For this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Katerina from Daily Unadventures in Cooking, I made a simple Pizza Margherita.

It’s fast and easy to make because sliced fresh tomatoes are used in place of sauce. Of course I used tomatoes and basil from my garden.

Pizza Margherita
makes 2 pizze

Pizza Margherita and my new Pizza wheel. ;-)

400 g pizza dough
2 big ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, thinly sliced (as thin as you can get them)
1 fresh mozzarella cheese (buffalo milk, if possible), thinly sliced
4 tb Provolone, freshly grated
fresh basil leaves
extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Prepare pizza dough. Divide the dough into two balls and let rise as instructed.

Roll or stretch the dough out using either a rolling pin on a lightly floured work surface or by rotating the pizza while it's draped over your fist. Make sure the border of the dough is a little high than the center. Make indentations all over the pizza with your fingertips and grease the top, including the borders, with olive oil.

Evenly distribute the tomatoes over the 2 pizze, leaving a border all around. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake 10 minutes, take out from the oven and place the Provolone and Mozzarella on top of the tomato slices. Drizzle olive oil evenly over the entire pizze.

Bake for 5 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. Tear the fresh basil onto the pizze and serve immediately.

Basil doesn't like heat, it oxidizes and turns brown. So just add it before serving.

In 1889 King Umberto I and the Queen Margherita went, as usual, for the summer period to their residence in Capodimonte. The sovereigns heard about a dish called pizza, so they asked to try it. The most famous pizzaiolo of Naples, Don Raffaele, was called to prepare it for them. He prepared two traditional ones and a third one created especially for them in their honour. On this third pizza he put tomatoes, mozzarella and basil reproducing the colours of the Italian flag. Queen Margherita especially liked this pizza and Don Raffaele launched it the next day in his pizzeria. The new pizza was then called, “Margherita.”

weekend herb blogging

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