How To Make A Pizza: Lino’s Recipe

After a rockin’ Saturday night St. Patty’s Day party, we crashed at our friend’s house in Mondovi. Roxy is a Texan expat who is married to an Italian, Lino. The next morning I could have sworn we woke up at a B&B when I came up to a breakfast of freshly bought croissants, hazelnuts, sicilian marmalade and coffee. We were treated like kings and queens not only for the breakfast set up but because Lino spent the day teaching us how to make the perfect pizza.

So here’s the recipe for 2 pizzas:

1. Measure 200 ml of water and make sure the temperature is at 32 °C (90°F) 2. Pour into a glass and add 3 spoons of raw sugar cane. 3. Mix well until dissolved

4. Use 1 packet of beer yeast (7g) and pour into the glass 5. Whisk until dissolved 6. set aside until it ferments for AT LEAST10 minutes.

6. Use 3 types of flour, “farro”(spelt), semolina flour, and white flour. 7. Pour 240 grams of spelt flour on the scale. 8. Then add another 120 grams of semolina and 40 grams of white flour.

 9. Don’t forget a teaspoon of salt!

10. Combine half the flour mixture and the glass of yeast sugar water and mix with a professional mixer slowly. 11. Gradually add spoonfuls of the flour mixture while the mixer is at work. 12. Add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and mix. 13. Take off the batter mixing attachment and put on the dough hook. 14. Let it knead the dough for about 15 minutes until you get a consistency similar to that of your earlobe. 15. If too dry add water from the same yeast cup or if too sticky add flour.

16. Brush a spoonful of olive oil around the sides of a bowl 17. Place the dough ball in the bowl 18. Put a damp kitchen towel over it and let the dough rise for at least 3 hours. 19. If you don’t have at least 3 hours you can put a pot of bowling water in the oven which has been heated to about 250°C (480°F)

20. Cut oven paper to cover the baking tin just right and spread with oil on the top and bottom. 21. Spread out the pizza dough with your hands and let rest for about an hour. 22. In the meantime make a homemade tomato sauce to your liking.

24. Decorate with sauce and toppings! We chose mozzarella, goat cheese, olives and onions! 25. Bake for 10 minutes at 250° and then turn down to 200° for the remaining 15 minutes.

Easy as a pizza pie! This was a fun way to spend a day with friends and spoil ourselves. Thanks Lino!