Four Cheese Pizza (Pizza 4 Formaggi) Recipe

Step-by-step recipe

1. This pizza usually includes mozzarella, a soft, slightly stringy Italian cheese. It is very soft and white, sold as small balls. The cheese doesn't keep long, literally a few days, so it is usually bought in small amounts and used right away.
   
   
2. A four cheese pizza always includes Gorgonzola, an Italian blue cheese with a wonderful mold. It is very similar to French Roquefort, and both are known as “blue cheeses”. Gorgonzola is usually sharp in taste and aroma. It is aged in caves, where the cheese is laid to mature and becomes veined with threads of blue mold. Often, though, Gorgonzola is replaced with the more affordable Dor Blue.
3. With the other two cheeses the situation is not quite clear. Most often Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano) is used, the familiar aged cheese, hard with a yellow rind. The other is a hard, aromatic aged cheese such as Emmental, although that cheese is more typical of Switzerland. It is even tastier, though, to replace it with another hard cheese, for example smoked rennet cheese. It adds flavor to the pizza and improves the aroma.
4. The cheeses suggested for Pizza 4 Formaggi also include Fontina, Provola and Cheddar. Unfortunately, they are rather exotic for us. I read somewhere that the set of cheeses for this pizza is not a dogma, and everyone picks cheeses to their taste. Still, it must be admitted that Parmesan and mozzarella are used almost always, while in place of the blue Gorgonzola people use Roquefort, Cambozola, Danablu, Fourme d'Ambert, Dor Blue and so on.
5. Four cheese pizza belongs to the so-called white pizzas, “pizza Bianca”.
6. White pizza is most often made without tomatoes or sauces. Although you can often see a recipe with tomatoes and dough brushed with tomato. Well, to each their own. I, for example, like it best when the dough is lightly (just barely) brushed with homemade tomato sauce.
7. Other cheese combinations include: Dor Blue, Tilsiter, Edam and brynza; Gorgonzola, Pecorino, Parmesan and Gruyere; mozzarella, Fontina, Gorgonzola and Parmesan; mozzarella, Cheddar, Dor Blue and Parmesan. In other words, the cheeses in this pizza recipe are a suggestion rather than a requirement. How you cut the cheese is also up to you. Usually it is cubed, but nothing stops you from grating it.
8. Make the dough following the recipe I described in “Pizza dough”. After the dough has risen, knead it briefly and roll it out into a flatbread 5-7 mm thick. Place the dough on the pan, lightly greased with olive oil beforehand. Be sure to prick the dough with a fork in several places.
   
   
9. Brush the dough with 1 tsp of olive oil or a little homemade tomato sauce. Sprinkle with 1-2 pinches of oregano.
10. Prepare the cheeses. Grate the mozzarella on a coarse grater or cut it into thin slices. Grate the Parmesan finely. Shred the Emmental any convenient way, it needn't be very fine. Cut the Gorgonzola, Dor Blue or other cheese into very thin slices.
11. First spread more than half of the grated Emmental in a single layer. Spread it evenly, though there is no need to worry about missing a spot. The nice thing about this bake is that the cheeses can be unevenly distributed over the surface.
    
    
12. Next, lay out the Dor Blue (Gorgonzola) and mozzarella, mixed together, which is how the pizza takes shape.
    
    
13. Sprinkle the whole pizza, especially the edges, with the grated Parmesan and the remaining Emmental.
    
    
14. The top layer should be Parmesan and Emmental.
15. Press the cheese lightly onto the dough with your palms so that it lies more or less evenly.
16. Now all that's left is to bake the pizza. In a classic Pompeian oven, pizza bakes at a very high temperature for a very short time. We don't have access to such an oven, so we bake for no more than 20 mins at 200°C. You may need to adjust the baking time slightly at the end, judging by the doneness of the dough. The dough is ready when it begins to take on a dark straw color and the bottom starts to brown. Don't worry about the cheese. Cheese is ready to eat as it is, so once it has melted, the goal is achieved and the dish is done.
    
    
17. You can decorate the finished pizza with a few leaves of fresh basil, and sometimes a few slices of ham or prosciutto are even laid on top.
18. Cut the pizza into 6-8 pieces and serve hot.
19. I'll say it plainly: four cheese pizza is one of the tastiest, and it's worth trying.