When in Naples there was poverty and not even a daisy pizza could be allowed, the people immediately found a solution. Famous for his imagination and the ingenuity he always finds a way of expressing himself, the Neapolitans invented the famous pizza fritta at the time. Those who know the city and its culinary history know well that this delicious dish is associated with the expression "agge e otto", that is to say, I eat it today and pay it in eight days' time. In fact, the Neapolitan people, poor and full of debts that lived in the alleyways, temporarily solved the problem of lunch by moving the payment to the following week. This pizza was sold in the basses, very humble studios that looked directly onto the street, and distributed by the pizza maker's wife who, before going to work, prepared the dough to leave at home. The cooking method of this dish, fried pizza, was much cheaper than wood cooking. So solved the problem of lunch, the Neapolitan people had what to eat!
Another explanation that is associated with this term is the fact that these improvised pizzerias remained open only once a week, because they were managed directly by the pizza maker who, on the free day, rounded up preparing fried pizzas in the lower Neapolitan basses. Whatever the explanation, imagination and necessity have led the Neapolitans to create this unique recipe that is almost impossible to reproduce in the home, with at least the same flavours that only some places can give. Despite the difficulties, we prepare fork and knife to cook a very good pizza fried, as a real Neapolitan would do!
The true recipe for fried pizza
Mixing ingredients:
800 grams of medium strength flour (180 to 260 W);
500 ml of water;
30 g of fine salt;
5 g of fresh brewer's yeast.
Ingredients for the filling:
dried ricotta cheese;
alleyways;
tomato San Marzano;
pepper;
provoke it or milk blossoms (avoid buffalo mozzarella because milk may splash in boiling oil);
basil.
How to prepare the dough for fried pizza:
Take a bowl and fill it with previously heated water (not boiling water, as long as it is warm);
Add the salt that you will have to dissolve slowly and patiently, while at the same time adding the yeast thinned by hand;
Slowly let the sieved flour rain down on the bowl and start to caress the dough when it becomes consistent to obtain a soft and soft panetto;
Continue to work the dough by hand until it is completely naturally detached from the edges of the bowl and completely smooth. This operation takes a lot of time, because the leavening depends very much on the technique by which the dough is processed.
At this point, place it in a transparent bowl lightly greased with oil and cover it with transparent film. You just have to wait, your dough must rise for about 10 hours. You could do this at night before going to sleep to make sure the process is completed successfully. The dough should increase by a lot, then at the end of 10 hours, take it to work it a little more and to form round loaves of about 150 grams each. But that's not all! Take the balls obtained and put them in a row on a cloth, close enough, to let them rest again for 3 hours.
After the other 3 hours, prepare a worktop (possibly a wooden table covered in flour) and dirty your hands with peanut oil. Take them one at a time, spread them with your fingertips, thinning the edges as best you can to prevent them from becoming too high during cooking. In this phase avoid adding more flour because it could stick to the oil leaving a bad taste in the mouth. Now it's time to give vent to your creativity: take the ingredients you've chosen and fill them. Ricotta cheese, tomato, tarts, crows, provola and pepper: these are the ingredients found inside the real Neapolitan pizza!
Remember to place the ingredients in the middle so that you can close the pizza half moon. Pick on the edges to close at best and make sure nothing comes out during frying. You must literally punch the edges. At this point, grasp it by the two edges and lay it in warm oil until it becomes golden on the side to help you turn it over the other with a clamp so that it is perfectly cooked. With this preparation you will also have the opportunity to prepare an exquisite pizzetta. To do this, you just need to create smaller floppy disks, store the filling you prefer in the centre and at the end fry exactly as you did for the half-moon fried pizza.