Luca Lazzari
Sous Chef
I just bought an amusing cookbook: The Sopranos Family Cookbook. Being a big fan of Bobby Bacala and all the made guys, whacking and goomars, I couldn't miss this one.
I tried some recipes from the book, one of them is the Sfinciuni, that is a pizza with a tomato and onion sauce + provolone and breadcrumbs topping; in this post I'll give my modified version of the book's recipe.
I'm not telling you here how to prepare the dough for the pizza, because I cheated: I bought ready-made dough in a local shop... but there's a lot of links for pizza dough in this thread, and this looks like a good link, too, so...
Let's go back to the sfinciuni.
The pizza will be cooked in a 12-inch round pan, but before baking it, you need to make the sauce and prepare the provolone and breadcrumbs.
You need: 1 large onion, sliced - one 400 g can of peeled and chopped Italian tomatoes (by the way, in Italy we use grams, it's 14 ounces) - 1 teaspoon dried oregano - salt and pepper (to taste) - 1/4 cup olive oil - 8 anchovy fillets (or less, if you're not a big fan of the smelly little fish) - 1/2 cup breadcrumbs - 1/2 cup diced provolone.
For the breadcrumbs, I bought some wholemeal breadsticks and crushed them with my precious fingers. For the anchovies, I used some salt anchovies I bought in Liguria a couple of months ago, delicious!
Let's start! Prepare the breadcrumbs, slice the onion, and dice the provolone. Sauté the onions in olive oil until golden, then add tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper and cook the sauce for 15 minutes; add the anchovies and have them melt quickly in the sauce (the sauce mustn't be too runny, because you'll put it on top of the pizza). Then let the sauce cool.
Preheat the oven (425 °F). Brush the pizza pan with oil (save some oil for later use), then stretch the dough to fit the pan. Make some dents in the dough with your fingers, put half of the sauce on the dough and then bake the pizza for 25 minutes.
Put the rest of the sauce on the pizza, then add the provolone and the breadcrumbs on top, and add the left-over oil. Bake for 5/10 more minutes: you need to melt the cheese. Here is my sfinciuni:
That's all. I really liked this recipe, but next time I will pump up the anchovies and cheese, maybe I'll add some capers, too, I'm a big fan of capers.
Buon appetito!
PS Many thanks to Gabriella for the pictures
I tried some recipes from the book, one of them is the Sfinciuni, that is a pizza with a tomato and onion sauce + provolone and breadcrumbs topping; in this post I'll give my modified version of the book's recipe.
I'm not telling you here how to prepare the dough for the pizza, because I cheated: I bought ready-made dough in a local shop... but there's a lot of links for pizza dough in this thread, and this looks like a good link, too, so...
Let's go back to the sfinciuni.
The pizza will be cooked in a 12-inch round pan, but before baking it, you need to make the sauce and prepare the provolone and breadcrumbs.
You need: 1 large onion, sliced - one 400 g can of peeled and chopped Italian tomatoes (by the way, in Italy we use grams, it's 14 ounces) - 1 teaspoon dried oregano - salt and pepper (to taste) - 1/4 cup olive oil - 8 anchovy fillets (or less, if you're not a big fan of the smelly little fish) - 1/2 cup breadcrumbs - 1/2 cup diced provolone.
For the breadcrumbs, I bought some wholemeal breadsticks and crushed them with my precious fingers. For the anchovies, I used some salt anchovies I bought in Liguria a couple of months ago, delicious!
Let's start! Prepare the breadcrumbs, slice the onion, and dice the provolone. Sauté the onions in olive oil until golden, then add tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper and cook the sauce for 15 minutes; add the anchovies and have them melt quickly in the sauce (the sauce mustn't be too runny, because you'll put it on top of the pizza). Then let the sauce cool.
Preheat the oven (425 °F). Brush the pizza pan with oil (save some oil for later use), then stretch the dough to fit the pan. Make some dents in the dough with your fingers, put half of the sauce on the dough and then bake the pizza for 25 minutes.
Put the rest of the sauce on the pizza, then add the provolone and the breadcrumbs on top, and add the left-over oil. Bake for 5/10 more minutes: you need to melt the cheese. Here is my sfinciuni:
That's all. I really liked this recipe, but next time I will pump up the anchovies and cheese, maybe I'll add some capers, too, I'm a big fan of capers.
Buon appetito!
PS Many thanks to Gabriella for the pictures
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