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This is the most classic pizza you can ever get in the world. It is the recipe for the first ever pizza that was made for a Royal in Naples. The dough came from somewhere tracing back to Ancient Roman times as we all know bread has been a food staple for thousands of years. This recipe was developed after tasting endless versions of the classic American plain pizza, Brooklyn Pizza (the first brick oven pizza joint in America), traveling through Italy on a pizza food crawl and the best I had was obviously in the Neopolitan area. I tasted buffalo cheese pizza and it cost a whopping 5 Euros. I’m being so sarcstic. The truffled pizza in Salerno rivaled that version- but nothing compares to the pizza found in Naples and the seafood savored in the Amalfi Coast.

I originally developed this recipe for Mealthy.com a few years ago. It’s so popular, the recipe has remained on their home page ever since the launch of the site! Thanks Mealthy!

Here’s the Margherita recipe I developed, wrote, styled, and photographed.

Margherita Pizza

Try this modern take on the classic Neapolitan favorite. It is traditionally made with marinara sauce, and this one uses fresh tomatoes in it’s place.

Basic Pizza Dough

3/4 cup lukewarm water

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

Margherita Pizza

1 pizza dough recipe

8 ounces Mozzarella cheese, shredded

2 cups Cherry tomatoes, sliced

handful fresh basil leaves

Combine lukewarm water and yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes.

Brush large bowl lightly with olive oil. Mix 2 cups flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add yeast mixture and 3 tablespoons oil, process until the dough forms a sticky ball. Knead with your hands for about 5 minutes. Form into a ball and transfer to a bowl covered with olive oil.

Split pizza dough in half.

Using a small 9” pizza pan, spread about a tablespoon of olive oil to coat the pan. Form a ball with one half of the dough and spread out using your fingers. You will push the dough with your fingers until it reaches the end of the pan. If you are using a sheet tray, do not divide the dough in half. Spread the dough into a rectangle shape.

Add mozzarella cheese. Spread it evenly.

Place the Cherry tomatoes over the mozzarella cheese. Cover as much of the cheese as you can. When the tomatoes cook in the oven, they will melt into the cheese.

Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Place pizza in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until the crust is a golden brown color.

Remove from oven, garnish with fresh Basil leaves and slice the pizza into eight pieces using a pizza slicer or a sharp knife.

You can always purchase pizza dough at your local super market or make it ahead of time and freeze it to save your time.

Pozole is traditionally made with hominy, a round up corn (maize) that is Indigenously American. The process involves maize such as flint corn soaked in an alkaline solution to dissolve the hard outer layer called the pericarp. That process, nixtamalization, is how corn hominy is made, which is ground into masa for tortillas. We often overlook the fact that Mexican cuisine is a cultural marriage between the colonies and Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. I love the fact that I know the difference and can see the influence, whether it be Spain, Portugal, English, or French, and even Dutch origins. I’ve been collecting recipes from my favorite chefs and this one by Aaron Sanchez- known as the “Spicy Chef” by Alex and Daniel is pretty groovy.

I went to the ICC Edu culinary demo last week and ran into a few familiar faces. I saw mostly students at the beginning of their culinary journey. I like to call them the “DREAMERS”. The youngnins who are still dreaming of becoming great chefs. I was once one of these guys, waiting to go out into the world and become a great food personality. My level 5 instructor- Chef Ray spoiled us. We used to walk into class with a stovetop full of roundeus filled with beef stock and veal stock all warmed up ready to be reduced by us or already on it’s way. He also prepared our mine en place, brought out the produce, warmed up our pans and it wasn’t until we reached level 6 that we realized he really was spoiling us with this trick. We met our new chef and he just laughed when we asked where everything was. And after graduation, it just got worse or more real.

Since I took the styling, photography, and journalism route- I had to really learn how to be self sufficient. My years of working as an assistant humbled me to say the least. Also Private Cheffing means it’s a solo one man show. You buy everything, prep everything, cook everything, and wash the dishes afterwards. Sometimes you need to stay and serve the guests and cleanup afterwards. That’s why these chefs make an average of 100 big G’s a year or more. I did that for about 6 years.

I was impressed by Aaron’s knife skills. He chopped an onion in 30 seconds and julienned a radish in 15 seconds. Okay- he definitely knows how to cook! This means he’s a seasoned chef that’s been cooking for a very long time. In fact, thanks to his mother Zarela Martinez- I’ve got the scoop on exactly how long he’s been cooking. He started rotating through all the stations at Zarela’s in his preteen years and eventually staged somewhere. Went to culinary school and published his first cookbook with the help of his mother and grandmother. His food is very different from mama’s, it combines American classics with traditional Mexican and it’s made for a wider audience.

