How to Make a Sicilian Pizza Pie at Home: A Sfincione-Style Recipe That Actually Works

Transcript

Salvatore Russo: Before we touch any flour, I want to tell you what sfincione actually is, because in America people say 'Sicilian pizza' and they mean something quite different from what we make in Palermo. Sfincione — the word comes from sfincia, which means sponge in Sicilian — is a thick rectangular focaccia-like pizza, traditionally baked in a rimmed tray generously oiled with olive oil, topped with tomato, slow-caramelized yellow onions, anchovies, a salty sheep or goat milk cheese called caciocavallo or primo sale, a layer of coarse toasted breadcrumbs, and oregano. It is heavier than a Neapolitan pizza. It is softer than a Roman pizza al taglio. It is completely unlike what American diners call Sicilian, which is really a New York invention with mozzarella, crushed tomatoes, and a thicker bread base. Authentic sfincione is a home-kitchen recipe and a Palermo street-food recipe at the same time. In Palermo you can walk the streets during Christmas week and smell it from every bakery window — it is the traditional pizza for Christmas Eve and for the feast of San Giuseppe on the 19th of March. It is a peasant food, honestly. The topping uses day-old bread made into breadcrumbs, onions that are in every kitchen, anchovies that were cheap and preserved, and a cheese that came from the flocks in the hills. Every element is simple. The result, when you make it with care, is extraordinary — the crust is crisp on the bottom from the oil in the pan, soft and springy in the middle from the long fermentation, and the top is a sweet-salty-savory combination that is genuinely Sicilian. What we will teach you tonight is the recipe my mother taught me and that I have made for forty years. Yield is one half-sheet pan, thirteen by eighteen inches, enough to serve six to eight people comfortably.

Giulia Marino: The first decision you need to make is which flour you are going to use, and I want to give you the dough ingredient list precisely before we say anything else. For one half-sheet pan of sfincione, the dough requires: six hundred grams of flour, which is about four and three-quarters cups. For the flour, Italian tipo 00 is traditional and gives the softest crumb, but American bread flour with a protein content of twelve to thirteen percent works very well and is what most home bakers will have access to. King Arthur Bread Flour is a reliable choice. The water is four hundred twenty grams, which is about one and three-quarters cups, measured at room temperature. That is seventy percent hydration — the weight of water divided by the weight of flour — which is a high hydration that gives the airy interior Salvatore was describing. The salt is twelve grams, which is about two teaspoons of fine sea salt. This works out to two percent of the flour weight, which is the standard baker's percentage for pizza dough. Do not reduce the salt. Undersalted dough is one of the most common mistakes and makes the finished pizza taste flat no matter how good the topping is. The yeast is three grams of fresh yeast if you can get it, or one gram of active dry yeast, which is about one quarter teaspoon. This is a very small amount deliberately — the low yeast quantity paired with a long cold fermentation is what gives the deep flavor. Finally, thirty grams, about two tablespoons, of good extra-virgin olive oil goes into the dough itself. That is the complete dough recipe. Weigh everything on a kitchen scale if you have one — pizza dough rewards precision and the eighth of a teaspoon of yeast actually matters here.

Giulia Marino: Now for the topping ingredients, and here is where the specifically Sicilian character of sfincione comes through. For the topping: four hundred fifty grams, about one pound, of good canned whole San Marzano tomatoes, hand-crushed in a bowl and drained briefly — never puréed in a blender, the texture matters. Two medium yellow onions, about five hundred grams total, thinly sliced — these become caramelized before they go on the pizza, which is an essential step. Six to eight anchovy fillets packed in olive oil, coarsely chopped — if you are anchovy-averse, you can leave them out, but the small amount disappears into the topping and gives an essential depth; I suggest trying it even if you think you do not like anchovies. Two hundred grams, about seven ounces, of caciocavallo cheese, grated — this is the traditional Sicilian cheese and is increasingly available at good American cheese counters; if you cannot find it, substitute primo sale, or a provolone, or a blend of fifty percent low-moisture mozzarella and fifty percent pecorino romano, which is the combination I use when I cannot find caciocavallo in Brooklyn. Eighty grams, about three-quarters of a cup, of coarse toasted breadcrumbs, which in Italian we call pangrattato — these you can make from stale good bread toasted in the oven and then pulsed in a food processor. One tablespoon of dried oregano, preferably Sicilian if you can find it. Two tablespoons of good olive oil for drizzling on top before the bake. And sea salt to taste. That is the full ingredient list. Let Salvatore walk you through the method, because the specific timings and the reasons behind them matter and he has made this every week for forty years.

