Cook it at home: Pizza margherita!

[Robin Garr]

Cook it at home: Pizza margherita!

Two outstanding pizzas at MozzaPi.


Does a margarita go with a pizza margherita? Maybe ... but that's not important right now. What's important right now is that I'm craving pizza, and margherita is one of my favorites.

Created in the 1880s and patriotically named after Margherita of Savoy, the first Queen of unified Italy, pizza Margherita's simple ingredients - ripe tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella cheese - were chosen to represent the red, green and white colors of the then-new Italian flag. It's no coincidence that these ingredients, baked on a well-constructed pizza round, also bring together the ultimate in classic Italian flavors.

I love so many of our local pizzerias, but sometimes during a pandemic it's good to fashion dinner at home. Here's a simple take on this old classic. The dough is based on a modern baguette technique rather than the classic pizza method, but the fundamentals aren't much different - the perfect baguette and the perfect pizza dough both rely on utter simplicity, made with good flour, water, yeast and salt and nothing more.

The full recipe is on LouisvilleHotBytes.com at the link. It makes a small batch for a pizza just big enough for two. Or, okay, for one, if you're really hungry. If you try it, let's hear how it went!

Read the full recipe on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/pizza-margherita

I've read a lot lately (Cook's, other sites) about making the pizza in a frying pan (cast iron optimally), on the stove for a while and then finishing in the oven . . . supposedly easier, less clean up, guaranteed crunchy crust. Wonder if this would be a candidate for that method? Anybody ever make it in a fry pan?

[Robin Garr]

I tried it once, years ago, and thought it was all right, but I didn't really find it preferable to the traditional oven method. Also tried grilling over charcoal. Boy, does that require split-second timing!