Pizza Quattro Stagioni

How to make it

1. Stir the dough's salt into the lukewarm water in a large bowl. Keep stirring until the water is completely clear again and no grains remain at the bottom.
2. Stir about a third of the flour into the water with your hand, and crumble the yeast into the loose dough. Stir until the mixture is thick and porridge-like with no lumps of flour. The yeast goes in only now, because it would be weakened by the plain salt water.
3. Stir in the rest of the flour a little at a time with your hand, until the dough comes together into one lump and releases from the sides of the bowl.
   Chef's tip The dough is sticky at first with this much water — that's the point. Add extra flour to make it let go of your hands and the base turns dry and chewy instead of airy.
4. Knead the dough on the counter for 10 minutes, until it is smooth and springy. It's ready when a press with your finger slowly springs back. ⏱ 10 min
   Chef's tip Test rather than trust the clock: stretch a corner thin between your fingers — it should go translucent before it tears. If it rips straight away, the gluten net isn't built and the rim will stay flat instead of ballooning.
5. Shape the dough into a tight ball and put it back in the bowl under a damp kitchen towel. Let it rise at room temperature (see advance prep) until it is about double the size and feels airy when pressed.
6. Divide the risen dough into four equal pieces of about 250 g each and roll each piece into a tight ball against the counter. Let the balls rise again, covered, at room temperature (see advance prep), until they are puffy and give softly when pressed with a finger. ⏱ 10 min
   Chef's tip Roll each ball until the surface is taut and the seam sits sealed underneath. A slack ball spreads sideways as it proves and tears in the middle when you stretch it; a tight one rises upward and holds its round shape.
7. Place the baking steel on the second-highest rack and preheat the oven to 275°C for at least 45 minutes. The steel needs to be heated all the way through, or the base will turn pale and dry instead of puffing up. ⏱ 45 min · passive
8. Crush the peeled tomatoes with your hands in a bowl into a rough sauce with small pieces in it, and season with salt to taste. The sauce isn't cooked, because it finishes cooking on the pizza and needs to keep its fresh acidity.
9. Cut the mozzarella into cubes of about 1 cm and let them drain in a sieve for 15 minutes. They're ready when a small pool of whey has collected under the sieve — the whey needs to go, or the pizza will end up swimming. ⏱ 15 min · passive
10. Sauté the sliced mushrooms in the olive oil in a hot pan for 5 minutes, salting them lightly as you go. They're ready when all the liquid has steamed off and the slices are golden at the edges. The water needs to come out now, so the pizza base doesn't turn soggy.
11. Drain the artichoke hearts and cut them into wedges, and cut the prosciutto cotto into rough strips. Set the four fillings out ready separately in small bowls: mushrooms, artichoke, black olives and prosciutto cotto.
12. Dust the counter with durum semolina and press the first piece of dough out from the center toward the edge with your fingertips, pushing the air out into a rim of 1-2 cm. Stretch the base out to about 30 cm, until it's thin enough that you can faintly make out the counter through the center. ⏱ 10 min
    Chef's tip If the dough fights back and shrinks in on itself, stop and leave it ten to fifteen minutes under the towel. Relaxed gluten stretches to thirty centimetres almost on its own; forced dough tears a hole in the middle.
13. Spread about 6 tbsp of the tomato sauce over the base in a spiral from the center outward, leaving the wide rim bare. Distribute a quarter of the drained mozzarella cubes evenly over the sauce.
    Chef's tip Work quickly from the moment the sauce hits the base. If the topped dough sits around waiting, it soaks up moisture and sticks fast, and then you can no longer get it over onto the peel in one piece.
14. Divide the base into four in your mind and place one filling on each quarter — a quarter of each type, so there's enough for all four pizzas: mushrooms on the first, artichoke on the second, olives on the third, and prosciutto cotto on the fourth. The fillings must not run together — it's the four separate quarters that make the pizza a quattro stagioni.
15. Slide the pizza onto the pizza peel and let it glide onto the fully heated baking steel. Bake it for 6-8 minutes, until the rim has puffed up and is spotted dark brown and the cheese is bubbling. ⏱ 25 min–30 min · passive
    Chef's tip Before you go anywhere near the oven, jiggle the peel: the pizza should glide as one piece. If a corner clings, lift the edge and puff a little semolina underneath — a stuck base folds over itself on the steel and the whole thing is lost.
16. Drizzle the finished pizza with a little of the olive oil for drizzling, and lay a few fresh basil leaves on top. The leaves go on now and not before baking, so they turn glossy and fragrant from the heat instead of blackening in the oven.
17. Repeat the stretching, topping and baking with the three remaining pieces of dough, one pizza at a time, so the steel has time to build heat back up between each one.
18. Serve each pizza whole and piping hot on a wooden board, as soon as it comes out of the oven. It's eaten as in Italy: whole, with a knife and fork, where each diner cuts their own way through the four seasons one at a time.