A VERITABLE PIZZA DE RÉSISTANCE
STEFANO Manfredi is an Italian living in Australia, owner of several restaurants, the most recent is the Pizzaperta Manfredi in Sydney.
As long as he has been in Australia, his Italian roots have never been covered. Pizza de luxe is as Italian as if it had been written in Italy. It is an impressive book, illustrated so well that you are tempted to take the pictures in your hand to eat. Photographs of Italians farming or fishing complete the authentic heritage of Manfredi’s food.
“I need to know the history of a food. I need to know where it comes from. I have to imagine the hands that have grown, worked and cooked what I eat.” (Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement.) True to the spirit of Petrini, Manfredi explains in careful detail and photographs how to mix the pizza doughs and how to shape them.
Central to the perfect pizza is the knowledge of flours, which are high in gluten, which gives the dough its elasticity, yeast and chlorine-free water. Technical aspects such as salt slowing and inhibiting the work of the yeast need to be kept in mind as you create the doughs.
Manfredi gives much technical data about temperatures of flours, waters, doughs and room temperatures that are suitable for the commercial pizza maker. For the home baker, one can use these as a guideline without getting too technical.
To simplify cooking pizzas in a home oven, Manfredi prefers one without a fan, and suggests the use of a terracotta tile. The oven must be heated thoroughly before baking to give results similar to using a wood-burning pizza oven.
He presents two main kinds of pizza dough: basic pizza dough, which gives you the traditional round shape and the Roman pizza, which can be precooked, stored and has a squarer look.
Once you have mastered the doughs and the shaping, the best part follows, the toppings for the pizzas. Manfredi explores traditional pizzas like the classic margherita of Naples. The topping is tomato, mozzarella, olive oil and basil leaves.
There are interesting combinations, such as wilted rocket with pancetta and the strongly flavoured taleggio (cheese from the Lombardy region); smoked leg ham, mushroom and sage, and the vegetarian chickpeas and eggplant with ricotta.
For the sweet tooth, the book ends with Struffoli, deep-fried pizza dough strips drizzled with honey, lemon and orange zest, sugar confetti and candied orange peel. The pillow of dreams is a sweet pizza made with Nutella, flaked almonds, strawberries, icing sugar, mint leaves and vanilla gelato. The result looks utterly mouth-watering.