Salvatore Russo: In my kitchen, I mix this dough in a particular way, and I want to describe it clearly so you can follow along. First, warm water to about twenty-five degrees Celsius, which is seventy-seven Fahrenheit — just slightly warmer than room temperature, not hot. Crumble the fresh yeast into the water, or whisk in the active dry yeast, and let it sit two minutes. Add the flour in a large mixing bowl, make a well in the center, pour in the yeast water. Begin mixing with your hand or a wooden spoon, pulling the flour from the edges into the liquid until you have a shaggy mass. Now add the salt and the thirty grams of olive oil. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for ten to twelve minutes by hand, or eight minutes in a stand mixer with the dough hook on medium speed. The dough should become smooth, elastic, and slightly glossy. When you press it with your finger, it should spring back halfway within a few seconds. Form it into a ball, place it in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a clean damp cloth. Now the fermentation. The first rise — the bulk ferment — happens at room temperature for two hours, until the dough has nearly doubled in size. After this, and this is the secret, you transfer the bowl to the refrigerator and leave it for twenty-four to forty-eight hours for a cold retard. This is where the deep flavor develops. The yeast works slowly in the cold, the gluten network relaxes, the complex carbohydrates break down into sugars that brown beautifully in the oven. Twenty-four hours is the minimum. Forty-eight is ideal. If you try to skip this step and bake the same day, you will have a pizza that tastes like pizza. If you do the cold retard, you will have a pizza that tastes like sfincione. The difference is real. Do not skip the cold retard.

Sarah Brooks: A quick note on the pan prep, because this is where American home bakers most often get the texture wrong. You need a rimmed half-sheet pan, thirteen by eighteen inches, ideally with a light-colored aluminum or anodized-aluminum surface. Dark nonstick pans brown the bottom too quickly and leave the middle undercooked. Before you panel the dough, pour two to three tablespoons of good olive oil into the pan and spread it with a brush or paper towel across the entire bottom and up the sides. This oil is essential — it is what fries the bottom of the dough during baking and gives you the characteristic crisp golden underside. Do not skimp. Take your cold dough out of the refrigerator. It will be stiff and reluctant. Place it in the center of the oiled pan. Let it come to room temperature and relax for thirty to forty-five minutes — cover it loosely with plastic so it does not dry out. When it has softened, use your fingertips to press and stretch it outward toward the corners of the pan, working from the center. If the dough resists and springs back, let it rest another ten minutes and try again. Do not force it. After five to seven minutes of patient stretching, the dough will fill the pan corner to corner. Now the second proof: cover loosely with a clean cloth and let it rest for thirty to forty-five minutes at room temperature. During this rest, it should become visibly puffy and the surface will develop a few small bubbles. While it proofs, this is the time to caramelize your onions. Slice them thinly, cook them in two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low heat with a pinch of salt, stirring occasionally, for fifteen to twenty minutes until they are soft, deeply golden, and sweet. Set them aside. Now you are ready to top.

