World Pizza Day: Franco Pepe’s fried pizza recipe

Born The Gold of Naples Sophia Loren prepared it: fried the fried pizza on a banquet in the alleys, and offered it to anyone in the neighborhood, even those who couldn’t pay it right away. A memorable scene: it tells a glimpse of Neapolitan history and traditions and at the same time says everything about this good dish, popular not only in taste, forerunner of street food. A beloved variant of the classic baked pizza, the fried one is very easy to make at home: a perfect idea to celebrate World Pizza Day on February 9th, one of the two world days dedicated to pizza (the other is January 17, the day of Saint Anthony who is the protector of pizza makers). For this in the gallery above you will find the best recipe: simple, genuine, but also much more lighter than you think.

It is the fried pizza recipe of Franco Pepe, the undisputed outsider at the top of all the rankings (for example that of 50 Top Pizza and Gambero Rosso) who from his Pepe in Grani, in Caiazzo (Caserta), is revolutionizing the world of pizza by showing that this symbol of Italian food and wine, while respecting tradition, can also be proposed in a contemporary version which means, first of all, healthier.

THE EVOLUTION OF FRIED
In this way he managed to make even the fried pizza more digestible and fragrant (as well as tasty), so much so that from Pepe in Grani you can do an entire tasting itinerary – Absolute Fried – and get up from the table without feeling heavy, never with your hands never greasy. All this after eating 4 to 8 tastings of different pizzas, maybe even theAnaNascosta – a fried cone with 12-month Grana Padano PDO fondue, raw ham, licorice powder where he “hidden” very fresh pineapple, challenging a taboo – which earned Franco Pepe the Dish of the Year award at Identità Golose, in 2019. ” For years the fried pizza was only the montanara, or the classic one topped with ricotta, salami, pepper and pork cracklings. I tried to restore dignity to fried food and I studied aevolution – Franco Pepe explains – working a lot on the dough and the oils as well as the condiments ».

PERFECT COOKING
Ready to try? The beauty of fried pizza, for the many great fans who like to get their hands in the dough, is also that it is easier to prepare at home, first of all for a matter of cooking: “It is complex – says Franco Pepe – to obtain an optimal result for classic pizza in a home oven because the temperature is lower than the professional one and therefore the cooking times are longer: the dough therefore it tends to dry out, and the same can happen with oil or ingredients. With fried pizza, on the other hand, if you choose the right oil and fry it correctly, you can get optimal results.».

The first move, therefore, after preparing the dough and letting it rise correctly (it also serves to make the inside cook well), is to choose oil: «The best – explains Franco Pepe – are high oleic oils with added antioxidantsI, alternatively, that of peanuts: they allow you to work perfectly at high temperatures (around 200 degrees), obtaining a fried product that does not absorb. Each oil has its own temperature: this is why it is important to check it on the package and then have a thermometer to check that it has reached the optimal point before cooking. Alternatively it always applies the test of the dough ball: take a piece, dip it in oil, if it bubbles and rises to the surface it is ready to cook ». The extra trick? Use a copper pot (as is done by Pepe in Grani, which has a space exclusively dedicated to the preparation of fried pizzas): it has the double advantage of allowing you to see how the frying proceeds, and also keeps the oil temperature constant.

THE SUBLIME CONDIMENT
The result is a perfect fried: crunchy on the outside but never greasy, and soft on the inside, so good that it is also worth tasting alone. Precisely for this reason, an idea to make homemade fried pizza even tastier, as well as easier and faster to make, is to season it. only outside. «As for the condiments – continues Franco Pepe – I love very much the contrast between hot and cold, so for example I season a hot fried pizza with a cold fondue, and as a finishing touch I always look for something that gives perfume, for example lemon or orange zest “. A trick that applies to both savory and sweet pizzas. «Another idea for a very easy fried pizza, also very popular with children, is to cook it in strips, and season them very hot with sugar, cinnamon, honey and orange zest. Or with good ricotta mixed with vanilla. Creativity always pays off. What matters is to work with dough and cooking: on these he does not go wrong because – concludes Franco Pepe – fried food is a serious matter “. Below you will find the recipe for the fried dough, while in the gallery above 5 ideas to dress it (as from Franco Pepe):

Pizza dough (4 round pizzas)
Ingredients: ½ liter of water, 800g flour type 0 (or 00), 25 g salt, 5g brewer’s yeast.
Procedure: pour the water into a bowl, mix the flour slowly by dissolving the salt in the water, halfway add the brewer’s yeast, mix for about 15/20 minutes. Let it rest for 4/6 hours covered with a cloth, then proceed to cut the loaves. Let them rest for another 2 hours and proceed to prepare the pizzas.