Pizza alla Norma with eggplant and salted ricotta, a Sicilian recipe for a delicious pizza! Today I’ll explain how to make it and which ingredients to use to prepare a tasty Pizza alla Norma, inspired by the famous Catania first course based on tomato sauce, fried eggplant and salted ricotta: pasta alla Norma.Let’s go to the recipe, but not before checking the recipe for the Facci di vecchia focaccia pizza and the focaccia pizza with stracchino, mortadella and pistachio.

The Pizza alla Norma is a typical Sicilian or more precisely Catanese pizza: simple yet rich in flavor, aromas and colors. It is topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella, the base of a good pizza, with the addition of fried eggplant and salted ricotta.
With this Pizza alla Norma recipe you can enjoy a pizzeria-style pizza, because it is baked on a baking stone and you’ll see its flavor will surprise you! Ready to get your hands on the dough? Let’s go to the kitchen, but before rolling up our sleeves I remind you that if you want to stay updated on my recipes, you can follow my Facebook page and my Instagram profile.
Also check:
– Long fermentation pizza dough in the fridge.;
–Sheet-pan spelt pizza, easy and no-knead;
–Quick-rise sheet-pan pizza;
–Pizza with potatoes, sausage and mushrooms;
–Focaccia with potato and onion dough.

Difficulty: Very easy
Cost: Low cost
Rest time: 3 Hours 30 Minutes
Preparation time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Cooking time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian

Ingredients to make Pizza alla Norma

11 oz re-milled durum wheat semolina
11 oz all-purpose flour ("00" or type 0)
16 fl oz water (warm)
2 1/3 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 0.42 oz fresh yeast)
2 large eggplants
14 oz tomato purée (passata)
to taste extra virgin olive oil
to taste salt
to taste basil
14 oz mozzarella
to taste salted ricotta (ricotta salata)
sunflower seed oil (for frying)

Tools

Baking stone
Pizza peel
Bowls

Preparation of Pizza alla Norma

How to make pizza dough for baking on a baking stone

Put the two flours in a bowl. If you can’t find re-milled semolina, you can use only type 0 flour. Add the yeast, the sugar and part of the water. Mix, then add the oil, salt and the rest of the water. Work the dough in the bowl for a couple of minutes.
Cover with a cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Then turn it out onto the work surface and work it until the sticky dough starts to take on structure. Avoid adding flour; with a bit of patience you’ll get a well-developed dough. Use a bench scraper to help and shape it into a ball, put it in a bowl and place in a warm spot to rise until doubled, for example inside the oven with the light on.
Once doubled (and not before), turn the dough out onto a floured work surface, deflate it slightly, shape it into a ball and divide it into portions of 250-300 g each.
Let rise again until doubled.
At least half an hour before you start baking, preheat the oven to the highest temperature your appliance can reach, position the rack with the stone just below the grill and let it heat up to 482°F.
The stone needs to heat for at least half an hour before use, no less!
With the stone hot and the dough balls doubled you can begin.
Turn on your oven’s grill (broiler).
Flour the peel that usually comes with the stone; if you don’t have one improvise with something that can substitute it or get one.
Place the dough ball in the center and stretch it with your hands, leaving the edges slightly thicker.
Spread the tomato sauce, preferably homemade. Without wasting time and before the sauce wets the dough too much, slide the pizza onto the stone. Open the oven, pull the rack out halfway where the stone is resting and let the pizza slide onto it. Put the rack back and bake under the grill for about 7 minutes, but check the cooking as not all ovens are the same.
Take the pizza out again, top with the fried eggplant (see procedure below) and the mozzarella, then return it under the grill for another 5-6 minutes.
Once out of the oven grate some salted ricotta over it, add a drizzle of oil and finish with fresh basil leaves. With a cloth, brush the flour off the stone so it falls out of the oven.
Let the stone heat again for at least 10 minutes before baking the next pizza.
Rinse the eggplants and decide whether to peel them or not. Cut into cubes, put in a bowl, sprinkle with a handful of salt and let rest for 30 minutes.
Rinse them, squeeze out excess moisture and pat dry with a kitchen towel, then fry them in plenty of high-oleic sunflower oil (check the label to ensure it’s suitable for frying). When golden brown, remove with a slotted spoon and place on absorbent paper to remove excess oil.
The pizza is ready and should be enjoyed immediately. Leftovers can be refrigerated and eaten the next day after reheating, although it won’t be as good as just baked.
You can use the same dough to make a sheet-pan pizza.