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Pizza Margherita

This is a very simple pizza that's great as an appetizer. I read somewhere that it was named after an Italian queen, Margherita, in the nineteenth century in Rome. But you can't believe anything you read, so I'm not standing behind it.

Preheat the oven to 420 degrees, and a large cookie sheet or a pizza stone in to get warm. It's really important that these be hot when you put the pizza onto them. I think

Get yourself a good pizza dough. I don't know how to make it. There are lots of recipes out there, but none ever work for me. I buy the Trader Joe's pizza dough, which is great. Dust the dough with flour, and roll it out very thin on a large cutting board. I like to make large rectangular ones, just the size of my cookie sheets, but you can do small ones, round ones for pizza stones, whatever floats your boat.

Lift up the rolled-out dough, and generously spread a layer of cornmeal underneath. Cornmeal works like little ball-bearings here, and is going to make the pizza slide more easily off the board onto the cookie sheet or pizza stone. Also, I think it keeps the bottom surface of the dough out of contact with the cookie sheet, which allows air to circulate underneath the pizza, cooking the crust more quickly and thoroughly.

Spread your favorite pizza sauce onto the dough in a thin layer. I often use my favorite canned spaghetti sauce, or a homemade marinara sauce. Then tear up some fresh basil leaves and scatter them over the sauce. Finally, top it all with thin slices of good mozzarella. I prefer slices to grated mozzarella for reasons that I can't quite articulate. Somehow it's just better... maybe it's because it leaves less total cheese.

Take out your cookie sheet or pizza stone, and spread some more cornmeal over the surface. Now the hard part: slide the pizza off the board onto the cookie sheet in one swift motion. You'll almost certainly fail. Don't panic. Try to get things back in order as best you can, and throw it into the oven. Cook for abut ten minutes, or until the cheese has melted and just starts to brown.

That's it. Simple, easy, great. You can use this as a base for other pizzas, adding meats or vegetables, get creative. But this is nice because it is so simple, you really taste the basil and the sauce.

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