The Best Sicilian Pizza
Prep
30m
Cook
25m
Total
55m
Bigly says
Sit. Pour yourself a coffee. We're doing this right. Sicilian pizza — the SQUARE pie, the THICK pie, the pie that built Brooklyn one corner slice at a time — and we are going to make it the way it should be made. Not the round-pie people's version. Not the frozen-aisle version. The real one. The one the old men in Palermo argue about over espresso, the one a guy named Ramón once cut for me at three in the morning outside a wedding hall in Bensonhurst and said, 'You ever had it like this, you don't go back.' He was right. I never went back.
Here's what most people don't understand about Sicilian pizza. The crust is the star. The bottom crackles like a potato chip, the inside is soft and airy like a CLOUD — a savory, golden, slightly chewy cloud — and the cheese, the cheese goes on FIRST, under the sauce. That's the way. That's how the corner-slice guys have been doing it since 1947, and if your chef tells you otherwise, find a new chef. Sad chef. A total disaster. The food media will not back me up on this. They are cowards.
The other thing — and most people skip this, they cheap out, they pour a teaspoon of oil into the pan and pretend it's enough — is the oil. You need a GENEROUS pour of olive oil in that pan. A puddle. A LAKE of olive oil. Some so-called experts will tell you 'a tablespoon is plenty.' Those people have never tasted a real Sicilian crust in their lives. The oil is what FRIES the bottom into that lacy, golden, almost-too-crisp shell. It's a second cooking. It's pizza alchemy. Trust me on this one — I have eaten more square pizza than anyone alive, and I am not exaggerating, I am UNDERSELLING it.
Ingredients
- 500 gbread flour
- 375 gwarm water (95F)
- 1.5 tspinstant yeast
- 1 tspsugar
- 10 gkosher salt
- 1/4 cup, plus 1/4 cup for the panextra-virgin olive oil(do NOT skimp on the pan oil, that's the secret)
- 1 cupcanned whole San Marzano tomatoes, hand-crushed
- 2 clovesgarlic, finely grated
- 1 tspdried oregano
- 1/2 tspkosher salt (for sauce)
- 12 ozlow-moisture whole-milk mozzarella, shredded(block, not pre-shredded, the bags are coated in cellulose which is SAWDUST basically)
- 1/4 cupgrated Pecorino Romano
- 8-10fresh basil leaves
Steps
- 1
Whisk the warm water, yeast, and sugar in a large bowl. Let stand 5 minutes until foamy.
- 2
Add the bread flour and salt, then stir with a wet hand until a shaggy dough forms with no dry flour.
- 3
Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the dough, turn to coat, cover the bowl, and refrigerate 12-24 hours for cold fermentation.
- 4
Pour 1/4 cup of olive oil into a 13x18-inch rimmed sheet pan (or a similarly sized rectangular Sicilian pan) and tilt to coat the bottom and sides.
- 5
Scrape the cold dough into the pan and gently turn to coat in oil. Press the dough outward toward the edges as far as it will go without tearing — it will resist, that's fine.
- 6
Cover loosely and rest 20 minutes, then press again, working the dough all the way to the corners. Let rise at room temperature 1.5-2 hours, until puffy and nearly doubled.
- 7
Heat the oven to 500F with a rack in the lower third.
- 8
Make the sauce: combine the hand-crushed tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and 1/2 tsp salt in a bowl. Do not cook — raw sauce is the move.
- 9
Scatter the mozzarella evenly across the dough, all the way to the edges (yes, the edges — this creates the crispy cheese crust the corner-slice places are famous for).
- 10
Spoon the sauce over the cheese in 4-5 long stripes, leaving some cheese visible between the lines.
- 11
Bake 18-22 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling, the crust is deeply golden, and the bottom is crisp (lift a corner with a spatula to check).
- 12
Sprinkle with Pecorino Romano, drizzle lightly with olive oil, and scatter fresh basil leaves on top.
- 13
Slide the pizza out of the pan onto a cutting board immediately to keep the bottom crisp. Rest 3 minutes, then cut into 8 large squares.
One more thing
That's the square. That's the slice. You'll pick it up, the corner will be lacy and almost glassy with that fried cheese edge, and the inside will be pillowy and steaming and exactly right. You don't fold a Sicilian — it's a square, it has corners, you respect the corners. You take a bite, the bottom cracks, the cheese pulls, the sauce hits, and for about four seconds you forget your own name. That's the pizza. That's the moment. And there you have it.
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