Gabriele Bonci's Broccolini And Mortadella Pizza

The long awaited English translation of Gabriele Bonci's book on pizza finally arrived last Tuesday. So I spent the rest of the week browsing through the recipes trying to decide on which to try. Broccolini And Mortadella won out.

The first step (and by far the most time consuming) is making the dough. That process is documented in detail in the book and on many other blogs, so I'll skip it here. I made a full batch of the white dough recipe: 

White Pizza Dough

Recipe by Gabriele Bonci

Ingredients

• 1 Kg. Bread Flour
• 700-800 gm. Water
• 7 gm. Instant yeast (1 packet)
• 20 gm. Sea salt
• 40 gm. Olive Oil

Cooking Directions

1. Combine the flour and yeast, mixing well.
2. Add the water and mix until a shaggy mass forms.
3. And the remaining ingredients and mix for a few minutes until well combined. The dough will be rather wet.
4. Let the dough rise, covered for 1 hour.
5. Dump the dough onto a very well floured surface and gently shape it into a rough rectangle with a short side nearest you.
6. Fold the top 1/3 of the rectangle down to the center and press it down gently.
7. Fold the bottom third up over the center and press it down.
8. Turn the dough 90 degrees, re-shape the rectangle and repeat the folding.
9. And do it again.
10. And again.
11. Put the dough back in it's bowl and let it rest for 15 minutes.
12. Repeat the folding and resting 3 more times.
13. After a final resting divide the dough into 3 or 4 equal balls and place them in the refrigerator in lightly oiled bowls and covered tightly in plastic wrap, overnight.
14. The dough balls may also be frozen or simply allowed to rise in a cool place until you're ready to bake.

Two 600 gm. dough balls

I'm already pretty familiar with Bonci style dough and knew that it would take about 600 grams to fill my small jellyroll pan. So I divided the full batch into three balls: 2 for the pizza and 1 went into the freezer for next week. Those two went into a couple large bowls for the final fermentation. Since I would be using them in just a few hours I put them out on our rather chilly porch instead of overnighting them in the refrigerator.

Broccolini And Mortadella Pizza Filling

Recipe by Adapted from Gabriele Bonci

Ingredients

• 250 gm. Broccolini or Broccoli raab, Chopped
• 125 gm. Mortadella
• Salt
• Olive Oil
• Lemon Juice

Once the dough is made the process is simple.

Stretch one ball so it fills the pan. That's an aluminum 1/4 sheet pan about 10.5 x 15.15 inches.

That's Broccoli Raab

Spread on the chopped broccolini, lightly dressed with olive oil and a little salt. I used broccoli raab, which is a lot more leafy than broccolini.

Stretch the other dough ball and place it on top. Bake at 500 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Carefully lift off the top crust and give the broccolini  spritz of lemon juice, then layer on the Mortadella.

Put the top back on and let it cool a few minutes, then slice and eat.