The classic margarita pizza recipe, the nuances and secrets of cooking. Margherita Pizza Step by Step Recipe

Classic Pizza Margherita is the basis of almost every Italian pizza we have ever eaten. The history of Margherita pizza is quite interesting, it got its name in honor of the lover of delicious pizza - the wife of the Italian king Umberto I, whose name was Margherita of Savoy. Now Italian pizza Margherita is cooked at every step, in every corner of the world, and the composition of fast pizza is reduced to a minimum: yeast dough, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. By the way, this vegetarian pizza is very nutritious, and its calorie content is quite high, so it can serve as a great breakfast or lunch. And now I will immerse you in the wonderful world of pizza and tell you how to make Margherita pizza. So pizza is the recipe.

Ingredients

• - for pizza - 0.5 mass prepared according to the recipe below
• - for pizza - 7-8 tbsp (link to the recipe is also below)
• - 1 bunch
• - Mozzarella - 200 gr
• - 2 tbsp

Cooking method

Cooking pizza Margherita, the recipe of which I will describe below, will not take much time. It is very easy to prepare at home. Many people once wondered how to make Margarita pizza or where to find a pizza recipe that is suitable for cooking at home. Of course, pizza delivery in the modern world works around the clock and ordering Margherita pizza is not a big deal, but homemade pizza still turns out to be much tastier than in many chain pizzerias, if you follow all the subtleties of cooking. Therefore, today we are preparing pizza Margherita.

First of all, you should prepare a delicious dough. The classic Margherita is a yeast pizza and has a very thin crust. You can prepare yeast dough for pizza by. This is a great easy Margherita Pizza Dough recipe that I learned from Jamie Oliver. While the delicious dough is rising, quickly prepare the Tomato Margherita Pizza Sauce.
When the thin dough reaches the desired state and size, turn on the oven at full power (usually 250 degrees) so that it has time to heat up. Pizza in the oven will turn out delicious if the baking sheet is also very hot. While the heating process is in progress, roll out the quick pizza dough into a thin round cake with a thickness of about 0.5 cm or less if possible. Be sure to dust your work surface and rolling pin with flour beforehand to prevent the dough from sticking.
We take the baking sheet out of the oven, sprinkle it with flour and carefully shift the cake from the yeast dough directly onto it. The main thing is that the circle immediately lays down well, because due to the high temperature, the dough will quickly begin to bake and it will be difficult to level it. Lubricate the circle of dough generously with tomato sauce for Margherita pizza. Leaving a small edging unaffected (no need to wrap it).
Lay the pieces of mozzarella cheese broken by hand on the surface of the sauce. The pizza cheese that is used in almost all recipes is mozzarella. You can use another, cheaper cheese, but the taste will also be very different.
Arrange the basil leaves on top of the tomato sauce.
We put the baking sheet in the oven and cook the Margherita pizza for about 5 minutes until the dough is toasted. I can’t name the exact cooking time, because the ovens are very different from each other, so in one it can be ready in 3 minutes, and in the other in 10. We monitor the condition of the pizza and take it out at the right time. Since my Margherita pizza recipe is with a photo, I think you can track the desired state clearly and without problems.
We take out the finished Margherita pizza from the oven, pour olive oil over it and serve it to the table. Or we fill it with pizza toppings, which I will talk about very soon.
By the way, if you grate mozzarella cheese, then homemade pizza will look like in the photo below.

Classic Pizza Margherita. Short recipe

1. Cooking yeast dough for pizza.
2. Cooking tomato sauce for pizza.
3. We turn on the oven at a maximum power of 250 degrees. Let it heat up along with the pan.
4. We roll out a round cake 0.5 cm thick from the dough, sprinkling flour on the work surface and rolling pin.
5. We take out the heated baking sheet and carefully shift the circle of pizza dough onto a baking sheet sprinkled with flour.
6. Lubricate the pizza dough with tomato sauce.
7. Put the pieces of mozzarella cheese broken by hand on top.
8. Lay out the basil leaves.
9. Place the pizza pan in the oven and bake until the dough is lightly browned, about 5 minutes.
10. We take out the finished delicious Margherita pizza from the oven, pour olive oil over it and eat it immediately.

