Chris Bianco - Bianco - Pizza, Pasta and Other Food I Like

Taste your mozzarella and your tomato sauce to see how salty they both are and make a mental note of this. Spoon the tomato sauce evenly over the pizza, using the back of the spoon to spread the sauce, starting from the center and stopping about ¾ inch—a fat thumb’s width—from the edges. (With a hand-crushed tomato sauce, the consistency of the sauce over the pizza’s surface will be uneven. It’s inevitable.) Sprinkle the Parmigiano, if using, over the sauce. Let the spots where the tomato sauce is thinner guide you as to the placement of the mozzarella—hit those drier spots with a bit more mozzarella. If when you tasted your sauce and cheese earlier you determined that the salinity wasn’t quite there yet, sprinkle the pizza with some salt. Then give it a very light drizzle of olive oil.

Open the oven and, tilting the peel just slightly, give it a quick shimmy-shake to slide the pizza onto the pizza stone. Bake the pizza for 10 to 15 minutes, until the crust is crisp and golden brown.

Remove the pizza with the peel and immediately add the basil leaves, laying them evenly across the top. The heat of the pizza will wilt the leaves slightly and release their heady fragrance. Enjoy immediately!

Note: This recipe is more detailed than the pizza recipes that follow—you can think of it as a master recipe for assembling and baking pizza.

BEFORE OR AFTER

Most traditional recipes call for basil to be cooked with the pizza, which is totally fine. I prefer tearing and rough-handling fresh basil leaves over the cooked pizza and letting the heat release the aroma. The essential oils from the basil provide a pleasing texture and flavor profile.

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