The salt in the pizza dough

Salt has a very important task in 'pizza dough. Thanks to its action, and its antiseptic properties, acts on the very slowing rising fermentation of bacteria, such as lactic acid, and acetic bacteria omofermentati. Its action on the formation of gluten is known to all the pizza makers and all those who work daily with the products for bakery. Its interaction with the proteins present in flour, glutenin and gladina give consistency to the mass.

The salt in the dough pizza

Also known are the properties of a preservative salt, which prevent the proliferation of bacteria, therefore the deterioration of our dough.

The salt also reduces the development of carbon dioxide in our dough, giving us a large bubbles of gluten network regular and homogeneous.

It should be made very carefully during the making of the dough, does not enter the salt never in contact with the yeast, This would burn the yeast cells that lose its properties to transform the sugars in the dough ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide.

What would happen to our dough if we forget to add salt? The dough without salt, would be sticky, difficult to work. We will notice right away that the color of the mixture without salt is much more white than a paste with salt, but it is during the rising phase that we realize we be forgotten to add salt, the dough lieviterebbe very quickly without going to the maturation.

When you add the salt in the dough?

If you are preparing the pizza to your home and you are using a weak flour(plain white flour OO) you could add the beginning, together with the flour, This will help the dough is tough, with good gluten network. If you are using a strong flour (w up to 240) the salt should always be added to the closing of the dough.

The amount of salt to the pizza dough goes from 40 to 60 grams per liter of water.

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Parma ham on pizza

The ham, must always be added over the freshly baked pizza, should never be cooked in the oven.

Parma ham on pizza

Clarified this premise that I felt I must mention, we now turn to aesthetics. Some nice slice willing to well above the pizza to cover all ingredients, would seem to be the best solution, but, alas ... one of the most gruesome things I notice observing customers in pizzerias, occurs when the customer tries to cut a slice of pizza to eat with prosciutto over. Often, prosciutto does not want to learn to be cut with pizza, then they end up cutting the ham separately and then trying in every way to reassemble on the same pizza. Ugh how much work ....

In my opinion it would be more appropriate to cut the ham into small slices, the size of a mouthful, the pizza does not lose in aesthetics, and the customer will have less difficulty in cutting and eating pizza topped with prosciutto.

This also applies to all other meats that may have the same consistency of the raw ham, one for all: the speck.

There are some exceptions for which the ham must be cooked in the oven, and they can be when they prepare pants and stuffed pizzas with prosciutto, in these cases will not be fully cooked ham being in the filling, but will warm up soon.

And, I happened also that some customers asked that the same ham on pizza was cooked in the oven, but with poor results, because you know that the ham after cooking becomes salty, almost inedible.

One recommendation that I would rather give the holders of pizzerias and employees spending, is to not buy ham dubious origin,with various preservatives, and which has the appearance of a piece of raw meat, I understand it is a very expensive ingredient, but a possible saving 20 cents per pizza there would enrich, on the contrary, serving a ham not quality, run the risk of losing some customers.

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