Now you know how to cook Italian Margherita pizza, the composition of which you know for sure, because when ordering pizza at home, you don’t know what to expect: a cold dish, tasteless cheese or 2.5 hours of downtime. Using Margarita as a base, you can cook, and. Enjoy your food!

Refined, tasty, fragrant and simple Italian pizza Margherita is one of the most popular dishes in many countries. It must be on the menu of every pizzeria, but you can make a dish at home. Margarita is created not only according to the classic recipe, there are different cooking options.

How to make pizza margherita

Margherita pizza is the basis of the various types of this nutritious and appetizing dish. But this does not mean at all that it cannot be complete in terms of taste and aesthetic qualities. The minimum number of products and a little free time make it possible to create a simple but incredibly tasty pizza at home. As a rule, margaritas are cooked in a wood-fired oven, but an oven preheated to a temperature of 250-280 ° C (along with a baking sheet or baking dish) can be an alternative.

Pizza margherita composition

What does a standard dish consist of? The composition of Margherita pizza in a classic Italian version includes Mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and fresh basil. Another mandatory ingredient is a thin, elastic dough, the thickness of which should be no more than 4 millimeters. It will take some time to learn how to cook such a base, so for the homemade version of Margarita, yeast dough of different thicknesses is used. The filling includes mozzarella in balls, sold in brine, but other types of cheeses are also suitable for pizza.

Margherita pizza dough

The basis of Margarita is a yeast cake. It should stretch and roll well. The result is a tender, airy dish with a juicy filling. You can knead the dough for pizza manually, using a mixer or a bread machine (“Dough”, “Pizza Dough” programs). The flatbread for making Italian muffins is strong, but at the same time soft and thin. If a piece of finished pizza folds in half without problems and does not break, then the dough is done correctly.

Margherita Pizza Sauce

An obligatory and integral component of the classic recipe is sauce. It is recommended not to use tomato paste, ketchup or store-bought tomato sauce. Margarita pizza sauce is better to cook with your own hands, exclusively from fresh tomatoes, onions, olive oil, garlic and fragrant herbs. If it is not possible to adhere to such rules, then the use of the finished product is allowed.

Margarita pizza recipe at home

At home, a dish from Italy is made not only according to the classical method, the Margherita pizza recipe is supplemented with various ingredients. Below are popular and delicious homemade baking options. Try fragrant pastries in Italian, on thin or regular dough, without yeast, on pita bread. Margarita can be cooked in the oven or in a pan.

Classic margarita pizza recipe

• Cooking time: 2 hours 30 minutes.
• Number of servings: 8 persons.
• Calorie content: 210 kcal per 100 g.
• Purpose: lunch, dinner.
• Cuisine: Italian.
• Difficulty: medium.

The classic pizza Margherita is a favorite dish in many families, adults and children adore it. Preparing this type of baking is simple, the main thing is to follow the step-by-step instructions. The filling for pizza is considered dietary, but the dish as a whole has an average calorie content. Margaritas are made first, and then the filling is prepared.

Ingredients:

For test:

• wheat flour - 220 grams;
• dry yeast - 1 teaspoon;
• warm boiled water - 160 ml;
• sugar and salt - ½ tbsp. l.;
• olive oil - 1 tbsp. l. (and a little for lubrication).

For filling:

• tomato sauce - 100 g;
• fresh tomatoes - 3 pcs.;
• olive oil - 1 tbsp. l.;
• Mozzarella cheese - 250 g;
• ground dried garlic - 5 g;
• fresh basil - 1 bunch;
• ground pepper.