Pozole Rojo

Recie by Aarón Sánchez

Serves 8

One 6-pound boneless pork butt

1 quart chicken stock (low-sodium store-bought is fine)

1 head garlic, separated into cloves and peeled

Salt

1 teaspoon dried whole oregano (preferably Mexican), crumbled

2½ cup Chile Colorado Sauce

Three 15-ounce cans white hominy, drained

Garnish

Vegetable oil, for frying

8 corn tortillas, cut into thin strips

Finely chopped white onion

Thinly sliced radishes

Lime wedges

Dried whole oregano (preferably Mexican)

1. Put the pork in a large heavy stockpot or Dutch oven. Add 3 quarts water, the stock, garlic, and 1 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil. Skim off and discard any foam that rises to the surface. Stir in the oregano, reduce the heat, and simmer gently, uncovered, until the pork is tender, about 3 hours.
2. Lift the pork out of the broth onto a cutting board. Shred the pork with two forks and return it to the broth along with the Chile Colorado Sauce and hominy and another teaspoon of salt.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. While the pozole cooks, line a baking sheet with paper towels. Pour ½ inch of vegetable oil into a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the surface shimmers but the oil is not smoking (if it is, reduce the heat!), fry the tortilla strips in batches – so you don’t crowd the skillet – just until they’re golden brown, about 3 minutes per batch. Transfer them to the paper towels to drain and sprinkle them very lightly with salt while they’re still hot.
5. Serve bowls of pozole with the tortilla strips and bowls of onion, radish slices, lime wedges, and oregano and let your guests garnish their own servings.

Chile Colorado Sauce

Makes 2 quarts

3 medium Spanish or white onions, quartered

8 medium fresh tomatillos, husked and washed

4 plum tomatoes, cored and quartered

8 whole garlic cloves, peeled

Olive oil, for drizzling

1 ancho chile (½ ounce), stemmed, seeded, and deveined

2 guajillo chiles (½ ounce), stemmed, seeded, and deveined

1 quart chicken stock (low-sodium store-bought is fine)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the broiler.
2. Put the onion, tomatillos, tomatoes and garlic on a baking pan and drizzle them with olive oil. Put the baking sheet under the broiler and cook without turning until the vegetables start to get charred, about 7 minutes. Remove, set aside, and let cool to room temperature.
3. In a large dry skillet over medium-low heat, toast the guajillos, turning them over halfway through, just until they smell great, about 1 minute. Transfer them to a bowl, cover them with hot water and let them soak until they’re soft, about 30 minutes. Drain the chiles and discard the soaking water.
4. Combine the vegetables and chiles in a blender with the chicken stock (you’ll have to work in batches) and puree until the mixture is very smooth. Transfer each batch to a bowl as it’s done, and stir the batches together well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for up to a month.

I always get asked: How did you become a food photographer by aspiring Culinary Students. It’s refreshing to meet the babies of the culinary world who are not yet jaded, or haven’t experienced showing up to work a few hours early because it’s prep day for the holidays and you know you’ll need the extra three hours to break down all the lamb chops, make all your sauces, prep the vegetable mise en place, and all the hot soups- in addition to your normal prep list for the day. Culinary students are still dreaming of becoming the Next Food Network Star or a contestant on Chopped. They are as I was- eager to get into the Food Network Kitchens. Oh how fate has taken me elsewhere! – We’ll get back to that later on…

While earning my 600 hour Grand Diplome in Classic Culinary Arts from the then French Culinary Institute, I started trailing and assisting a few food stylists. I introduced myself to the right people who connected me to my first job. She was really good and had a solid list of bookings. I didn’t get paid for many jobs before I got my first paycheck. You have to earn that first check. I’ve met some stylists along the way that barely cooked while volunteers and assistants prepped and cooked. The food stylist finished the job by assembling the plates. I was told by my first mentor- I needed one year of restaurant cooking experience. I needed this year in order to rotate all the stations, pick up speed, and most importantly to become disciplined.

