This version of the filling for your favorite Italian dish, which has become global, is one of the most common. And pizza with cheese and ham is a truly national dish. And by the way, if it’s not ham, any ready-to-eat meat product from a whole piece is suitable: balyk, smoked meats, different types of jamon and prosciutto.
A bit about cheese
Pizza with cheese and ham includes Parmesan as an ingredient. The name of this cheese is associated with the Italian regions in which this hard cheese was produced: Parma and Reggio Emilia. The original name of the product, by the way, is “Parmigiano Reggiano”, but we are accustomed to “Parmesan”, as if “official”. This is how pizza with cheese and ham is seasoned. The Italians are sure that this sour-milk product, produced outside the specified region, is not real, but today quite a lot of cheeses in Europe and the United States compete with Italian cheeses (this is due to the fact that you can always replace it with parmesan at hand). The thousand-year history of this product is believed to have begun with medieval monks who invented a way to store it for long periods. This is what made Parmesan so popular in Europe. They say that previously even some Italian banks issued loans, taking as a guarantee the heads of Parmesan!
Pizza with ham and cheese. The recipe is basic
We will need the following ingredients: pizza dough, ham, mozzarella, parmesan, olives, basil twigs, onions, tomatoes, tomato sauce. From spices: oregano, wine vinegar. By the way, tomato sauce (not a trivial store pasta), it’s better to cook it yourself, it’s quite simple and will not take much time.
Homemade Pizza Sauce
You need to take tomatoes (2-3 pieces), sweet pepper (1), garlic, olive oil (1 tablespoon) and ground black pepper powder. Pepper clear of seeds. Scalp the tomatoes and peel them. We clean the garlic. We put all the components for the future sauce in a blender. Grind until mashed. Pour into a well-heated frying pan with oil, salt and pepper. Stew until excess moisture evaporates, and our sauce becomes thick.
Preparatory work
Pizza with ham and cheese is prepared quickly enough, unless, of course, some preparatory measures are taken.
- Peel (if possible sweet) peel and cut into thin strips. And then pickle in wine vinegar (takes about half an hour). After washing with water.
- Three parmesan on a grater finely.
- Cut ham into thin strips along.
- Olives (take pitted) are cut in half lengthwise.
- Cut the tomatoes into thin layers (do not remove the seeds).
- Finely chop the basil.
Dough
We prepare it from two glasses of sifted flour, yeast, olive oil, salt and sugar. As it rises, mix and stretch into a cake (thickness 5-7 millimeters). Spread on the form (pre-lubricated with olive oil). Be sure to prick the dough with a fork in two or three places. Let's get up (15 minutes).
Simple cooking!
Lubricate the pizza dough with cheese and ham in a thick sauce (see the cooking recipe above). Carefully coat the edges, side. Spread the sauce evenly on the plane. Next, lay out the pickled onions (pre-squeeze from excess fluid). Sprinkle dry oregano (pinch).
Lay out chopped tomatoes with olives. Then - finely chopped basil. Sprinkle pizza with 2/3 of grated mozzarella (do not skip sections).
On top we evenly spread strips of ham (bacon). Sprinkle the whole structure with the remains of mozzarella and parmesan - more to the edge of the form.
We put pizza in the oven heated to 200. The dish is baked for about 20 minutes. Given the different designs of the ovens, it is worth checking the readiness manually.
We take out the prepared pizza with ham and cheese and tomatoes from the oven, let it cool slightly and cut it with a special knife into six or eight parts (at the request of the author of the dish). Well, that’s all, you can invite guests to the table. Or pamper your family.
We serve our favorite Italian dish, as they say, in the heat of the heat. Such pizza is at the same time the simplest and most charmingly delicious - hot, with smoke, only from the oven. And also - fragrant and satisfying: one of these is enough for a whole company. And if home or guests ask for supplements, then you can always build another copy from the remaining ingredients and dough. Bon appetit to all of you!