Cooking method:

1. In a deep bowl, combine water with yeast. Stir, leave for five minutes.
2. We introduce the sifted flour, add butter, granulated sugar, salt.
3. Knead the dough by hand or with a mixer.
4. We roll the soft, elastic mass into a ball, put it in a container, greased with oil. Turn the ball over several times so that it is covered with fat on all sides.
5. Wrap the dough with cling film, leave for an hour in a warm place.
6. When it increases in size, knead it with your hands and roll it into a ball again.
7. We leave the mass, covered with a film, for another 15 minutes.
8. We lay out a sheet of parchment on the table, grease it with olive oil, sprinkle with a little flour.
9. We heat the oven to 220-250 degrees along with the baking sheet.
10. We spread the dough on baking paper, roll it out to a thin state.
11. Cut out a circle from the layer using a plate. We make several holes in it with a fork, leave to rest for 10-15 minutes.
12. Then carefully take the base by the edges, transfer to a baking sheet.
13. Combine garlic and oil in a deep bowl. Lubricate the dough with the resulting mixture.
14. Distribute the sauce on top, and put the Mozzarella sliced ​​\u200b\u200bin circles on it.
15. Next, lay out thin mugs of tomatoes on the pizza. We pepper the filling a little.
16. Bake for 15 minutes until the base is golden brown.
17. Sprinkle the finished pizza with basil and serve.

Margarita pizza recipe in the oven

• Cooking time: 50 minutes.
• Calorie content: 192 kcal per 100 g.
• Purpose: dinner.
• Cuisine: Italian, European.
• Difficulty: medium.

The next option on how to cook a hearty, mouth-watering dinner is the Margherita pizza recipe in the oven. This way of creating pastries is different from the classics, but it allows you to get an equally tasty result. The recipe uses two types of cheese, fresh tomatoes, ready-made tomato paste and mayonnaise (preferably homemade). You can decorate the dish not only with basil, fresh herbs (parsley, onion feathers) are perfect.

Ingredients:

• flour - 300 g;
• egg - 1 pc.;
• kefir - 400 ml;
• olive oil - 20 g;
• fresh tomatoes - 3 pcs.;
• onion - 1 head;
• Mozzarella - 70 g;
• hard cheese - 100 g;
• mayonnaise, tomato paste - 25 g each;
• soda - 0.5 tsp;
• dried basil - 2 tsp;
• parsley, green onion feathers.

Cooking method:

1. Rinse the onion, peel, cut into rings.
2. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, free from the skin, chop into thin slices.
3. Grind hard cheese on a grater, and cut Mozzarella into slices.
4. Pour kefir into a deep bowl, pour soda into it and leave the ingredients until the surface of the mixture begins to bubble.
5. Add oil, egg, mix everything.
6. Gradually add flour. Knead the dough, similar in consistency to thick sour cream.
7. To get the sauce, combine mayonnaise, basil and tomato paste. Add a couple of tablespoons of water.
8. Preheat the oven to 200-220 degrees.
9. The baking sheet is covered with baking paper, the mass for the base is laid out in the center.
10. Spread the dough on the parchment in the form of a circle, grease evenly with the sauce.
11. Top with onion rings, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, parsley sprigs and onion feathers.
12. Hide the dish under a layer of grated cheese.
13. Pizza Margherita is baked for 20 minutes.

Pizza margherita on a thin crust

• Cooking time: 2 hours.
• Number of servings: 4-5 persons.
• Calorie content: 161 kcal per 100 g.
• Purpose: lunch, dinner.
• Cuisine: European, Italian.
• Difficulty: medium.

Another way to prepare a nutritious dinner for the whole family or a treat for guests is the Margherita pizza recipe on a thin crust. If everything is done according to step-by-step instructions, you will get a delicious dish. No one can resist a tender cake with crispy sides and a spicy tomato filling. Aromas from home baking immediately catch up with the appetite.

Ingredients:

For test:

• flour - 200 g;
• fresh yeast - 10 g;
• olive oil - 1 tbsp. l.;
• water - 150 ml;
• salt - ½ tsp;
• sugar - 1 teaspoon.

