Easy Peasy Pizza

The great thing about pizza is that it can be as healthful or as sinful, as involved or a simple as you like.  Last night’s pizza was a true team effort.  Sander was the advance-guard (I was at team work drinks celebrating the end of the fiscal) and decided he wanted to make the pizza base from scratch because the supermarket-bought versions weren’t thin enough.  Excellent idea!  There’s nothing worse than thick soggy pizza crust.  I was in charge of composition and final cooking.  Next time I’m definitely going to do the base as well – it looks fun!

I hear that base-attempt number one didn’t go so well – the carefully built ‘well’ of dry ingredients had a weakness in the wall which resulted in a river of flour on the floor.  Learning from experience, the second attempt was much more successful and patiently rising on the balcony when I arrived home.

A minor obstacle presented itself in the absence of a rolling pin.  Not to worry, who needs a rolling pin when you have an Easiyo maker? Not us!  Plus our pizzas were delightfully non-circular.

The toppings were very easy to whip up – minced garlic, ricotta, feta and oregano as the base, fresh cherry tomatoes (halved), baby spinach, artichokes and pan-fried chicken, then a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.  Less than 10 minutes later we were curled up on the sofa, eating pizza and watching Season 4 of Mad Men (utterly addicted – dining room table has been abandoned until the end of the season).

And as I type here with left over pizza warming my tummy for lunch, I can tell you that the leftovers taste just as good the next day.



The finished product



Our unique pizza base shapes

Here are the recipes: Jamie Oliver’s super quick and easy pizza base, and Epicurious’ pizza recipe

Pizza Dough

We used half of everything in this recipe and still have a medium sized ball sitting in our freezer for later use.  Despite my campaigning for whole wheat flour, Sander used standard all-purpose white flour. 

Here’s the link to Jamie’s full recipe (here) – but I have faithfully copied the key points.

Ingredients

1kg strong white bread flour or Tipo ‘00’ flour or 800g strong white bread flour or Tipo ‘00’ flour, plus 200g finely ground semolina flour

1 level tablespoon fine sea salt

2 x 7g sachets of dried yeast

1 tablespoon golden caster sugar

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

650ml lukewarm water

Sieve the flour/s and salt on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.

Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands – this is called knocking back the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using straight away, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas – this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas.

Artichoke, Feta and Chicken Pizza

I’ve amended the recipe below to reflect my method - I added some minced garlic to the base sauce  and sprinkled some dried chilli over everything at the end for a bit of zing.

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1 clove of garlic, minced

115g  goat cheese

1/2 cup nonfat ricotta

1 whole-wheat pizza crust (large)

1 can rinsed and drained artichoke hearts, halved

Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

As much Parmesan cheese as you like, grated

1 tablespoon fresh oregano (or basil)

Set oven to 230°C.  Sprinkle chicken with dried oregano, salt and pepper and pan-fry until cooked. Mix goat cheese, minced garlic, dried oregano and ricotta in a bowl; spread evenly over pizza crust. Top with chicken, artichokes, and tomatoes; sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake until Parmesan turns golden, about 8 minutes. Sprinkle with fresh herbs if you have them and serve.