Ancient pizza recipe, or pinsa, is one of those hidden jewels that Italian cuisine reveals only to its most accurate connoisseurs.As a matter of fact, every time I go to Rome I try to find the time for one pinsa, actually one of my favorite examples of street food.Taking advantage of this period of lock-down, I have decided to experiment a lot with ancient pizza recipe, and after a bunch of attempts I believe I found the proper procedure and some useful tips I want to share with you.
Pinsa is a word that comes from the Latin pinsere (to press, to spread out) and this suggests the fact that it is pressed with the hands until obtaining an oval shape.
It is an amazingly ancient recipe: the word pinsa can be found in the Aeneid by Virgil, more than 2000 years ago!
Originally, this recipe was very common among the lower classes, typically farmers. Using cereals, mainly millet, barley and spelled, they were able to cook these wonderful kind of focaccia. It was a poor food, so even if today, especially in Rome, you will find it topped with any sort of ingredients, originally pinsa had very simple ingredients: olive oil, salt, rosemary and other aromatic herbs.
Ingredients630 gr wheat flour
40 gr rice flour
30 gr spell (or soy) flour
500 gr water cold
q.s. natural yeast dehydrated beer yeast: 0.25 bag. Fresh: 5 gr
10 gr sea salt for the dough
10 gr extra virgin olive oil for the dough
q.s. sea salt topping (if no other ingredients on top)
q.s. rosemary topping (if no other ingredients on top)
Method* Prepare the ingredients. The water should be cold.
* Mix the different types of flour and the yeast.
* Add 80% of the water and go on mixing for about 5 minutes.
* Add the salt, the oil and the remaining water, and mix for about 20 minutes, until the dough looks smooth.
* Put the dough into a bowl with a cover (or seal it with a plastic film) and then into the fridge, for at least 24 hours. It should like this:
* Now create 2 or 3 smaller doughs. Put each of them in a bowl and cover it with a cloth, for the second leavening, at ambient temperature, lasting 3 hours. Result should be like this:
* After the second leavening, turn on the oven, with the pan inside, at 250 °C. When it's hot, shower the countertop with a fist of rice flour and gently press the dough on it, to shape it.
* Then put it on the hot pan and into the oven. Lower it at 200 °C. Cook it for 15-20 minutes and … it's done! Buon appetito.