The idea was born almost by chance, seeing a customer who was using the edge of the pizza to mop up the tomato that had slipped onto the plate. Now, the “Scarpetta Pizza” It is one of the best-selling dishes at the pizzeria “San Ciro”, run in Brescia by the Neapolitan Cyrus of Maio, famous for his commitment in prison in favour of inmates and for his personal story which led him from frattamaggiore to the Lombardia.
The recipe for Ciro's new pizza is very simple, but for this very reason the selection of ingredients is fundamental. In short, it is a pizza with datterini tomatoes sautéed in a pan and flavoured with basil, and decorated on the outside with fresh buffalo mozzarella dop and dop oil. The datterino is Sicilian, the reddest and tastiest, which has a hint of more flavour than the cherry tomato. The oil is the cold-pressed one of the dop Terra di Bari. The buffalo mozzarella is the dop one from Campania, the best. Finally, the fresh basil, picked every day from the Brescia garden of Ciro's supplier.
“During the preparation, we also offer a tomato sauce”, explains Ciro. "Then with the juices of the datterino, cooked over a low flame to maintain its organoleptic characteristics, the liquid part of the mozzarella and the oil added after cooking, a sort of sauce is created that slides off the dough and stops on the plate. The high and light edge is therefore perfect for making the "scarpetta", the tastiest imaginable".
Because Ciro's pizza dough itself is designed to be highly digestible, there are loyal customers who travel dozens of kilometers just to eat his pizza. “When you make a dough, you need to look out the window”, explains Ciro. “If it rains or there is humidity, you have to take that into account. We proceed with the same style learned in Naples from the master pizza chefs, it requires a very long leavening, at least two days, without adding yeast except in minimal percentages, practically non-existent. We use the ancient method, with the dough left over from the previous dough, so it rises better. The dough is fundamental, we are also discovering this with the Pizza in Teglia. The important thing is that the pizza always has ears, a sign that it is handmade: the circle can never be perfect”.
This is the latest initiative by Ciro Di Maio, born in 1990 in Frattamaggiore, in the province of Naples. In 2015 he decided to look for new opportunities by moving to Lombardy. This is how the adventure of “San Ciro” began, his pizzeria in Brescia. The name of the place is a tribute to Ciro’s grandparents, both on his mother’s and father’s sides, who were fundamental figures in his life. His father, in particular, dedicated his time to volunteering and helping young drug addicts, collaborating with a community to offer them a chance to get off drugs and rebuild a better life.
Ciro considers himself privileged today and has decided to offer the less fortunate the opportunity to find work. In the first months of the year, in fact, Ciro taught the art of pizza to the inmates of the Canton Mombello prison in Brescia, thanks to a project developed in collaboration with Luisa Ravagnani, guarantor of the rights of people deprived of personal liberty of the Municipality of Brescia, and supported by the director of the prison, Francesca Paola Lucrezi.
For a few months, the pizza chef was in prison twice a week, leading theoretical and practical lessons on pizza making. From the importance of salt to the temperature of the ovens, through the secrets of the dough and the tomato. Seven inmates, accused of minor crimes and therefore destined to serve a short period of detention, attended the lessons, forty hours of a professional course.
Article published on November 21, 2023 - 11:59
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