For sauce:

• tomatoes in their own juice - 250 g;
• garlic - 1 clove;
• salt - a pinch;
• basil, marjoram, oregano - 0.5 tsp each.

For filling:

• Mozzarella cheese - 200 g;
• tomato - 2 pieces.

Cooking method:

1. First, the base for the pizza is made. Yeast and sugar dissolve in water.
2. Flour combines with salt, oil and liquid ingredients mixed earlier.
3. An elastic, soft dough starts. It is rolled into a ball, slightly oiled, covered with cling film and left for 40 minutes.
4. Next, prepare the sauce. Tomatoes are boiled over medium heat until thickened, spices, salt, chopped garlic are added to them.
5. Tomatoes for the filling are chopped into rings.
6. The dough is well rolled out, smeared with ready-cooled sauce.
7. Pieces of cheese are laid out on top of the base (separated by hand), tomatoes and cheese again.
8. Pizza Margherita is baked for 10 minutes at 230 degrees.
9. The finished dish is sprinkled with oil, decorated with basil.

Pizza Margherita - Recipe Without Yeast

• Cooking time: 30 minutes.
• Servings: 3-4 persons.
• Calorie content: 220 kcal per 100 g.
• Purpose: dinner.
• Cuisine: European.
• Difficulty: easy.

Do you want to serve a hearty and aromatic dish for dinner? For this, the step-by-step recipe is ideal - Margherita pizza without yeast. It involves the use of ready-made store-bought dough, but baking from this will not lose its taste. Herb olive oil, tomato sauce and Italian pickled cheese are also useful. Pizza Margherita without yeast is quick to prepare. It should be served hot.

Ingredients:

• thin yeast-free dough - 1 pack;
• Mozzarella cheese in brine - 150 g;
• tomato sauce - 60 g;
• olive oil - 1 tbsp. spoon;
• fresh basil - a small bunch.

Cooking method:

1. Roll out the finished dough well, put on a baking sheet.
2. Lay tomatoes boiled in their own juice on top, spread over the entire surface of the base.
3. Next, lay out the cheese, divided into large parts.
4. Drizzle oil on top of margarita.
5. Bake for 15 minutes at 250°C.
6. Garnish with basil sprigs.

Pizza margherita on lavash

• Cooking time: 35 minutes.
• Servings: 4 persons.
• Calorie content: 200 kcal per 100 g.
• Purpose: dinner.
• Cuisine: European.
• Difficulty: easy.

Pizza Margherita on pita bread recipe with photo is an original, simple and surprisingly tasty dish. Its main advantage is that it is cooked right in the pan. A minimum of free time and an unusual dinner is ready. Even a culinary amateur can make such a pizza, the recipe is very easy. A simple recipe includes lavash (Armenian or Georgian), fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.

Ingredients:

• pita bread - 2 pcs.;
• butter - 20 g;
• ham - 150 g;
• tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
• cheese - 250 g;
• dried basil;
• salt.

Cooking method:

1. Unroll pita bread, brush with soft butter.
2. Grind the cheese on a grater, sprinkle half of the baking on it (not reaching the edge).
3. Lay the sliced ​​ham on top.
4. Chop the tomatoes into rings, spread over 1/3 of the ham. Salt a little, sprinkle with basil.
5. Roll the pita roll. With the second, do identical manipulations.
6. Fry the pizza rolls on each side until golden brown.

How to make Margherita pizza - cooking secrets

Cooking Margarita pizza has several rules. If you stick to them, then a homemade dish will turn out no worse than Italian pastries. Here are the secrets of its creation:

1. It is recommended to use home-made dough, not store-bought. Knead it is softer than, for example, bread. It should be elastic, roll well and stretch. We suggest considering more than one.
2. To get a pizza that is as similar as possible to the original from Italy, you need to roll out the base thinner, otherwise you will get a regular cheese and tomato pie.
3. If there is no opportunity or time to make the dough at home, then you can purchase a ready-made yeast base. It is available in any major store.
4. Tomato sauce is also worth making at home, and not buying ready-made. So, the dish will be much tastier. Some housewives replace it with ketchup or ready-made tomato paste with spices.
5. To prepare a real Margarita, only Mozzarella is used. It is rubbed, cut with a knife or simply torn by hand. This does not affect the taste.
6. Before preparing the famous Italian dish, it is recommended to preheat the oven along with the baking dish. Pizza will bake faster and get a delicious crust.

