Pizza Napoli
Cheese and anchovies, capers, oregano. Salt on salt on salt — and it works.
Start cookingIn JD’s words
Anchovies frighten people who have only had the ones on a bad takeaway pizza. Buy decent ones, use eight to ten small fillets, and they do not shout — they just make everything else taste more of itself.
Rinse the capers. They come packed in enough salt to season a soup, and between them and the anchovies you will otherwise end up with something nobody can finish.
Black olives would work here. I have not tried it yet.
The method
Cook it unhurried.
- 01
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 stone or the steel already in it. Domestic ovens lie about being ready. If you are lighting the fire instead, you want the floor around 400°C and a flame licking the dome. This is the whole recipe, really: everything else is assembly.
- 02
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. It gets all the cooking it needs on the base, and a sauce that has been simmered first goes sweet and dull by the time it comes out.
- 03
Base, Stretch
Knuckles, not a rolling pin. A rolling pin drives the air out of the rim and you will never get it back. Work from the middle out, leave the outer two centimetres alone, and let gravity do the last of it — pick it up and let the weight of the dough pull it round. If it fights you, it is not rested. Walk away for ten minutes rather than force it.
- 04
Oil, First
Olive oil on the bare base before the sauce goes anywhere near it. It seals the dough so the sauce cannot soak in and make the middle sodden, and it is the difference between a crisp base and a wet one. Good Italian oil — you will taste it.
- 05
Mozzarella
Buffalo mozzarella if you have it, a good shredded one if you do not — this is not the pizza to be precious on, because the anchovies are going to dominate regardless. Drain it either way.
- 06
Anchovies, Arranged
Eight to ten small fillets, laid out so every slice gets one. Arranged, not scattered — a slice with two is too salty and a slice with none is a Margherita, and both of those are your fault, not the anchovy's.
- 07
Capers, Rinsed
Rinse the capers under cold water and pat them dry, then two tablespoons across the top. Skip the rinsing and the whole thing is inedible — this is the step that makes or breaks it.
- 08
Oregano, Salt, Heat
Dried oregano, a pinch of salt flakes, and chilli flakes if you want them. Dried oregano, not fresh — this is one of the few places where the dried herb is the right answer.
- 09
Bake
Six to eight minutes at full heat until the rim is blistered and the anchovies have melted back into the cheese. Finish with oil.
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