Pizza Primavera with Vegetable Topping

Pizza base

Our Primavera pizza is vegetarian, with no prosciutto. We fry all the vegetables for the topping beforehand. Usually young zucchini and tomatoes are used, as this is a spring recipe. By the way, primavera means spring in Italian. It looks beautiful when the topping has a colorful mix of small tomatoes rather than plain red cherry tomatoes. The sauce uses plenty of fresh herbs, so it turns out aromatic.

1. Stretch the dough on the pan. Make a regular yeast pizza dough from two cups of flour (260 g). I described the pizza dough recipe in detail, and it lets you make the dough the way you like: thin or thick, soft or crispy. Stretch the dough onto a greased baking pan, prick it lightly with a fork and cover with a towel while you prepare the topping.

   

Tomato sauce

2. Fry the garlic with the chili. Peel and finely chop the garlic and fresh chili. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet and fry the garlic and chili over medium heat for 2 minutes.

3. Simmer the sauce until thick. Add about 1 cup of canned diced tomatoes and 0.5 tsp of dried oregano, and add salt. If you like, add a little sugar: the flavor of the sauce changes noticeably, in a pleasant way. Pull the leaves from 3–4 sprigs of basil, chop them with a knife and add to the sauce. Simmer the sauce covered for 8–10 minutes over medium heat. Then remove the lid and let the excess moisture evaporate, as the sauce should be thick. Remove from the heat and let it cool.

   

Vegetables for the topping

4. Fry the zucchini and sweet pepper. Cut a small young zucchini into thin slices. Heat a little olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and fry the zucchini slices until soft and lightly golden. Fry the peeled bell pepper, cut into strips, the same way.

5. Fry the tomatoes. Cut the small tomatoes in half and fry for 1–2 minutes on each side, until they soften and release a little juice.

   

Assembling and baking

6. Assemble the pizza. Spread the cooled tomato sauce over the dough on the baking pan. Evenly arrange the fried tomatoes, zucchini pieces and pepper on top of the sauce. Cut the mozzarella balls in half and place them around the edge of the dough. If the topping includes any other ingredients that need cooking, add them at this stage.

   

7. Bake the pizza until the bottom is golden. Preheat the oven to 180–190°C and put the pizza in. Usually 20 minutes is enough for the dough to bake through. In a wood-fired oven this takes many times less, often only 1.5–2 minutes, because of the very high temperature. You can tell the dough is done by the browning of the bottom: just lift it slightly with the tip of a knife.

   

Serving

8. Sprinkle with Parmesan and arugula and serve right away. Transfer the baked pizza to a serving board. Shave a piece of Parmesan with a knife into large chip-like shavings and scatter the cheese over the topping. Cut the pizza into 6–8 pieces with a pizza wheel. Just before serving, sprinkle the pizza with a handful of fresh arugula leaves. Serve immediately, before the green leaves have time to warm up.

   

   The pizza is very tasty, and with a slightly spicy tomato sauce it has a subtle piquant flavor. You can add thinly sliced Italian prosciutto to the topping: cut it into small pieces and lay it out together with the tomatoes. The topping is also good with a small amount of capers and fresh basil, which you can add together with the arugula.