Check out other recipes.

Video: how to cook margarita pizza at home

- traditional italian pizza, perhaps the most popular in the world, even the menu of any pizzeria, as a rule, begins with it. The composition of this pizza is unusually simple, its main ingredients are mozzarella cheese, ripe tomatoes and fresh basil leaves, which give it a unique taste and aroma.

According to legend, the pizza owes its name to Margherita of Savoy, the wife of the Italian king Umberto I, who fell in love with this pizza very much.

For the preparation of the classic, most delicious pizza Margherita you need very few ingredients, but they must be exactly those that are listed. Those. Of course, you can replace mozzarella with another cheese, but then you will not be able to pizza margherita but just some pizza. Therefore, strictly follow the recipe and, I hope, pizza margherita won't disappoint you.

Ingredients

• Pizza dough 270 - 300 g
• tomato sauce 100 - 130 g
• Mozzarella cheese for pizza 150 - 180 g
• tomatoes 1 PC.
• green basil 8-10 leaves
• olive oil

Tomato sauce. I cook it according to this recipe:. If you don't have fresh or canned tomatoes, or are too lazy to cook, you can use tomato paste (salt it, add spices) or even ketchup, but I still prefer tomato sauce. If you use tomato paste or ketchup, they are more concentrated, so reduce their amount, 2-3 tablespoons will be enough for you.

Mozzarella cheese we need it for pizza. This is not the mozzarella that is sold in the form of white balls in bags in brine, we need mozzarella that looks like regular cheese. Pizza mozzarella is a hard type of mozzarella cheese used for hot dishes.

Cooking

We prepare the ingredients. Wash and dry the tomatoes and basil. If you were too lazy to read a lot of words at the beginning, I repeat, pizza dough here:, sauce here:.

Pizza dough roll out with a thickness of 2-3 mm, with a diameter of 32-35 cm. I usually roll out on parchment sprinkled with flour, and bake pizza on it, so the cake does not deform when transferred to a baking sheet. In order to get beautiful sides on pizza, we bend the edges 2-3 cm inward and close them well so that they do not come off during baking. We put tomato sauce on the rolled out base, let it be more, especially if you use not ketchup or tomato paste, but tomato sauce.

Spread the sauce evenly over the dough, drizzle with olive oil on top.

Now we need to bake the cake, we do this in order to make the dough crispy and well baked. Together with parchment, transfer the dough to a baking sheet, if the parchment is very large, cut it off so that it does not touch the walls of the oven. I bake pizza on a baking sheet turned upside down, so it turns out a flat plane without walls. We heat the oven to the maximum temperature (250-270 ° C), put the inverted baking sheet with the dough on the lower level and bake for 5-10 minutes until it is well browned on the bottom.

While the cake is baking, cut the mozzarella into plates 5-10 mm thick.

Cut the tomato into 3-5 mm slices.

Well, the dough is well browned on the bottom, the sides of the pizza have risen. I also browned the parchment very well, because I told you to cut it, but I didn’t do it myself. We tear off pieces from the chopped slices of cheese and randomly lay them out on a hot base.

Place chopped tomatoes on top.

Tear large basil leaves in half or smaller, lay out on top of pizza, put small leaves whole. Again we send our pizza to the oven preheated to the maximum temperature for 5-10 minutes, now we put the baking sheet on the upper level. The pizza is ready when the cheese is completely melted and spread over the entire surface of the pizza.

Serve the pizza immediately while it is hot. Top with fresh basil leaves. ready. Bon appetit!

