John Myers
Pinsa sounds like mumbling ‘pizza’, but it’s different according to the recipe. Taken out of the oven, both topped flatbreads look confusingly similar. Nevertheless, there are differences. We describe here what they are. We also have a recipe to try.
Pinsa: The recipe is based on pizza
A fresh wind is blowing – or rather a scent – through ovens and pizzerias: Pinsa has recently been served alongside popular pizza variants. These flatbreads, with your choice of vegetables, ham, mushrooms, cheese, and more, may look like pizza, but they taste and are prepared differently.
- Briefly explained: The difference lies in the dough. According to Italian tradition, pizza yeast dough is made very simply: wheat flour, water, yeast, some salt and sugar, and a little oil – knead everything, let it rise for a maximum of one hour, and done.
- Pinsa dough is distinguished from pizza by three features: Different flours are mixed in – in addition to wheat, soy, and rice, for example – sourdough loosens it and it is given more time to rise – from a minimum of 24 hours to three days.
- This makes the dough airier and easier to digest. For those who have trouble with conventional grain products, Pinsa is a worthwhile try.
- The Italian entrepreneur Corrado Di Marco is considered to be the inventor of the Pinsa, who in 2001 registered the baking process that had been practiced in his family business for a long time.
- He chose the name ‘Pinsa’ for marketing reasons alone. Phonetically, this is related to well-known dishes such as pizza, while the name goes back to the Latin ‘insure’.
- Pinterest means something like ‘crush’ – a reference to the processing of the bubble-rich dough before topping. It’s more likely to be expressed, but not rolled like a pizza or formed in the air.
- So the typical outer shape of the Pinsa is not round, but rather an elongated oval. It is topped either spartanly with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary or – similar to pizzas – with tomato sauce and various toppings.
Try it out: prepare the pizza dough
You may have to get some ingredients, especially the so-called ‘Lievito Madre’ for pizza dough if you haven’t already baked Italian ciabatta or wheat sourdough bread and have leftover ingredients. A food processor with a kneading function is helpful.
- Ingredients for Pinsa: 350 g wheat or spelled flour (type 830 or type 1), 50 g rice flour, 50 g soy, lupine, or chickpea flour, 1 pinch fresh yeast, 50 g Lievito Madre (Italian natural sourdough), 310 ml cold water, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp olive oil.
- First, dissolve the yeast in some cold water.
- Add this to the flour along with the natural sourdough (Lievito Madre). Also, add salt and olive oil.
- Now you need to mix and knead everything well. A food processor will do this for you. The kneading time is about 20 to 30 minutes. Add a little water if the dough is too stiff.
- Let the dough rest in the food processor for about half an hour, turning it on again about every 10 minutes for about 1 minute so that the dough is well processed.
- Then pack the dough in a bowl that you cover and put it in the fridge. You should give it a rest for at least one day, three days is even better.
- On the day of preparation, take the dough out of the fridge a few hours before baking. Divide it into four to five portions.
- Form these into oval pieces of dough, place them on a baking tray and cover them with a cloth at room temperature for about an hour.
- Finally, press and pull each piece of dough flat into an oval shape and top as desired.
- It is baked at around 200 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on the topping and the thickness of the dough.
