, adding 1 tablespoon of tomato sauce and 1 teaspoon of Parmesan to each layer. Serve them hot.

©The Silver Spoon – Naples and the Amalfi Coast

The creators of The Silver Spoon
€ 35,00
Spectrum

Image: ©Simon Bajada, Phaidon Press Limited