Recipe Information

• Cuisine:Italian
• Type of dish: pastry
• Servings:4-6
• 30 min

Ingredients:

• 300 g dough according to the recipe in milk without eggs
• 2 tomatoes
• 80 g mozzarella

• 3 medium sized tomatoes
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tbsp. spoons of olive oil
• 1 sprig of basil (better, of course, green, I, unfortunately, managed to find only purple on the market)
• salt, black ground pepper

Cooking:

Start with the margarita sauce. It will require skinless tomatoes, so get rid of it first. Cut the pulp into small cubes. Finely chop the peeled and washed garlic along with the basil leaves. Heat olive oil, put chopped tomatoes, garlic and spices.

To easily remove the skin from tomatoes, make cross cuts on them, pour boiling water over them and let stand for several minutes. Carefully remove the tomatoes from the water - they will peel without effort.

Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer over low heat for 8 minutes. Do not forget to stir the mass, tomatoes are still lovers of ruining dishes.

Wipe the mass through a fine metal sieve into a saucepan - try to keep the waste as small as possible, discard the cake. Bring sauce to a boil, reduce heat to low, simmer, stirring, 5 minutes. Let cool (if you want the sauce to cool faster, place the saucepan in a bowl of cold water and stir occasionally).

Roll out the dough on a floured surface into a round layer 3-4 mm thick. Carefully, using a rolling pin, transfer the base to a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil. Spread the tomato sauce on top. Cut the tomatoes into thin slices, mozzarella into small pieces, spread over the surface.

Spray the surface with olive oil, place in the oven for 10-15 minutes, heating it to 200 degrees and turning on the convection mode (if your unit does not have such a mode, it will take more time). A sign of readiness - "withered" tomatoes and golden cheese. In order not to overdo the dish, I prefer not to leave the kitchen, and periodically glance at the pizza.

Shake off the finished pastries on a tray and cut into triangular slices. Serve hot, garnished with basil leaves. Bon appetit!

Another version of Italian Margherita pizza - with manual kneading dough, I spied on the chef-pizzaiolo of La Bottega Sicilliano restaurant, Stefano Prosperini.

Pizza "Margherita" classic Italian

Ingredients:

dough (for several pizzas):

• 0.5 liters of clean water
• 1 kg wheat flour
• 15 g salt
• 2.5 g dry yeast
• 25 ml olive oil

toppings (for 1 pizza):

• 120 g mozzarella
• 100 g tomato sauce
• fresh basil

Prepare the dough. Dissolve the yeast in a quarter cup of warm water, add to the flour, sifted into a large bowl. Pour in the remaining water at room temperature, mix with flour. Pour salt, add olive oil.

Knead the dough with your hands until smooth and elastic (it will take 15-20 minutes). Cover the dish with a clean cloth, put in a warm place for 2 hours to rise. You can tighten the bowl with cling film and send it to the refrigerator - there the dough will calmly stand for a couple of days without losing its properties and quality.

Knead the risen dough, separate 200 grams - for one product. Form a ball and roll it into a round cake with a diameter of 25-30 cm on a table sprinkled with flour. Transfer the base to a greased baking sheet, press again with olive oil-greased hands.

Spread a layer of tomato sauce on the tortilla, leaving a 2 cm wide edge free. Cut the mozzarella - the best cheese for Margherita pizza - into circles and spread over the surface. Bake pizza for 10-15 minutes at 220 degrees. Garnish the finished dish with fresh basil leaves.

If you want, you can cook this delicious pizza according to the video, under the guidance of another Italian chef.

Pizza "Margherita" is considered the unofficial symbol of Italy, the basis of all types of pizza. It is made on a classic yeast dough with a very simple filling consisting of sauce and just three ingredients: basil, mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. But these products are not chosen by chance: green, white and red are the colors of the Italian flag, symbolizing faith, hope and love. There is a version that the red-white-green pizza owes its name to the Italian Queen Margherita of Savoy and the famous Neapolitan pizzaiolo Raffaello Esposito. Like it or not, it is not known for certain, but the simple recipe for this pizza has remained unchanged for several centuries, since its inception.

