A pizza without an oven and without a wood fire? It’s possible, and even super easy, with the fried version of the pizza from the book A table in the sun (Webedia ed.) by Denny Imbroisi. The Italian chef at the Ida restaurant in Paris offers two versions of this popular recipe from the Naples region: the traditional version, shaped like a half-moon turnover, where the dough is stuffed with tomato, mozzarella and basil (a bit like a calzone) before being thrown into a bath of oil that will make it rise. And a version that is “more elegant and lighter too,” where the dough cooks alone in the oil, with the tomato, mozzarella and basil added afterwards. “You won’t get the taste of a wood fire,” concedes Denny Imbroisi, “but you will be able to enjoy a dough with a very delicious consistency, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.”
A liter of oil, but 5 times less dough
Despite its name, fried pizza is not as caloric as one might fear. “We do use oil,” admits the chef, “but much less dough.” Even less in Denny’s “round” version, five times less to be precise. To prepare his dough, Denny Imbroisi announces the following proportions: 450 g of flour, 1 sachet of fresh baker’s yeast, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of caster sugar, and a quarter of a liter of water at room temperature.
For the filling, count 250 g of mozzarella, 250 g of tomato sauce, a small bunch of basil. But any other ingredient is welcome.
Not forgetting the liter of (sunflower) oil needed for the famous frying.
On disk, it’s faster (and less fat)
You can of course turn to your baker to get a loaf of bread dough, but you can also try to make the dough yourself. Simply mix all the ingredients – flour, water at room temperature, yeast, a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt, then let the ball of dough rest “for an hour under a damp cloth, the time it takes to let it rise”…
All that remains is to flatten it with a rolling pin, with a little flour thrown on the work surface to make the operation easier. For the equivalent of a pizza cooked in a wood fire, we make five small fried pizzas.
In the larger “half-moon” version, the dough is filled, calzone-style, with tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil (or any other ingredient). Place it in a large pan filled with boiling oil (at 180 or 200°C), turn it “as often as possible” and when it starts to brown, after about a minute and a half, take it out and place it on absorbent paper.
In Denny Imbroisi’s “round” version, you simply place a disk of dough cut with a 12 cm cookie cutter (or with a bowl, or with a glass). Cooking is faster, around a minute. The disk quickly transforms into a ball that will crisp on the outside while remaining soft on the inside. This is what you will place your topping on before enjoying this hellish pizza fritta.