I spent my first year after graduating working at a restaurant group in Midtown. Do I have to mention which one? You could ask my coworkers. We’re still friends in Social Media. Once you cook together, you always cook together- unless it’s that shady dude who stole your mise en place because he was lazy. I’ve never heard of him since I left the restaurant and ended up working as an editorial assistant for Saveur Magazine. I learned how to work around an editorial calendar and edit my stories. I learned how to research, even for a small paragraph in the printed version. I learned how to work with digital deadlines vs print deadlines. There is a difference. It’s YUGE! I also started developing recipes for Food2 and learned how to photograph food one recipe at a time. I experimented, I bought props, I collected dozens and dozens of props. My house is filled with props. One version of  everything. I learned how to make your own props- these steps are mostly skipped by regular food stylists since they only cook and style the food.

It wasn’t until I met my real mentor, Francesco Tonelli who works with high end restaurants and chefs- that I really learned my craft. Actually it was the beginning of learning the right way. Before Tonelli- I was studying different styling methods. Yes there is such a thing. Tonelli was different. He had extra layers of experience. He used to teach at the CIA. Before that, he worked at La Cucina Italiana, before that- he worked in restaurant kitchens for 20 years! And he was Italian and who doesn’t love an Italian chef with an accent who loves food? Tonelli was better than all the others before him, because he had the experience of working as an executive chef and you could just tell from the lingo. I almost wanted to call him chef- and we ran his small studio like one. He also cared about feeding his staff. I didn’t realize until recently how important it is to feed others. Even if your boss is a mean boss who snaps at you all the time- if they love to feed you because you work for them- that means they care about your wellness, so you can perform better. Only a chef would call meals, family meal. We didn’t just eat a sandwich or a plated protein, carb, veg combo. We had courses of food. The first time I worked with Francesco- we had pasta, salad, fruit for dessert, with wine during lunch. This seemed like an oddity until I went to Italy and consumed all my meals this way that I realized it was a way of eating everyday- that I hadn’t experienced before.

I never stopped working as a weekly contributor to Food Network’s sister site, Food2. This relationship went on for over a year. I began during my time as a culinary student. I learned how to cook vegetables. I learned how to eat vegetables and I learned how to research, find, and write about vegetables. After Food2 got shuttered, I received a call from one of the department executives who hired me at Cooking Channel. I worked on the migration and relaunch project. I did everything they asked me to do and a little bit more. I went to Korea for a week during the Sandy Storm, and while I was enjoying my days tasting my heart away- I set the alarm for conference calls at 1:00am S. Korea time, 11:00 or 12:00pm NY time. I went into my hotel room after the end of the tour day photographing thousands of Korean food photos, uploaded my files and switched over to work on my computer programming work for the Cooking Channel. Yeah- that’s like being on Chopped! LOL…

When I came back from Korea, I went to bed for about four hours and had coffee to go back to programming. No seriously- this is what it’s like when you really want something. During the programming- I was asked to curate food photos. We curated food photos along with all that happy content you see in the front page and back page, and bio page, and recipe page, and oops you’re on the wrong page, pages. We programmed photo galleries, promo pages, banners, recipes, etc, etc, anything with words and photos got programmed. Then came videos, they too get programmed into the website, and then when you think you’re almost done- your boss tells you there’s a problem with the images. They don’t fit into the box. So they need to be fixed. After running through some workarounds and samples- you figure out what’s wrong and how to fix the issue (okay someone else did this job). I ended up looking at thousands and thousands of food images for a few weeks. I’ll recognize any visual content on Cookingchanneltv.com from launch date-2012. I performed similar duties for the Food Network site and looked at those food images for over a year

By the time I left Food Network, I decided I wanted to pursue food photography full time, and lucky me! I ended up working as a volunteer for the James Beard Foundation, covering their tasting dinners. Eating this type of food on a regular basis. My palette is refined. It’s forever changed. I’m a bit damaged now- as I could never go back to eating mediocre food for the rest of my life. I can tell when the food is not properly executed. I can tell when the food is too cold. I can tell when the food is missing something, like salt or butter, or a drop of acid. I can tell when the food was cooked by an angry person. You can feel it in the uneven knife cuts. You can see the mood of the cooks when it’s undercooked or imagine the cook had a busy or bad day when it’s overcooked. When it’s not seasoned properly or not seasoned at all- you wonder what else are they forgetting? I’ve picked up a ton of cooking tips from all the chefs that I met at the James Beard House. I watched the way they sauteed their meats, or scallops, or how long the meat rested on the cutting board. I watched chefs use the one minute microwave tricks. I know who has OCD like me in the kitchen. I know who loves listening to upbeat songs while they cook like me. I took photos of their mise en place. I took ntes with my camera. It’s a very intimate experience and not everyone gets to see what chefs do in the kitchens. Btw- if you go online- you can watch all the archived JBF dinner videos with the sound on.

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