Pizza de Frango com Catupiry

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Two 30 cm pizza pans or one heavy rimmed baking sheet
• •Medium 2-liter saucepan
• •Wide 28 cm skillet
• •Rolling pin
• •Piping bag or sturdy food bag with one corner snipped
• •Wire rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Mix the dough

   In a large bowl, stir the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Add the warm water and 2 tablespoons oil, then stir until no dry flour remains and the dough looks rough and shaggy. Cover and let it sit 10 minutes. That pause lets the flour drink the water, which makes the dough easier to knead and less likely to demand a snowstorm of extra flour.

   Warm water wakes the yeast. Hot water kills it. If it feels like bathwater, you're fine; if it feels like tea, wait.
2. 2

   Knead and rise

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 6 to 8 minutes, until it goes from lumpy to smooth and springy. It should feel soft and a little tacky, but it shouldn't leave paste on your hands. Add flour one tablespoon at a time only if it truly sticks, because too much flour makes a tough crust. Put it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm spot for 45 to 60 minutes, until puffy and nearly doubled.

   If the kitchen is cold, the dough will take longer. Yeast owns a clock, but not yours. Look for puffiness, not obedience.
3. 3

   Cook the chicken

   Put the chicken, water, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer, then lower the heat and cook until the thickest piece is opaque and shreds when pulled, about 15 to 18 minutes, or 74°C (165°F) if you're using a thermometer. Don't let it thrash at a hard boil; fierce boiling tightens the meat and leaves you with dry strings. Lift the chicken out, reserve 1/2 cup of the broth, and shred the meat with two forks.

   Honest Tuesday shortcut: use 2 cups leftover cooked chicken from yesterday's pê-efe. You save time, but you lose the fresh broth, so use water with a pinch of salt to moisten the filling.
4. 4

   Build the refogado

   Warm 2 tablespoons oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring now and then, until it murcha, softens and turns see-through, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic for 1 minute, just until you smell it, then stir in the colorau and 1/2 cup of the tomato. The pan should smell sweet and savory, not raw. This base wakes up the chicken, because shredded meat needs fat, onion, garlic, and a little tomato to become filling instead of leftovers wearing cheese.

   No chicken-flavor powder. That's salt and noise pretending to cook for you. Onion, garlic, colorau, and tomato do the real work.
5. 5

   Finish the filling

   Add the shredded chicken, reserved broth, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and black pepper to the refogado. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring, until the chicken is moist but not wet. Drag the spoon through the pan; the filling should part for a second and fall back slowly. This is the ponto. If it looks watery, keep cooking, because wet filling makes soggy dough and then everyone blames the poor oven. Stir in the parsley or scallions and let the filling cool for 10 minutes.

6. 6

   Heat the oven

   Put a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat it to 250°C (475°F), or as high as your oven comfortably goes, for at least 25 minutes. Grease two 30 cm pizza pans with 1 tablespoon oil. A properly hot oven helps the crust brown before the topping dries out; a shy oven gives you pale bread with tired cheese on top.

7. 7

   Shape the bases

   Divide the dough in two. Stretch or roll each piece into a 30 cm round and fit it into the greased pans, leaving a slightly thicker rim. If the dough keeps shrinking back, cover it and wait 5 minutes. Dough that fights you is asking for a rest, not for violence. The pause relaxes it so you don't tear holes and call yourself names.

8. 8

   Parbake the crusts

   Bake the bare crusts for 5 to 7 minutes, until the surface loses its shine and the edges just begin to color. They won't be finished yet, and that's correct. This little head start is the home-oven trick: a pizzeria oven is fast and fierce, but yours needs to firm the dough before the chicken, tomato, and cheese arrive.

   If your oven has hot spots, bake one crust at a time. Two sad half-baked pizzas are not more efficient than one good one followed by another.
9. 9

   Top the pizzas

   Spread 1/4 cup of the remaining tomato over each parbaked base, thinly, stopping before the rim. Scatter the mozzarella, divide the chicken filling over the top, then pipe or spoon the Catupiry in thick lines or small mounds. Sprinkle with oregano. Keep the tomato layer thin, because sauce is seasoning here, not soup. Too much turns the crust soft under the cheese.

10. 10

    Bake and serve

    Bake the pizzas for 10 to 12 minutes, until the rims are golden, the mozzarella is melted and glossy, and the Catupiry is creamy with a few lightly golden spots. Let each pizza rest for 3 minutes before slicing so the cheese settles instead of sliding off in one dramatic sheet. Finish with a little more parsley or scallion if you like. Serve with a green salad or couve refogada if dinner needs its green, because the everyday plate taught a gente that balance still matters, even when the plate is pizza.

Chef Tips

• •Catupiry holds its shape better than loose requeijão. If your requeijão is very soft, chill it first and use a little less, or it will run across the pizza like it has somewhere else to be.
• •Use leftover chicken without shame. That's not cheating, that's household math. The cost is that you won't have the cooking broth, so moisten the filling with a splash of water and taste the salt carefully.
• •Skip the seasoning packet and the powdered soup trick. They make everything taste like the same factory shelf. A real refogado gives you onion sweetness, garlic warmth, tomato body, and colorau glow.
• •Parbake the crust. Home ovens are not pizzeria ovens, and pretending they are is how good toppings end up sitting on raw dough. Five minutes solves a lot of nonsense.
• •Don't drown the base in tomato. Brazilian pizza often has less sauce than people expect, especially with creamy toppings. Thin sauce lets the chicken and Catupiry do their job.
• •Make two pizzas even if you only need one tonight. Parbaked bases freeze well, and a freezer with a pizza base and cooked chicken in it can resolver o jantar faster than a delivery app.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be kneaded, covered, and refrigerated for 8 to 24 hours. Let it sit at room temperature for 45 minutes before shaping so it stretches without fighting.
• •The chicken filling keeps for 3 days in the fridge or up to 2 months in the freezer. Cool it completely before storing.
• •Parbaked, untopped crusts can be cooled, wrapped, and frozen for up to 1 month. Top and bake from frozen, adding 2 to 3 minutes.
• •Catupiry can be spooned into a piping bag or sturdy food bag up to a day ahead and kept in the fridge. Cold Catupiry pipes cleaner lines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 420g)