Pizzette fritte are rustic little snacks comprising deep-fried discs of dough topped with a spoonful of tomato, a little grated parmesan and a basil leaf
One of the most satisfying sights in the kitchen is watching a circle of yeasted dough in very hot oil. First it shimmies, in the same way you might make your way across the function room to the dance floor at a wedding – not quite dancing and all in the shoulders – in a coat of bubbles. Then comes the blistering – small bubbles erupting on its surface, before the big puff – although this usually happens on just one side, which might save you the trouble of turning it over as the pizzetta capsizes, all the time getting more and more golden. I am convinced this is even more exciting if you yourself are impossibly hot. And, of course, there is the smell! Frying dough – like grating lemons, opening a new bottle of olive oil, packet of coffee or cheese snacks, chopping herbs, or grinding spices, – is one of the great smells.
It is a rather exhausted quote now, the one from Laurie Colwin about how one is never cooking alone, rather doing so with those who taught you, be that a person, book or TV cookery show. Exhausted because it is true, whether it is your beloved grandmother, Nigel or Nigella, or a bouncing young chef on TikTok. I have four people with me when I make these. The first is Daniela Del Balzo, a Neapolitan cookery teacher in Rome, whose stories about eating these as a child are everything you would hope for and expect from a story about eating fried pizza cooked by a grandmother in Naples in the 1950s. The second is Rita Pane, whose book I Sapori Del Sud (or Tastes of Southern Italy) seems to be the one I refer to most these days. The third is a Polish friend who taught me to add a boiled mashed potato to doughnuts and dough, which sounds as if it might make them heavy, but is, in fact, the complete opposite, rendering them plump and cushiony. The fourth is Sophia Loren, playing the pizza seller, Sophia, in L’Oro Di Napoli, the film suggestion for this week’s column.
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