Prosciutto Pizza with Mozzarella and Capers – Step-by-Step Recipe
Most of my friends are fans of pizza with sausage, meat and anything else that looks like meat. And, unsurprisingly, they believe there should be plenty of it – at least half a kilo. In such cases I offer them prosciutto pizza: the topping has several times less meat, yet the pizza turns out delicious and properly “meaty”.
In one book on Italian cooking I read that making pizza takes no effort at all. That made me smile, given how many people I know who can't even fry an egg on their own. I won't say pizza is an art only seasoned veterans of kitchen battles can master, and I won't say it's “as easy as pie” either. Speaking for myself: the hardest part of making pizza is waiting for it to be ready.
I have a friend who never bakes pizza. He either tries to get his wife to make it or orders by phone. Once I happened to hear one of those orders. It went roughly like this: dough, cheese, meat, meat, meat, and on top, spell out my name in sausage. What can you do – a true carnivore.
Prosciutto is an Italian dry-cured ham. Parma ham contains nothing but pork leg and sea salt; spices are added only very rarely. Prosciutto is ham of the highest quality, pale pink and glossy.
Prosciutto pizza isn't made quite the usual way. The catch is that Parma ham turns tough and curls up when cooked, losing the elegant shape of its thin slices. So we add the prosciutto at the very end of baking, or even lay it over the finished pizza.
Pizza dough and sauce
Cold-Fermented Pizza DoughPizzeria-style cold-fermented pizza dough: mix it the day before, let it rest in the fridge 12–24 hours and stretch it into a thin base with a crispy crust.
The best Pizza Dough recipeWith this recipe you always get soft and chewy crust, that stretches nicely. Easy method of preparing ideal crust for a delicious pizza.
Quick Kefir Pizza DoughNo-yeast pizza dough made with kefir, flour and baking powder in 10 minutes. Soft and fluffy, it bakes into a homemade pizza in about half an hour.
Pizza Dough Without YeastQuick pizza dough without yeast: flour, water, olive oil and baking powder make a soft, fluffy base in 15 minutes. Tips on flour, kneading and baking time.
Homemade Tomato SauceHomemade tomato sauce from ripe fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs, slowly simmered until thick. Better than ketchup for pizza, pasta, meat and fish.Ingredients
34 cm pizza
- Pizza dough 400 g
- Prosciutto 75 g
- Mozzarella 100 g
- Tomatoes 1
- Homemade tomato sauce 2 tbsp
- Onion 1
- Capers 1 tbsp
- Parmesan (grated) 1 tbsp
- Chopped mixed herbs 1 tbsp
- Oregano, wine vinegar to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- This pizza is made with genuine Parma ham, which is easy to buy ready-sliced and packaged. If prosciutto is hard to find, jamón or thinly sliced dry-cured pork loin, even a local one, will do just fine.
- For prosciutto pizza you'll need fresh mozzarella, a ripe tomato, a few mixed herbs (basil, parsley, dill) and a little homemade tomato sauce. If you have no sauce, don't use ketchup. Simply mix half a cup of homemade tomato juice with a pinch each of salt, sugar and black pepper. Pour the mixture into a frying pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil and simmer until the sauce is thick enough.
- Make a yeast or yeast-free dough. We always make yeast dough for pizza – it works out great for us. Once the dough has risen, knead it briefly and stretch it into a round 5-7 mm thick. Lightly grease a pizza pan with olive oil and lay the dough on it. Be sure to prick the dough with a fork in several places. If you prefer a thin, crispy crust, you can add the topping right away. If you cover the dough with a cloth and let it rest for 15-30 mins, it will rise a little more and the pizza will have a soft, fluffy base.
- Peel the onion and cut it into very thin strips. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Mix and add 2 tbsp of wine vinegar. Leave the onion to marinate for half an hour. If it's still a bit sharp, pour boiling water over it for 10 mins, then rinse and squeeze dry.
- Spread the tomato sauce over the dough. Spread it evenly, with no gaps, and avoid puddles of sauce, or the pizza won't bake through.
- Arrange the marinated onion over the sauce-covered dough. Sprinkle with 1-2 pinches of dried oregano.
- Chop the mixed herbs with a knife and sprinkle them all over the pizza.
- Cut the tomatoes into very thin slices and spread them evenly over the sauce and onion.
- Sprinkle the whole pizza with coarsely grated mozzarella. Set aside 1 tbsp of mozzarella to sprinkle over the prosciutto later.
- Put the pizza into an oven preheated to 200°C for 15-17 mins. In that time the base will bake through completely.
- Take the pizza out of the oven and lay the prosciutto, cut into small pieces, over it. Sprinkle with a little grated Parmesan and the remaining mozzarella, and scatter over the capers.
- Return the pizza to the oven for 2-3 mins, no longer. Otherwise the delicate ham will start curling up and drying out.
- If you like, sprinkle the finished pizza with whole leaves of young green basil. Cut the pizza into 6-8 slices.
- Prosciutto pizza is wonderfully fragrant and tastes truly “meaty”. Serve it right away, without waiting for it to cool. And don't save it for later to reheat.
Yield: 34 cm pizza Calories: 226 kcal per 100 g Prep: 1 h 30 mins Cooking: 30 mins Ready in: 2 h Category: Pizza › Meat Pizza Cuisine: Italian cuisine Rating: