Pizza in teglia

Neapolitan pizza will probably always be my favorite, but if I’m honest, it’s a bit of a pain to make at home. The dough really does need to be rested for at least a day, ideally more. To make great Neapolitan pizza, you really need an oven that can achieve temperatures well in excess of what most home appliances can do. Even to do a passable job at home, you need special equipment like a baking steel.

Enter pizza in teglia, or literally “pizza in a baking tray.” It’s the typical pizza found more in Rome than Naples and environs. For whatever reason, in English, it tends to get called pizza al taglio (“by the cut”).

This style of pizza is much easier to make for a group, and is much more compatible with domestic kitchens as it doesn’t demand being baked super hot.

There’s some degree of latitude in how much dough to use. But one source suggested a ratio of about 0.5 g of dough for every square centimeter of your baking tray. I’ve included some common pan sizes below. (And yes, I know I’ve rounded things a bit.)

While this pizza doesn’t demand a super hot oven, it still needs to bake pretty hot. I put my oven on 250 °C (ca. 480 °F), the hottest it will go with the convection fan on.

As I’ve discovered the hard way, the other key trick is using the right baking tray. Using a clean light silver aluminum sheet pan — what most US kitchens will have — really doesn’t work very well. You’ll still get a reasonably tasty pizza, but it will be very difficult to get a super crispy crust without completely burning everything else.

If possible, use something made of dark metal. I use the baking tray that came with my European-style oven, which works extremely well. It may be possible to get this to work in a piece of black cast-iron or with a “seasoned” aluminum sheet tray, but I can’t personally vouch for it.

Ingredients

• 225 g water (ca. 30 °C)
• 2 g active dry yeast (or 4 g fresh baker’s yeast)
• 20 g olive oil
• 250 g bread flour
• 5 g salt
• Olive oil

Method

In a large bowl, combine the water with the yeast. Gently mix the yeast into the water and let it bloom for 1-2 minutes. Then add the olive oil, flour, and salt. Mix the dough until it’s well-mixed, but still rough, principally ensuring that there are no pockets of unincorporated flour.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

After the first rest, gently fold the dough onto itself, taking edges and folding them into the center of the dough. Re-cover the bowl, and let it rest for a further 30 minutes. Knead the dough again and form it into a taught ball.

Cover the bowl again, and refrigerate it for at least six hours, up to 36 hours, to ferment.

An hour before baking, take the dough out of the refrigerator.

Liberally cover the bottom of a baking tray with olive oil. For extra insurance, line the bottom with a sheet of parchment if desired. Dump the dough into the tray and gently coax the dough out to completely cover the tray with the dough. If the dough is uncooperative and springs by, let it rest for 10 minutes to allow it to relax.

Preheat an oven to 250 °C (500 °F).

With mozzarella and basil

Additional ingredients

• 400 g (14 ounce) can high-quality plum tomatoes
• Salt
• Thyme
• Mozzarella cheese, grated, or cut or torn into small cubes
• Fresh basil
• Olive oil

Make a quick tomato sauce by blending a the tomatoes into a rough purée.

Very gently spread a thin layer of the sauce onto the prepared dough. Then sprinkle the dough with salt to taste and add the thyme.

Bake the pizza for about 15 minutes to set the crust. Then remove it from the oven and add the cheese. Bake it for a further 3-5 minutes, just until the cheese has melted and barely begun to brown.