CONTEXT: Margherita Sbagliatta (The Mistaken Margherita) is a dish that was concocted by chef Franco Pepe and is served in his restaurant Pepe In Grani in Caiazzo, Italy. He owns and runs a restaurant that exclusively serves only pizzas and other variations of it. He was featured on the famous Netflix docu-series, “Chef’s Table: Pizza”, in one of the episodes. One day his local farmers brought him some tomatoes they’ve grown, and he tasted them and thought they were too special to be blasted in a pizza oven on top of a pizza. Instead, he made Passata (Italian tomato puree) and cooked the pizza dough with only mozzarella and olive oil on top. Once the crust is baked, he topped it with the Passata, along with a basil-olive oil reduction. He calls it the Mistaken Margherita because, rather than offend the tradtional Margherita, he claims that this is his ‘misunderstood’ interpretation of the classic Neapolitan pizza.
TIPS: The dough takes at least 48 hours to proof inside the fridge. I know most of my recipes are made really quickly. But, there are no shortcuts for some. If you cook something using shortcuts, then it tastes like shortcuts. But, that being said, you can make a regular pizza dough and proof it in 2 hours if you want to make this quickly. But, I’m providing you with the long road a Neapolitan pizza dough is made, and it clearly shows in the final result.
I also have a technique for cooking the top and bottom of the pizza, which would’ve been too much of a manly task for my little oven. Wood-fired pizza ovens get really hot. Like 400-500 °C hot. Obviously, that’s not possible in a domestic oven. So instead, you can cook the bottom of the crust first in a really hot frying pan/cast iron pan, and throw it into the oven as close to the top heating element as possible. This gets you the crispy crust on the bottom, and the crust puffs on top as well, creating an “alveolar” structure from all the gluten networks and yeast fermentation.
Ingredients:
For the PIZZA DOUGH: (makes two 8-inch pizzas)
- 200 gms of Bread Flour (11.5-12% protein)
- 140 gms of Water
- a pinch of Instant Yeast
- 4 gms of Salt
For the Passata (Tomato Puree):
- 8-10 ripe Tomatoes
- Salt to taste
- 2 cups of Basil leaves
- 1/2 cup of Olive oil
- Salt to taste
- 1 cup of Mozzarella Cheese
- Olive oil for drizzling
- Rice flour for dusting
Procedure:
Preparing the Pizza Dough (2 days in advance):
- In a bowl, measure out water and instant yeast and mix them together. Add the flour and salt. Mix until everything is hydrated.
- Knead the dough on a countertop (using Slap & fold method or any other method) for at least 10 minutes. Once done, take it into a bowl. If you want to check if you’ve done it correctly, let it rest for 30 mins, and check by stretching a slight portion of the dough top. If it passes the “windowpane” test, it is kneaded well.
- Cover with a lid or plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for atleast 48 hours for cold fermentation.
- On the day of baking, take out the dough and let it rest for 1 hour on the table. Shape the dough into dough balls, and let them sit for 30 mins before shaping them into pizzas.
- Dice tomatoes, and blend them in a blender until smooth. Strain them using a sieve to remove the seeds and some pulp.
- Cook them in a saucepan until all of the water is boiled and it is thick. Let it cool slightly, and blend it again with salt until smooth.
- Blanch basil leaves in boiling water for at least 15-20 seconds, and dump them in ice water to shock them.
- Squeeze out the excess water, and blend with salt & olive oil until smooth.
- Transfer both the sauces into squeeze bottles.
- Preheat your oven (with only the top heating element) for at least 1 hour with a cast iron pan or an upside-down baking tray in it as close to the top heating element as possible.
- Heat up a frying pan, and while that is getting hot. Shape out your dough (taken out 1.5 hours in advance), into 8-inch pizzas. (Dust the surface with some rice flour to prevent sticking)
- Top the pizza dough with mozzarella and olive oil. Transfer the pizza to the hot frying pan.
- Cook the bottom until it is browned and you see a couple of charred spots.
- Immediately transfer it to the tray/pan in the oven, close to the heating element. Keep an eye on it, and make sure nothing is burning, and rotate the pizza if necessary in between to cook the crust evenly.
- Once the crust is puffed (and charred slightly) and the cheese is melted, take out the pizza very carefully.
- Top the pizza with the tomato puree in a pair of vertical & horizontal lines as shown in the video.
- Add drops of the basil reduction on the pizza and serve.