Sarah Brooks: Here is how to assemble and bake, with specific temperatures and times so you can hit this right in a standard American home oven. Preheat your oven to four hundred seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, which is two hundred forty-five degrees Celsius. Position the oven rack in the lowest position — this is counterintuitive to what most Americans do, but for sfincione you want the bottom of the pan close to the heating element to get that crisp golden underside. Preheat the oven for at least thirty minutes before baking, longer is better — home ovens need extended preheat to fully saturate the oven cavity with heat. Now the topping. On your proofed dough in the pan: first, spread the hand-crushed drained tomatoes evenly, leaving about a one-inch border around the edge. Do not put too much tomato — you want a thin coat, not a pool, because wet tomato will make the crust soggy. Next, distribute the caramelized onions evenly over the tomato. Then scatter the chopped anchovies if you are using them. Then sprinkle the two hundred grams of grated cheese evenly over the top. Finally, the toasted breadcrumbs go over everything — about eighty grams, a generous three-quarters of a cup — which is the specifically Sicilian signature of sfincione and gives a beautiful crust to the top. Drizzle two tablespoons of good olive oil over the entire surface. Sprinkle the oregano evenly. Transfer the pan to the lowest rack of the preheated oven. Bake for twenty-two to twenty-six minutes. The pizza is done when the bottom is crisp-golden — you can lift an edge with a spatula to check — and the top is bubbling, the cheese is melted and slightly browned in places, and the breadcrumbs are deep golden. Pull it out. Let it rest on the counter for five minutes. Cut it into squares — typically a three-by-four grid gives twelve generous squares. Serve warm.

Giulia Marino: What most people get wrong, and where the recipe usually fails in American home kitchens, is worth naming specifically because the fixes are easy once you know them. First mistake: undersalting. The twelve grams of salt in the dough — two teaspoons — sounds like a lot and many home bakers reduce it. Do not. A pizza with salt correctly measured tastes the way it is supposed to; a pizza with half the salt tastes like a wet blanket no matter how fresh the ingredients. Second mistake: wet toppings. Canned tomatoes that have not been drained, onions that were not fully caramelized (and still hold their raw water), fresh mozzarella that is dripping — all of these dump water onto the dough during baking and produce a soggy bottom. Hand-crush the tomatoes and drain them briefly in a sieve. Caramelize the onions until they are visibly dry-looking and sweet. Use low-moisture cheese. Third mistake: not enough oil in the pan. Two to three tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of the pan is what fries the underside of the dough during baking and gives you the characteristic sfincione crust. Home bakers who use a thin coat get a dry undercrust. Be generous. Fourth mistake: too little preheat. A home oven needs thirty to forty-five minutes of preheat at 475°F to fully saturate with heat. If you bake into a partially-preheated oven, the dough sets before it rises and the crust is dense instead of airy. Fifth mistake: skipping the cold retard. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the refrigerator after the first rise is what develops the flavor that distinguishes sfincione from generic pizza. If you have to skip it, your pizza will still be edible but will not be what it should be. Plan ahead. Start the dough Friday evening, bake Sunday dinner. That is the traditional rhythm and it is the rhythm the recipe was designed for.

Salvatore Russo: When I was learning from my mother in Palermo, she told me something I want to pass along to you now. Sfincione is a family recipe, which means every family has its own version and you should not be afraid to make it your own once you have mastered the base. In Palermo you will find the version we taught you tonight — tomato, caramelized onion, anchovy, caciocavallo, breadcrumbs. In Catania on the east coast, sfincione is often thinner and sometimes uses a simple tomato-and-basil topping more like a focaccia-margherita. In Bagheria, just outside Palermo, they put extra breadcrumbs on top, almost doubled. In my mother's house, when it was not Christmas Eve and we were making it for a Tuesday-night dinner, she would sometimes add small pieces of cooked sausage, or roasted red peppers, or substitute half the tomatoes for olives. This is the spirit of a home recipe. You learn the base version, you make it well five or six times, and then you start to experiment. If you are making this for a holiday meal, keep it traditional. If you are making it for a Wednesday night, make it your own. The other thing my mother taught me is that pizza is a shared food. Sfincione is never made for one person. It is made for the family, for the neighbors who drop in, for the Sunday lunch when everyone is in the kitchen at the same time. The effort of two days of fermentation and forty-five minutes of stretching and twenty-five minutes of baking is returned to you in the shared meal at the table. So when you make this at home, make it for people you want to feed. Pour the good wine. Put the pan in the center of the table. Cut it into squares so that each person can take one in their hand. Eat while it is warm. That is the recipe. That is what sfincione is. Buon appetito.