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No. 41ItalianPizza

Pizza Capricciosa

This has become my new number 1 pizza, overtaking the margarita.

John Drummond

A Capricciosa pizza with a leopard-spotted rim, tomato and melted mozzarella, folds of cooked ham, browned mushrooms, seared artichoke wedges and black olives, sprinkled with oregano
Prep30min
Cook7min
All up37min
Serves4
LevelMedium

Mise en place

What you need

Tick each one off as it goes in.

Makes 4 serves

This has become my new number 1 pizza, overtaking the margarita — and I don’t really like artichokes.

Capricciosa was born in Rome in 1937 at a restaurant called La Capricciosa, and the name means “capricious”, for its playful mix: tomato, mozzarella, cooked ham, mushrooms, olives and artichoke hearts. Some Romans add anchovies. It’s Italian, not a pizza-shop “everything” pizza, and the artichoke is not optional.

The trap is water. Mushrooms, artichokes from a jar and wet mozzarella will turn the middle to soup in seven minutes. So the mushrooms go on already cooked and browned, the artichokes are dried and seared until their edges colour — which is what makes them taste of artichoke instead of the jar — and the mozzarella is drained. Same dough and the same raw sauce as all the others.

This one was written up from my own pizza method and put through a three-way blind review (Claude, Grok and Codex) before it went up. The toppings method hasn’t been cooked in this exact form yet.

The method

Ten moves.

  1. Oven, Hot

    Get the oven as hot as it will go, and get it there early — an hour before you want to eat, with the steel or the stone already in it. If you’re lighting the fire instead, you want the floor around 400°C.

  2. Mozzarella, Drained

    Tear the fior di latte and leave it on a rack in the fridge for a few hours. Blot it before it goes on. Wet mozzarella is how you ruin this pizza.

  3. Mushrooms, Cook

    A hot dry pan, mushrooms in, until their water has gone and the edges brown. A splash of oil, a pinch of salt and the crushed garlic for 30 seconds. Cool them.

  4. Artichokes, Sear

    Pat the artichoke hearts very dry and cut them into wedges. Sear the cut faces in a very hot dry pan, 60–90 seconds a side, until the edges brown. Cool.

  5. Sauce, Raw

    Crush the San Marzanos by hand, salt them, a dash of pepper, and the garlic only if you want it. Do not cook this sauce.

  6. Base, Stretch

    Knuckles, not a rolling pin. Work from the middle out and leave the outer two centimetres alone.

  7. Oil, First

    Olive oil on the bare base before the sauce goes anywhere near it. It seals the dough so the middle stays crisp.

  8. Build

    Sauce thin, spiralled out and stopped short of the rim. Half the ham torn over the sauce, then the mozzarella, then the rest of the ham, the mushrooms, the artichoke and the olives. Bare patches, not a blanket.

  9. Bake

    Six to eight minutes at full noise in a domestic oven, ninety seconds in a fire. Leopard spots on the rim, the cheese just melted, the ham warmed — not curled.

  10. Finish

    A pinch of oregano and a thread of good oil. Anchovies on now, if you’re going the Roman way.

Keep wandering

From the same volume.

No. 42Pizza MargheritaItalian · 25 minNo. 43Pizza NapoliItalian · 25 minNo. 44Pecorino, Pear & Prosciutto di ParmaItalian · 25 minNo. 45Pizza PuglieseItalian · 25 min

Pizza Capricciosaserves 4 · 37 min