Authentic Margherita Pizza

Margherita Pizza Ingredients

Liz Edmunds, The Food Nanny

Makes one 16-inch pizza or two 12-inch pizzas

•                Basic Pizza Dough (see below)

•                2 pounds very ripe Roma or hot-house tomatoes

•                1/4 teaspoon salt

•                1/4 cup olive oil

•                8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced

•                2 tablespoons freshly grated

•                imported Parmigiano-Reggiano

•                Coarse salt and ground black pepper

•                14 small fresh basil leaves or 7 large, torn into pieces

Preparation

1.             Oil the pizza pan(s) and set aside.

2.             Prepare the pizza dough, roll it out, and place it in the prepared pan(s).

3.             Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

4.             Peel (optional, see Note) and dice the tomatoes, discarding the seeds, and combine with the salt and 1/4 cup oil in a bowl. Spread over the crust.

5.             Bake 15 to 20 minutes on the lowest oven rack. Remove pizza from oven and arrange the mozzarella and the Parmesan, if using. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle on additional olive oil. Return to oven till bubbly, 5 to 10 minutes.

6.             Top with basil and serve immediately.


Note: A simple way to peel tomatoes is by scalding them in boiling water. Here's how: Bring water to boil in a medium saucepan. On the bottom of each tomato, cut a shallow X with a paring knife; do not cut the flesh. With a large slotted spoon, drop each tomato in the boiling water. When the skin begins to curl back at the X, after 15 to 30 seconds, remove the tomatoes and place them in ice water to stop the cooking. Then simply peel off the skin.