Pizza Base - Chef Recipe by Luca Ciano

Ingredients

500g plain flour/pizza flour (sieved) + 50 g extra for working pizza dough
330mL water
10g salt
5g sugar
1 sachet dry yeast (7g)
400g 'Luca Ciano' Fresh Basil Sugo - or a tin of chopped tomatoes
200g mozzarella cheese (fior di latte or buffalo), 1 cm diced
30g Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
80mL extra virgin olive oil
10 leaves, fresh basil, torn
5g dry oregano

Method

Mix yeast and water into a large bowl until dissolved. Add flour and sugar and start mixing with your hands or into a kitchen mixer for 2 minutes. Add salt and keep mixing. Knead dough till smooth and elastic (about 5-10 minutes by hand or 3-4 minutes kitchen mixer).

Allow to proof for a minimum of 2 hours in a covered bowl with cling wrap.

Dust a working bench with flour then remove dough from bowl. With your hands flatten to 1cm thickness to fit into a 30cm x 38cm oven tray. Grease oven tray with extra virgin olive oil and place dough in it. Cover with cling wrap and allow to proof for another hour.

Preheat oven at 200 C. Add the fresh basil sugo tomato sauce or chopped tomato to cover the pizza surface. Sprinkle with salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Bake for 15 minutes.

Then add both cheeses, fresh basil and oregano and cook for a further 5 min. Remove from oven, add a few extra basil leaves to garnish, a drizzle of olive oil and serve.

If you like a thinner style of pizza, split the dough in two, and cook it into two trays. It should cook in only 12-15 minutes at 200 C.

Credits: Luca Ciano