Pizza al tegame or al montanara - fried pizza in English

"An excellent variety of pizza if carefully made." Elizabeth David

Then there's also pizza fritta, panzerotto, al padellino and al tegamino. Not to mention Scottish fried pizza - yes Scottish.

When I was working and the boys were still at home I occasionally made Elizabeth David's Pizza al Tegame which is fried pizza made with dough that has baking powder rather than yeast in it to make it rise. It was absolutely delicious and very quick to do and when I think about it I think that I was better at making that than at normal pizza. I'm not very proud of my own pizzas. They're alright but nothing special, whereas the fried one was puffier, crisper and tastier. Though because it's fried I guess it's less healthy. I'm not sure why I thought of it today, but however I did I have decided to cook it for dinner tonight and also decided to do a blog on it. See if it was really authentic. Though it's Elizabeth David, so surely authentic?

And indeed Pizza al Tegame really is. If you type that into Google you mostly get stuff that is all in Italian. There are very few articles in English. Type in fried pizza and its a different story. And an interesting one too.

But first of all back to Elizabeth David. I give you her recipe here, but there is also a version on the net on a site called Rush that Speaks, made with mushrooms, that has some useful tips as you go along, and also Delia uses it, and acknowledges it in a recipe she calls Pan-fried Pizza Amalfitan. Worth noting perhaps is that Delia finishes her pizza off under the grill - as do others (I'll come to them later). In the meantime here is the original recipe.

PIZZA AL TEGAME

A dish that may be made in a hurry, baking powder instead of yeast being used in the dough, which is therefore cooked as soon as it is prepared, not left to rise.

110g plain flour, a good teaspoonful of baking powder, a little water, salt.

For the topping: 4 or 5 fresh tomatoes, 6 anchovy fillets, oregano or basil, 75g mozzarella cheese. Olive oil for frying.

Put the flour in a mound on the pastry board, make a well in the centre, put in the salt and the baking powder and 2 tablespoonfuls of water. Make into a dough, adding a little more water to make it the right consistency. Knead for a few minutes, then roll out into a thin round about 18cm in diameter.

In a heavy frying pan, heat enough oil to come level with the top of the disc of dough. When it is hot, but not smoking, put in the ungarnished pizza and cook it steadily, but not too fast for 5 minutes. When the underside is golden, turn it over. Now spread on it the prepared tomatoes (skinned and chopped), anchovies and oregano or basil. After 2 minutes add the sliced cheese, and cover the pan until the cheese is melted. The entire process of cooking takes about 10 minutes.

Elizabeth David doesn't say how many people this will feed, though Delia thinks just one. I reckon two. Well that's what I'm going for anyway. You could of course make smaller individual ones too, and you can obviously change the topping to suit yourself. I shall be including salami and ham for example.

al tegame 1

al tegame 2

Delia also has a recipe for Frying pan pizza which has a pastry base with no raising agents at all - so a thinner crust it looks to me. It is then fried as in Elizabeth David's recipe but she does finish it off under the grill.

Having now looked at several different websites I think that the original dish originated in Naples, although all the versions of the story that I saw talked about using the normal kind of pizza dough made with yeast - which is then fried and usually finished in the oven like a normal pizza with the usual kind of toppings. I think this is the version called montanara and it has become really big in America. In Naples it was fried because most people could not afford an oven - and probably couldn't be bothered to go down the street and use the baker's oven. And they've been doing it forever - even before the tomato, when other toppings were used - some of them sweet.

A variation of this is a kind of street food - the panzerotto:

"Panzerotto, n, masculine. Pocket of pizza dough folded into a half moon and stuffed with tomatoes and mozzarella, occasionally variants like pesto, then deep fried and served steaming hot, to go. Originally from Naples. Frequently used as an alcohol sponge, dinner substitute, salty dessert and/or pre-happy hour thirst instigator."

The Daily Asker

And now that I think about it I think this particular thing was recommended to us by the first Italian taxi driver we ever encountered. My Italian was very basic back then so I probably didn't quite understand what he was saying. Anyway in this version you take two pieces of pizza dough, or fold one in half, putting your filling in the middle. You seal it and deep fry and voilà panzerotto.

I also saw pictures of this type of thing that looked a bit more like fried cornish pasties or mini calzone I suppose:

I did find a recipe by Stefano Manfredi which varied the concept of the stuffed thing, by frying little bits of pizza dough and then topping with cheese tomato and basil. It looked quite nice. A bit of a cheat but probably really good for a party. If you want to fry things at a party that is. Simple, except you have to make the pizza dough.

Then there is Scottish deep-fried pizza. Why the Scottish I wonder. Whatever the reason, it is indeed a Scottish thing. And even here there are variations. The simplest is to simply deep fry a premade pizza. Or the pizza is dipped in batter and then deep fried. They can be served with or without chips, with or without salt and vinegar, or brown sauce, salt and vinegar, and sometimes the pizza is folded over the chips. Really, really, really not healthy.

I confess I tried quite hard to find a picture of one that looked tempting. Most of the pictures I found looked truly revolting. These two don't look too bad.

scottish deep fried 2

scottish deep fried

To return to the original impulse for this post - Elizabeth David's pizza al tegame. Every other version I saw used dough made with yeast. Although maybe this is the tegamino version. And most of them either finished the pizza in the oven after the first side had been fried, or under the grill. But then I also found that Jill Dupleix had a recipe for a baking powder pizza base, that Robert Carrier enthusiastically endorsed in his New Great Dishes of the World book. Neither of them talked about frying it though - just baking as usual. It's slightly different from Elizabeth David's so here it is.

JILL DUPLEIX'S PIZZA BASE

50g butter, 350g self-raising flour, Up to 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 200ºC.

Cube butter and process in blender with flour on a store-start, stop-start basis until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add milk and lemon juice, ands to-start until it gathers into a ball. (Throw in more flour if too wet.)

Turn dough onto floured board and knead lightly, and roll or pat out to round or square shape.

Pinch edge, slightly to rain it.

Add your choice of toppings, drizzle with a little olive oil, and bake for 15 minutes.

Remove tray and bak for another 5 minutes or so, until base is crisp and topping is perfect.

I'm going to be pure and stick to Elizabeth David. I don't think I'll even finish it in the oven or under the grill. I don't have the right cheese (mozzarella), but I often didn't anyway. A mix of cheddar and parmesan will have to do. And I hope it will look as tasty as this or the one at the top of the page: