Nduja Pizza

This recipe will make three 11-inch pizzas

Nduja is a spicy, spreadable salami from southern Italy made with a mix of pork, herbs and spices including a generous hit of Calabrian chilli peppers. Although very spicy on its own, when added to a pizza the flavour mellows slightly and infuses beautifully with the melted cheese and tomato base. For an added flavour element, you can add a drizzle of honey as soon as the pizza comes out of the oven.

Ingredients

  • Dough (63% Hydration)
  • 434g Matthews Italian Tipo
  • “00” Flour
  • 273g Water
  • 13g Salt
  • 0.17g Instant Dried Yeast

Sauce

  • 1 x 400g Tin of San
  • Marzano Tomatoes
  • 1 x teaspoon of Salt

Toppings

  • Nduja
  • Buffalo Mozzarella or Fior Di Latte
  • Grated Grana Padano
  • Drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Fresh Basil soaked in salt water (this helps prevents the basil from burning)

Method

  • Weigh out the flour, water, salt and yeast. If you haven’t got scales to weigh the yeast to this accuracy use the photo below to give you a guide of how much this is in comparison to a teaspoon.
  • In a large bowl add the flour and yeast and mix together. Gradually add 95% of the water and mix with your hand until it has all come together and formed a rough looking ball.​
  • Cover with a tea towel and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. This will allow the flour to absorb the water.
  • After 20 minutes, dissolve the salt in the remaining 5% of water and add to the bowl. Briefly mix the salt water into the dough with your hand before turning out onto a worktop. Make sure you get as much of the residual liquid out of the bowl (a plastic dough scraper is ideal for this). This ensures the hydration level of the dough isn’t affected.
  • Knead the dough with your hands for 10-12 minutes. The dough will initially be very wet and will stick to your hands and worktop but if you continue kneading, the flour will gradually absorb the liquid making it much easier to handle. During this stage you can use your plastic dough scraper to scrape the dough off your hands and worktop if you need to.
  • After 10-12 minutes let the dough rest for a further 10 minutes.
  • Shape the dough into a ball and pull the dough towards you using both hands (or a dough scraper). This will increase the tension in the dough helping the fermentation process. When the ball is formed, transfer to an airtight container and let the dough ferment at room temperature for 20 hours.
  • After 20 hours the dough should have risen considerably. Remove from the container and divide into three equal sized portions.
  • Using your hands, form the dough portions into tight balls. If you find the dough to be a bit sticky rub a little bit of olive oil into your hands.
  • Transfer the dough balls into lightly oiled individual containers for three to four hours at room temperature. Adding the oil will help when you come to remove the dough balls from the containers.
  • Meanwhile, in a bowl empty one 400g tin of San Marzano tomatoes and add a teaspoon of salt. Using an immersion blender, blend the tomatoes using very short pulses. You will only need 4 or 5 pulses depending on the texture you prefer. Avoid blending too much as this will disturb the seeds giving a very bitter taste to the sauce. If you haven’t got a blender you can use your hands for this step.
  • After three to four hours, fire up your pizza oven aiming for a stone temperature of 450 degrees C.
  • Tip out a dough ball onto a floured worktop and from the centre, carefully push out to form a one-inch crust. From this point try not to touch this crust as it will affect the rise you get when cooking. Stretch the dough by carefully pulling with one hand and holding the dough down with the other. Keep turning the dough 90 degrees repeating this stretch technique until you reach the 11-inch diameter.
  • Transfer the stretched dough onto a floured pizza peel before adding the tomato sauce, grated grana padano, mozzarella, nduja, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and the fresh basil leaves.
  • Launch the prepared pizza into your pizza oven and cook for 60-90 seconds turning regularly to achieve a nice even bake.
  • Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a serving board.
Credit: Thank you to Scott Deley @scottspizzaproject for submitting this recipe.

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