Today I would like to tell you about the latest creation in my kitchen, the pizza with yellow cornmeal for polenta. It is a dough that has a percentage of polenta flour inside, which gives it a very tasty and rustic flavor, dedicated to lovers of this food, and not only. In fact, the balanced taste of this pizza, with that extra note given by this flour, will please everyone. It’s not a novelty; already in the peasant tradition, polenta flour was used to integrate white flour in the production of bread or focaccia, as our grandmother tells us. I wanted to try it, and this “experiment” was perfectly successful. I got a soft, well-alveolated, very tasty pizza. The pizza with yellow cornmeal for polenta can be enjoyed plain or topped with a simple tomato sauce, garlic, and oregano, with tomato and mozzarella, Gorgonzola and sausages, or with vegetables and cured meats.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 20 Hours
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 8 slices
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 2.1 oz Sourdough starter
- 2 cups All-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup Coarse cornmeal
- 1 1/4 tsp Fine salt
- 2/3 cup Room temperature water
Tools
- 1 Baking pan 12 inches in diameter
Preparation
I used very little sourdough starter to make this very soft and tasty pizza. After refreshing the starter (you can do it according to your habits), I took 60 grams and used it directly without waiting for it to rise. If you are unsure of your starter’s strength, you can use up to a maximum of 120 grams.
I chose to include 30% polenta flour on the total white flour because it is with this percentage that I obtained more than excellent results both in terms of softness and flavor.
Transfer the freshly refreshed starter into a large bowl. Add the all-purpose flour and polenta flour.
Add 90 ml of water, mix the ingredients very coarsely, cover well with clear food wrap and let the dough rest for about 30 – 40 minutes (photo 1). In this phase, called autolysis, the flours begin to hydrate and will better absorb the water, the structure and the aroma of the leavened product will be better, besides the fact that the kneading times will be reduced (in plain terms) and we will have an even softer and more digestible final product.
After the resting time, slowly add the rest of the water, the fine salt, and proceed to knead our ingredients directly in the bowl (to avoid adding more flour, as at the beginning the dough is very soft and sticky) for about 6-7 minutes until obtaining a smooth dough.
Seal with wrap and wait an hour. After an hour, take the dough, transfer it to a work table floured with semolina or all-purpose flour (but not with polenta flour) and work it a bit more with your hands, gently.
Roll it over itself a couple of times, each time forming a sort of cylinder. Shape the dough into a ball, slightly oil a large bowl, and place the dough in it. Seal again and store in the middle part of the fridge for 18 hours. I put it in the fridge at 2 PM and took it out at 8 AM the next morning.
After 18 hours, take the dough out and let it stand at room temperature for an hour.
Oil a baking pan, gently turn the dough into it, cover, and let it rest for another 15 minutes. Then, stretch it well without crushing the dough, covering the entire surface of the pan, cover, and let it rise for the last time, about 3-4 hours depending on the room temperature.
Bake the pizza with yellow cornmeal for polenta on the middle rack of the oven, already hot, at 482°F for about 10-12 minutes if the oven bakes concurrently above and below; otherwise, around 12/15 minutes if, like mine, it is a gas or electric oven with bottom-only baking. Always check your baking times, as ovens don’t all bake the same way.
You can decide to season the pizza before baking it or at the end of cooking (remember that cheeses are almost always put at the end of cooking), as I did with my vegetarian pizza, which was topped with slices of zucchini (5 mm thick) slightly grilled and fillets of bell pepper (blanched in already salted water for two precise minutes and then immediately drained and cooled).
Just before removing the pizza from the oven, I combined the vegetables in a bowl, seasoned them with extra virgin olive oil and fine salt. I removed the pizza, topped it with the vegetables, and finished with a coarse grating of non-smoked, aged provola with a delicate flavor.
I put the pizza back in the oven (turning it off immediately) and left it for another 5 minutes before taking it out.
The result is what you see in the picture, very inviting softness and alveolation.
Bon appetit