In Italy, Margherita and other classic types of pizza are baked in special wood-fired ovens. They provide high temperature and uniform heating, so the pizza is cooked in just 3-5 minutes. At home, in a conventional oven, it is difficult to observe such baking conditions, but real. The peculiarity is that the cheese should melt, but not burn. I bake pizza in the oven on a baking stone, I wrote about this in detail. If you do not have such a device, you can get by with a regular baking sheet or a special form with holes in the bottom. Let's talk more about baking "Margaritas" in a step-by-step recipe.

Ingredients for 2 large pizzas:

Dough:

Filling:

Sauce*:

*You can use ready-made sauce.

Recipe for homemade Margherita pizza according to Italian traditions in a conventional oven:

According to the classic pizza cooking scenario, start by kneading the dough. Traditionally, "Margarita" is made on a thin yeast base, so you need to start cooking it at least 1-1.5 hours before baking. I kneaded the dough with live yeast, but it can also be used dry. The cooking method is fundamentally different. Heat the water to 35-40 degrees. Break up the yeast and place in a bowl. Add sugar and stir. Pour 200 ml of water into the mixture. Cover the bowl and put it in a warm place so that the yeast "revives". After 10-15 minutes, the mass will begin to foam.
Dissolve the salt in the remaining water.
Make a well in the flour. Pour in the dissolved yeast and water with salt.
Mix flour with liquid with a spoon. You will get a lumpy dough. Add oil at this stage.
Knead the dough with your hands on a cutting board until it is soft and smooth. If the consistency is watery, add the remaining flour in small portions. Gather the dough into a ball, put back into the bowl. Top with oil and cover. Set to fit. It usually takes 1.5-2 hours to rise in a warm kitchen, depending on the quality and freshness of the yeast. To speed up the maturation of the dough, place the bowl with it in an oven preheated to 40 degrees or in a bowl of hot water. This will reduce the lifting time by 1.5-2 times.
In the meantime, prepare the sauce, it must cool before applying to the pizza. If you don’t want to cook at home, take ready-made, but high-quality and tasty. Depending on the season, I make pizza sauce with fresh tomatoes or tomato paste, always adding Italian herbs and available vegetables. Finely chop the onion and pepper. Fry in oil until golden brown. If the tomatoes are fresh, peel them and puree them in a blender. Dilute the concentrated paste in a glass of hot water. Add tomatoes to vegetables. Simmer over low heat until the sauce has a puree consistency. 5-7 minutes before the end of the stew, add sugar, salt, season with dried spices and chopped garlic. Cool down.
Take care of the stuffing. Cut the tomatoes into circles. Cherry tomatoes can simply be cut in half or into 4 pieces.
The second classic filling component for Margarita is cheese. And I wish it was mozzarella. There are several varieties of this cheese: for salad (in the form of balls, stored in brine) and for pizza (produced in bars). I used block mozzarella. Cut the cheese into large chunks.
Roll out the risen dough on floured parchment paper. Cut an even circle around the outline of a large plate or frying pan lid. If you like pizza with sides, carefully fold the edges of the dough around the entire circumference. Lubricate the dough with sauce.
Preheat the oven to maximum temperature. Heat up the baking sheet on which the pizza will be baked. Spread the cheese pieces evenly over the sauce. Place chopped tomatoes on top. Sprinkle with dried basil. I put fresh leaves on the already prepared pizza, because they burn when baking. Transfer the pizza to a warm baking sheet. Send to the last level of the oven or even to the bottom, closer to the heat source. Bake pizza for 3-5 minutes. During this time, the cheese will have time to melt, the dough - bake until golden brown.
Garnish the finished “Margarita” with fresh basil leaves, cut into 6-8 segments with a round knife and serve immediately before the mozzarella has time to harden.