In this episode of “Chef Tips,” I had the pleasure of visiting Executive Chef Greg Stillman to learn how to make an authentic Neapolitan Pizza Margherita.
Stillman mastered this wood-fired Pizza Margherita recipe while working as the Executive Chef at Naples in Downtown Disney.
Stillman — a veteran of California restaurants including French Laundry in Yountville, and Catal and Naples in Downtown Disney — starts out by making his Neapolitan pizza dough recipe with Caputo flour.
If you would like to make four pizza doughs each weighing 8 oz. (2 pounds total weight) the recipe below will need to be scaled down with the second set of dough ingredients. Stillman recommends that you should use an ounce/gram scale preferably digital (but not mandatory) when working with doughs. This is because the recipe depends heavily on flour weight, and not volume. Home cooks may prefer to use cups instead of weight, but this just won’t do for consistency.
After showing us how to punch and spin the dough, he tops the pizza with pureed Antonina tomatoes, fresh cubes of mozzarella and a few torn leaves of fresh basil.
The wood fired pizza oven — which reaches up to 800 F — takes just a few minutes to cook. In your home oven, cook it on a pizza stone at 500 F for at least 10 minutes on the bottom rack closest to your heating element. I use my Green Mountain Grills pizza attachment to prepare this recipe.
This Neapolitan Pizza is one of the best I’ve tried. This recipe makes quite a large batch, so feel free to scale it down if needed.
Naples Neapolitan Pizza Margherita
Recipe by Jason Hill – CookingSessions.comEquipment
Ingredients
Large Batch Pizza Dough
- 10.83 pounds ice water, strained (2 cups = 1 pound)
- 18.27 pounds red Caputo flour
- 8.2 ounces salt
- 3.3 ounces instant yeast
Small Batch Pizza Dough (Makes four balls weighing 8 oz. each)
- 19.6 oz. flour red caputo
- .5 oz. Kosher salt 14.7 grams to be precise
- .2 oz yeast instant, not dry active or fresh (5.6 grams)
- 11.6 oz. very cold water
Pizza Sauce
- 1 can whole peeled Antonina tomatoes or San Marzano tomatoes
- Salt to taste
Toppings
- Fresh mozzarella
- Fresh basil
Instructions
Make the Sauce
- Puree the can of tomatoes with an immersion blender until smooth. Season to taste with salt until highly seasoned and sharp but not salty.
Make the Dough
- Combine the flour, salt and yeast. Place the chilled water into a mixing bowl with a dough hook, add the dry ingredients. Set to speed 1 for 10 minutes and allow to run on low speed. Check the consistency; it should be smooth like a baby. Remove the dough and immediately scale the dough into 8 oz. balls and place into a dough box (12 per box). Place the boxes in the refrigerator to slow proof for use the next day.
Make the Pizza
- Punch and stretch pizza as shown in the video until you form a small circle. Cover with a ladle or two of tomato sauce, followed by a scattering of fresh mozzarella cubes and fresh torn basil leaves.
- Bake in a wood-fired pizza oven for 2 minutes, turning every 30-45 seconds, or bake on a pizza stone in the bottom rack of your home oven at 500 F for at least 10 minutes. Cover with a squirt of olive oil and serve.
