How to make Vanto’s famous Neaplotian Pizza at Home

If you have had it at the restaurant, you know the deal. Its got wow and pow factor. We pestered the team to bring their recipe to you:

Pizza dough ingredients (makes 6) –

1kg flour (00 260 W) – Luigi recommends Caputo blue flour but any good quality 00 flour works. 00 is ideal for pizza dough for two reasons: one, its finely ground, and two, it has a lower gluten content than most flours.
700ml water – try to make sure the water temp is cool, around 18-20 degrees works best.
25g salt
4g of fresh yeast

Method (start 24-hours ahead) –

Making dough by machine / dough mixer –

Place flour in the mixer and crumble the yeast on top. Mix for 2 mins at speed setting 1 – this allows the flour to oxygenate.
Slowly add the water to the mix and place on a higher speed setting (3 or 4).
When the water is absorbed, add the salt, and continue to mix the dough until smooth – be careful to not make the dough hot. This whole process in a dough mixer should take roughly 20 mins.

Making dough by hand –

Place water in a big mixing bowl and crumble/melt in the yeast using your fingertips to warm as you go.
Add roughly half of the flour into the water and yeast mixture, folding it in with a wooden spoon. Once dough is solid enough, use your hands to continue mixing.
Continue to add the remaining flour, mixing it in by picking the dough up from the corners and placing the flour into the middle of the dough, folding it like a napkin until smooth. This process by hand will take longer (than by machine) for the dough to become smooth.

Dough maturing process –

Once the flour has been folded either by hand or machine and dough is smooth, place the dough in a plastic container (medium size) for two hours sealed with lid.
After 2 hours, put the container with the dough in the fridge for maturation for a further 14-16 hours (or overnight). This process is ESPECIALLY important for the digestibility of the pizza (following the right processes for dough maturation makes the pizza lighter and easy to digest!).
After allotted time has passed, remove the dough from the fridge and allow to sit at room temperature for 1-hour.
After dough has had time to settle, with the help of a kitchen scale split the dough into 260g sized balls (fold the dough from the corner to the middle until a ball shape is made). You should be able to get roughly 6 balls out of dough mixture.
Place dough balls onto a tray and cover well to let the dough grow / double in size – this should roughly take 6-7 hours depending on temp. of the room.

Margarita pizza topping ingredients (for 6) –

800g of Tomato Pelati (peeled whole tomatoes)
10-12 grams of salt
Fresh basil
Grated parmesan
Fresh Fior di latte or mozzarella
Extra virgin olive oil

Method for sauce and cooking pizza (at home) –

Place whole peeled tomatoes in a bowl and break apart with your hands. Season with salt and 1 basil leaf, mix will with a spoon and put aside.
Cut the Fior di latte or mozzarella into small cubes and put aside.

Turn the grill oven to max. temperature, you will a non-stick crepe pan 28cm (with a metal handle) and a transparent lid (bell shape) that fits the pan for next steps.

Place the pan on a stove at moderate heat, keeping the grill oven at max. temperature. Take 1 ball of pizza dough and with a spatula and the help of a bit of extra flour, make a round disk pushing down with your finger tips from the centre of the ball to the corner (but without touching the corner), turn it a bit around and repeat a few times until the disk is big enough to fit in the pan – make sure to leave space around the edges for a crust.
Put your base in the pan and with a spoon add the tomato sauce (leave the edges untouched). Top with the For di latte or mozzarella, parmesan and extra virgin olive oil
Cover pan with the lid and let it cook for roughly 2 mins (until the bottom of the base is nice and cooked) – check the base as this can quickly burn if the stove is too high!
Place the whole pan inside the oven, keeping it very close to the grill and will cook it for a further 1 ½ mins.
Top with extra basil.

Just get a chair, a glass of pinot grigio or an Italian Beer and Salute!