Italian Neapolitan Cosacca Pizza | Pizza Cosacca Napoletana

Aug 26

9 min read

Updated: Sep 13

Pizza Cosacca Napoletana (Italian Neapolitan Cosacca Pizza)

Cosacca is the pizza that shows how little a Neapolitan pizza actually needs. Tomato, hard grated cheese, a few basil leaves and a thread of olive oil. That is the whole list. No mozzarella goes on it, not before the oven and not after, and the omission is the point rather than an accident of a missing ingredient. What you taste instead is tomato at full volume, salt and sharpness from the cheese, and the flavour of the baked base itself, which has nowhere to hide behind a creamy topping.

It is also the pizza that punishes a careless hand fastest. Take away the mozzarella and you take away the layer of water that normally shields the tomato from the fire, so a Cosacca can go from perfect to scorched in the time it takes to answer a question. Everything in this recipe is built around that single fact: how much tomato to spread, when to salt it, where the cheese sits in the stack, and how quickly the pizza comes out.

Serves 4. Prep: 30 minutes. Fermentation: 24 hours. Bake: about 90 seconds per pizza. Total: about 25 hours.

The Story

Cosacca belongs to the oldest layer of the Neapolitan repertoire, the group of pizzas that existed before mozzarella became an everyday topping. In nineteenth century Naples, fresh cheese was expensive and spoiled fast, while tomato, a spoonful of grated hard cheese and oil were within reach of almost everyone. That economy produced a whole family of pizze povere, and Cosacca is the one that survived best, sitting alongside marinara as proof that the city ate well long before the tricolour margherita became the postcard image of Neapolitan pizza.

The name is the interesting part, and Naples tells it as a story rather than as a document. According to popular tradition, when the Tsar of Russia visited the city in the middle of the nineteenth century, the pizza served to his party carried only tomato and grated cheese, and the Cossacks of his escort left their name attached to it. Neapolitans repeat the anecdote with affection and with a shrug, because no record confirms it. What is certain is that the pizza is old, that it is cheap, and that it is still baked in the same way in the historic pizzerie of the centre, where it is often the bake a pizzaiolo uses to judge whether an oven is behaving.

Ingredients

For the base

Italian Tipo 00 flour, 4 cups (500 g)
Water, cool, 1 1/4 cups (300 ml)
Fine sea salt, 2 1/2 tsp (14 g)
Fresh yeast, 1/4 tsp (1 g)

For the topping

Canned San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand, 1 3/4 cups (400 g)
Pecorino Romano, finely grated, 1 cup (100 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, 1/3 cup (30 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Fresh basil leaves, 12

For finishing

Extra virgin olive oil, 4 tsp (20 ml)
Pecorino Romano, for grating at the table, 2 tbsp (12 g)

Preparation

Set the dough to ferment the day before

Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour, then the salt, and work the mass until it is smooth and no longer sticks to the bowl. Cover it and leave it at room temperature for 2 hours, then divide it into four balls of about 7 oz (200 g) and keep them covered in a sealed box for 24 hours. Cosacca needs a base that has fermented long and slowly, because a young dough carries more free sugar and colours far too fast under a topping that offers no shade.

Crush the tomatoes by hand and leave them alone

Open the tomatoes, drain off the thin watery juice that sits at the top of the tin, and crush the flesh between your fingers until it is broken but still irregular. Do not blend it and do not cook it. Add the salt only when you are ready to bake, no more than 10 minutes ahead: salted early, the tomato bleeds water into the bowl and what you spread on the base becomes a pale liquid that soaks the centre rather than a pulp that holds its shape in the heat.

Grate the cheese fine and set the order of the stack

Grate both cheeses on the fine side of the grater, mix them, and keep them at room temperature. Then fix the order in your head before the first pizza goes near the oven: a light dusting of cheese on the naked base, tomato over it, then basil pressed down into the tomato. The cheese under the tomato is not a stylistic choice. It is the only position in which it can melt without being exposed to the radiant heat above, which is what turns it black.

Dress the base at the very last moment

Open a ball on a floured bench, pressing the gas from the centre outward and leaving the rim untouched, then move it onto the peel. Dust it with cheese, spoon on about 1/2 cup (100 g) of tomato and spread it with the back of the spoon in a slightly thicker layer than you would use under mozzarella, stopping short of the edge. Tuck the basil leaves into the tomato, and slide the pizza into the oven immediately. A dressed Cosacca waiting on the peel is already losing.

Bake hot and fast, then finish off the heat

Bake on a stone or steel heated for at least 45 minutes at the highest temperature the oven will give, ideally 900°F (480°C) in a domestic dome oven or full heat with the grill element engaged in a home oven. Turn the pizza once the edge nearest the flame lifts and colours. It is ready in 60 to 90 seconds in a true pizza oven, or 4 to 6 minutes on a steel, when the tomato is set and glossy but not dark at the edges. Finish with raw oil the moment it leaves the oven.

Plating and Presentation

Cosacca is served whole, on a plain plate wide enough that the rim is not folded over the edge, and it is served the second it comes out. The oil goes on last, poured in a thin spiral from the centre outward with the pizza still steaming, so it spreads on its own and picks up a little of the tomato as it runs. Do not brush it and do not stir it in.

Grate a final snow of pecorino across the hot surface at the table. It melts only halfway, which gives two different expressions of the same cheese in one bite: the baked layer underneath, nutty and quiet, and the raw grating on top, sharp and salty. Add one or two fresh basil leaves in the centre only if the baked ones have darkened. Cut it at the table or let the guest fold it, which is how it is eaten in Naples, and never plate it garnished, dressed in advance or held under a lamp.

