Deep-Fried Pizza

Have you ever fried pizza dough? I'm Ines, and today I'm gonna show you how to make pizza montanada, aka fried pizza dough. All in all, when you're frying something, you just wanna make sure that you have your station completely set up with your tools, you have a little bit of a safety plan, the rest of your family members know that the oil is happening, you've got your mise en place ready to go, and a thermometer to keep track of how hot the oil is getting. We're gonna use a spider, either tongs, or a spoon to baste the oil. We've got a dough docker, paper towels, a cooling rack, and once we fry our dough, I'm gonna put the dough here and we're gonna dry all of the leftover oil so it's nice and clean from residuals, top it, and then stick it in the oven. Let's fry some pizza dough. We're gonna wanna bring our oil to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, at least. My dough is ready to go. For the flour that I tossed it in, I used a little bit of rice flour and semolina so it won't kind of be too bready once we start frying it. The reason that we dock the dough is if we were to just stick this dough ball in there, once we stretch it out like it is, it would kind of puff up in all crazy directions. It's still gonna do that, but putting holes in it will let oil seep through the holes and kind of weigh down the base of the pizza. I always think of fried products as like a classic American carnival thing, but actually, fried pizza was originated in Naples and Pizza Montanada comes from the mountain region. And if you haven't had fried pizza at Naples, buy a flight, go there immediately. It'll set your tune right for deep frying pizza. Okay, we're in business. It's go time. We wanna make sure that this fits flat into the pot, so it's gonna be smaller than the circumference of the pot. So we're gonna dock our dough and you don't wanna use too much flour because remember that's just gonna sit in the bottom and the oil is gonna burn the flour. Use a hard surface, press down on the docker, poking holes. All right, it's show time. So I'm gonna carefully lay my dough baby down like a blanket across the oil and I'm gonna take my spider and I'm gonna kinda lean back because at the beginning, the oil is gonna splash you or try to splash you, but you're not gonna let it. With my spider, press the dough down and then I'm gonna baste my dough with the oil, making sure that it's getting covered. I'm gonna flip it, kinda sinks to the bottom. I'm gonna lean back so you don't get any oil splashes. Baste the dough. We're trying to achieve a nice golden brown color of the dough and then once we take it out, we're gonna top it with all of the ingredients and then burn off the rest of the oil in the pizza oven. So it's gonna be a nice, crunchy, not oily, delicious fried dough. I feel those little air bubbles coming through the dough. It's like a volcano. Naples has Mount Vesuvius, which is an active volcano and right now, this feels like an active volcano. So you gotta be careful. Maybe that's why the people of Naples or the mountaineers of Naples wanted to create a volcanic pizza. You wanna live life on the edge and make sure it tastes delicious. We're getting golden brown. One more flip. Oh, she's golden. I think we take her out. I'm gonna use my spider, kind of drain as much oil as I can and then carefully bring it over, flip it and then I'm gonna use my paper towels to make sure that this is not oily. You're gonna quickly get rid of as much oil residue as you can. We're ready to top the pizza. Our bases are made. So now we're gonna top our pizzas with a little marinara, a little cheese. We're gonna fry them up in the oven, get some nice leopardine and have our fried pizza party. When you're doing this at home, generally speaking, you kind of wanna work a little faster. We're working with our fresh, hot pizza dough. You wanna work quickly because as soon as these pizza doughs come out of the fryer, we're going to make sure we stick them in the oven so that they stay nice and fresh and crisp. Okay, let's do our first one. Okay. Our cheese is melty, but not too melty. We've got our pecorino, our red sauce. So we're just gonna finish it with a little bit of some flaky salt and some fresh basil. Beautiful. We have our beautiful pizza montanada. So let's cut it up and give it a try. Fung, is that you? I didn't know you were in Bournemouth. Hi, Inez. Everybody, it's me. It's me. Do you wanna try some fried pizza? Well, I love the way that this one has raised edges. It almost looks like a little bread bowl. I'd love to sail away in that. Sail away, come sail away. Let's give a little pizza montanada. We're gonna sail through Naples to the mountains and go up the volcanoes. Is there gonna be a pizza montanada montage? There's gonna be a pizza montanada montage. With the 80s music. Oh, yeah. Cheers. I love how crispy it is. It's like a cross between a donut or a bomboloni and a pizza. It's kind of fried, but it's still definitely in the pizza camp, you know? You're the best of both worlds. This girl knows how to make a pizza. If you wanna try a pizza montanada, we'll meet you in Naples. Or check out the full recipe on gosnia.com. Subscribe now. This is Phuong. And it is. Signing off on montanada pizza. Ooh, man. Awesome. Saying words is hard.