Pizza Margherita is the most common pizza in Italy. It took its name from Queen Margherita. In the summer of 1889 King Umberto I and the Queen Margherita went, as always, to spend 3 months in their summer residence at Royal Palace of Capodimonte in Naples. While there they heard about this dish called pizza and they asked to try it. The most famous “pizzaiolo” of Naples was called at the Court to prepare it for the sovrans. He created a new pizza especially for them with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in honor of the Italian flag. It was a great success. The next day he named this pizza Margherita.

The success of this simple pizza is one of the most difficult to reach because of its few ingredients they have to be carefully chosen. When I was living in Italy it was easier to find good quality ingredients, here in the States is a little bit more of a challange but not impossible.

Ingredients

basic pizza dough recipe

for the topping:
16 oz. whole cow milk fresh mozzarella (fior di latte) thinly sliced or 2 cups shredded American mozzarella
2 teaspoons dry oregano (optional but indispensable for me)
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes without the juice, blended or about 1 cup tomato sauce (passata)
1 tsp. salt
parchment paper to cover the baking sheets

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425°.
2. Cover the baking sheet with parchment paper so you won’t need to grease it.  I use a rectangular baking sheet, but if you want to use a round pan the equivalent should be about a 14″ pizza pan.
3. Take half of the dough and and place it on a lightly floured surface. Stretch it gently as much as you can and then place it on the baking sheet continue stretching it or use your fingers to spread it on the rest of the baking sheet.
4. Spread the tomato sauce over the pizza crust and sprinkle it with the oregano and drizzle it with olive oil.
5. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the bottom start to get golden and harder. Add the mozzarella and cook it for other 5-10 minutes, the exact cooking time depends on the oven.