Professional Technique

Removing the mozzarella changes the physics of the bake, and everything skilled about a Cosacca follows from that. On a normal pizza the mozzarella releases water for the whole time it is in the oven, and while that water evaporates it holds the surface near the boiling point and shields the tomato underneath from radiant heat. Strip it away and the tomato faces the roof of the oven directly, loses its own moisture in seconds, and moves from bright pulp to a dry scorched film with no warning stage in between. That is why the tomato goes on in a slightly thicker layer here than it would under cheese, and why it is salted at the last moment rather than in advance.

The same logic governs the cheese. Grated hard cheese is the opposite of mozzarella: very little water, a high proportion of protein and fat, and a low scorch point once that trace of moisture is gone. Left on the surface at Neapolitan oven temperature it passes from golden to burnt in a handful of seconds, taking on an acrid taste that no amount of oil will cover. Placed under the tomato, or scattered the instant the pizza leaves the oven, the same cheese behaves perfectly. Position, not quantity, is what separates a good Cosacca from a bitter one.

Texture and Moisture Control

The target is a tomato that still tastes raw and faintly acidic, set by the heat but not reduced. Once it thickens into something jammy the pizza loses its backbone, because acidity is the only element balancing the salt of the pecorino. Keep the layer even and slightly generous, keep the bake short, and pull the pizza while the surface still looks wet and glossy rather than matte.

Basil is the second moisture problem. A leaf sitting on top of an unprotected tomato has nothing above it and no water around it, so it blackens and turns bitter almost immediately. Press the leaves down into the tomato before baking, where they steam instead of burning, or add them raw at the end. Finally, the raw oil added after the oven is a texture tool as much as a flavour one: it coats the hot tomato, slows the evaporation that would otherwise dry the surface on the way to the table, and keeps the first bite glossy.

Professional Mise en Place

Cosacca is a fast bake with almost no room to correct, so the whole service depends on what is ready before the oven door opens. Everything cold and unsalted until the last second, everything within arm's reach of the peel.

The day before: mix, ball and box the dough, then leave it to ferment for 24 hours.
Two hours before: take the dough boxes out so the balls come up to room temperature and open without tearing.
One hour before: light the oven and let the stone saturate with heat, then check it with an infrared thermometer.
Thirty minutes before: crush the tomatoes by hand, drain them and hold them unsalted and cold.
At the pass: grate and mix the cheeses, pick the basil, fill the oil bottle and salt the tomato only as the first ball is opened.

Chef Tips

Taste the tomato before it goes on. It is the whole flavour of the pizza, so if it is thin or sour in the bowl it will be thin or sour on the plate, and a pinch of salt at the last minute is the only correction allowed.
Mix two cheeses rather than one. Pecorino brings the salt and the bite, Parmigiano brings a nutty sweetness that stops the pizza tasting one note salty.
Keep a small bowl of cheese beside the oven for the finishing grate, separate from the bowl you dust the base with, so the cold cheese never lands on a dressed pizza waiting to bake.
If the tomato browns before the rim colours, the oven floor is too cool relative to the roof. Give the stone another 15 minutes rather than reaching for more tomato.

Common Mistakes

Cheese scattered on top before baking: with no mozzarella to protect it, grated hard cheese sits exposed to the radiant heat and burns in seconds, giving the whole pizza an acrid finish. Put it under the tomato, or grate it on after the bake.

Tomato salted too early: salt draws water out of the pulp and the mixture turns into a watery sauce that soaks straight into the base. Salt no more than 10 minutes before baking, and drain off any liquid that gathers.

Too little tomato: a thin coat spread as if mozzarella were coming next dries out and scorches long before the rim is cooked. Cosacca needs a slightly more generous, even layer, precisely because nothing is shielding it.

Basil laid on the surface: an exposed leaf turns black and bitter within the first minute. Bury it in the tomato before baking or add it fresh at the end, never in between.

Wine Pairing

Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio DOC: The local answer, grown on the volcanic slopes that look down on the city, and the red to pour if you want one glass to cover the whole pizza. Its tannin is soft enough not to collide with the acidity of the tomato, while the smoky mineral edge of the volcanic soil runs straight into the char on the base.

Falanghina del Sannio DOC: A white with enough citrus acidity to meet the tomato on equal terms and enough body to carry the salt of the pecorino without being scoured by it. The faint bitter almond note on the finish echoes the baked cheese, and the wine stays cold and refreshing against a pizza that is essentially salt, acid and fire.

Greco di Tufo DOCG: The choice when the pecorino is aged and assertive. Greco has more weight and a sulphurous, saline grip that stands up to a hard sheep cheese rather than surrendering to it, and its stone fruit ripeness softens the sharp edge of a very acidic tomato without adding any sweetness of its own.

Storage and Reheating

Cosacca is at its best within two minutes of leaving the oven and does not improve with keeping, but leftovers hold better than most pizzas because there is no mozzarella to turn rubbery. Cool the slices uncovered on a rack, then refrigerate them flat in a sealed container for up to 2 days. Do not freeze a dressed pizza: the tomato separates on thawing and the base goes soft. To reheat, set a dry pan over medium heat, lay the slice in it, cover for 3 minutes to warm the topping and uncover for the last minute to crisp the underside. Add fresh oil and a grating of pecorino before serving.

Nutrition Information

Per serving, one pizza of about 11 oz (310 g):

Calories: 690
Total Fat: 20 g
Saturated Fat: 8 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 11 g
Cholesterol: 30 mg
Sodium: 1680 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 98 g
Fiber: 5 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 25 g
Lactose: 1 g
Calcium: 480 mg, Potassium: 620 mg, Iron: 5 mg, Vitamin A: 50 mcg, Vitamin C: 14 mg