4 pizzas
Melanzane
- Hydration
- 65%
- Dough ball
- 250g
- Fermentation
- 49h
- Salt
- 2.8%
- Bake
- 60–90 sec
- Oven
- Wood-fired oven
- Makes
- 4pizzas
- Active time
- 30min
Ingredients
- Dough ball PizzaLovers house dough 65%, cold-fermented 48 h
- 250 g
- Peeled San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand
- 70 g
- Fior di latte, diced and drained
- 70 g
- Aubergine, salted and grilled in 3 mm slices
- 70 g
- Grated pecorino
- 8.0 g
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 7.0 g
- Fresh basil after baking
- 2.0 g
Total dough477 g
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Scale up or down — the yeast is recalculated automatically.
Method
- Take the dough balls out of the fridge 2–3 hours before baking and let them sit covered at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven well in advance: 45–60 minutes for a steel in a home oven, 20–30 minutes for a gas oven, longer for a wood oven. Measure the floor with an IR thermometer — you want around 450 °C (840 °F).
- Stretch the ball by hand from the centre outward on a semola-floured surface. Never touch the outer two centimetres.
- Salt the aubergine slices for 30 minutes, pat them dry and grill them dry in a griddle pan.
- Lay the slices overlapping over the cheese and scatter over the pecorino.
- Slide the pizza in and bake for 60–90 seconds. Turn it two or three times so the crust colours evenly.
- Let the pizza rest for a few seconds, add anything meant to go on after the oven, and serve straight away.
Aubergine (eggplant) soaks up oil like a sponge unless you salt it first. Prepared properly it turns creamy and smoky, and one of the best vegetarian toppings there is.
outside AVPN – a vegetable pizza that is not part of the disciplinare.
Topping order
- Tomato sauce
- Fior di latte
- Aubergine
- Pecorino
- Olive oil
Common mistakes
- Unsalted aubergine, which turns bitter and spongy.
- Aubergine fried in lots of oil.
- Slices too thick to soften in time.
Tips
- Grill a whole aubergine at a time; the slices keep in the fridge for three days.
- Don't peel the aubergine – the skin holds the slice together.
Variations
- Parmigiana with Parmesan and more tomato.
- With ricotta salata grated over after the oven.
- With mint instead of basil, Sicilian style.
Recalculate the recipe
Want a different number of pizzas, a different ball weight or a different time in the fridge? The calculator is prefilled with this recipe’s values.
Open the calculator with the Melanzane settings
Read more
- Neapolitan pizza dough – the full recipe and the why behind it
- Parmigiana
- Ortolana
- Topping order – what goes on when
