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Recipe · Pizza · Medium

Ham and rocket pizza on the kamado

Half of this pizza never enters the oven: veils of ham, fresh rocket and Parmesan shavings land on the just-baked base. Hot below, fresh above — that is the whole trick.

Pizza de jamón y rúcula fresca servida sobre pala de maderaSave to Pinterest
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Prep
1460 min
Cook
3 min
Servings
4 servings
Temperature
340 °C

Ingredients

  • "00" flour, W 260-300 (100% baker's)500 g
  • cold water (62% hydration)310 ml
  • fine sea salt (2.8%)14 g
  • fresh yeast (0.2%)1 g
  • crushed San Marzano tomatoes350 g
  • fior di latte, drained250 g
  • prosciutto di Parma or gran reserva serrano, in veils100 g
  • wild rocket, washed and very dry60 g
  • Parmesan shavings (use a peeler)40 g
  • extra virgin olive oil2 cdas

Method

  1. 01

    24h dough and a cold mise en place

    Standard slow-ferment dough. Before lighting the kamado, prep the "wardrobe": ham separated into veils on paper, dry rocket in a bowl, Parmesan shavings ready. Once the pizza comes out, you get 30 useful seconds.

  2. 02

    Kamado at 340°C, stone saturated

    Stone raised, 45-60 minutes of true preheat. 340°C is the sweet spot: a Neapolitan cornicione without scorching the margherita base that serves as the canvas.

  3. 03

    Bake the margherita base

    Stretch to 28-30 cm, top with only tomato (80 g) and mozzarella, and bake 90-100 seconds with a halfway turn. It should come out a touch more baked than a regular margherita: it will carry cold weight on top.

  4. 04

    Dress it in 30 seconds

    On the board: first the ham veils in loose little mounds (not stretched flat like sheets), then the rocket by the handful, finally the Parmesan shavings. Residual heat tempers the ham and opens its aroma without cooking it.

  5. 05

    Oil, pepper and to the table

    A thin ribbon of extra virgin over the rocket, a turn of pepper, and serve it whole at the centre of the table: this pizza gets cut at the table so every slice keeps its green mountain.

About this recipe

This is the two-temperature pizza: a naked margherita leaves the kamado at 350°C and, within the next twenty seconds, gets dressed with ham that tempers without cooking, rocket that barely wilts and Parmesan that sweats without melting. The amateur mistake is baking the ham: at that temperature a great cured veil goes from jewel to salty crackling in sixty seconds.

Prosciutto or serrano? Both, depending on the day

Prosciutto di Parma is the canon — sweet, melting — but a gran reserva serrano, or an Ibérico when the occasion deserves it, brings a depth of cure that Parma lacks. The one universal rule: sliced by knife or machine into near-transparent veils, and always on top of the pizza, never under anything.

Editor's tips

  • The rocket must be DRY: wet, the steam cooks it on contact with the cheese and it slumps within seconds.
  • Do not dress the rocket separately with lemon: acid over hot cheese breaks the creaminess. The oil goes over the whole pizza.
  • If you use Ibérico ham, skip the Parmesan and everything else: ham, rocket and oil. The rest is noise.

Gear for this recipe

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FAQ

  • Does the ham on a pizza get baked or added after?

    Quality cured hams — Parma, San Daniele, serrano, Ibérico — always go on after the oven, onto the just-baked pizza. The cure has already "cooked" the meat; the oven merely evaporates its aromatic fat, doubles its saltiness by concentration and toughens it. The exception is cooked ham (york, prague), which does go into the oven under the cheese: it needs heat to integrate and has no noble fat to lose.

  • How do I keep rocket from wilting on the pizza?

    Three keys: perfectly dry rocket (spun and rested on paper), added on top of the ham rather than straight onto molten cheese, and the pizza served without delay. The ham acts as a partial heat barrier so the leaf takes just enough warmth to open its pepperiness without collapsing. Variety matters too: wild rocket (narrow leaf) stands heat better than the waterier bagged cultivated kind.

  • Is Italian prosciutto or Spanish serrano better on this pizza?

    They make two different pizzas, both excellent. Parma is sweeter and fattier, melts into the mozzarella and gives the "author Italian pizzeria" result. Gran reserva serrano is drier, more saline, deeper-cured: it asks for a touch more oil on top but leaves a longer finish. With acorn-fed Ibérico you enter another category — and then drop the Parmesan so nothing steals its spotlight. House rule: Parma in summer, Ibérico when there is something to celebrate.

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