IN THE KITCHEN
Home made pizza
MAKING pizza from scratch may seem daunting but is quite simple if you follow the instructions below and makes a really cheap family meal.
You can use leftovers for toppings or go all out to recreate your favourite pizza. One of my favourites is left over chilli con carne with Monterey Jack cheese. Toppings are a personal choice but for cheese look for cheeses that melt nicely.
Dough Ingredients
Serves four
500g “00” Grade Flour
400g Cool Water
1 TSP Table Salt
2 TSP Instant Bread Yeast. I use Fermipan red which you can find online. Store in the fridge. Tomato Sauce
1 200g Tube Tomato Puree 4 TBSP Olive Oil
2 TSP Dried Oregano
2 Cloves Garlic grated
Cracked Black Pepper to Taste 75ml Water or Red Wine
Mix the dough ingredients together until well combined then knead gently on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes. Leave to rest for 5 minutes and then knead as hard as you can for a further 2 minutes. Place in a lightly oiled bowl which is at least twice the size of the dough and cover with cling film. Leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size which should take an hour. Mix the tomato sauce ingredients together in a jug.
Heat your oven to its highest setting. When ready, roll out a quarter of the dough on a lightly floured surface into a roughly round shape about 2mm thick. Let it rest for a few moments between repeated bouts of rolling to get it that thin. Place on a pizza tray and apply the sauce but do not add too much. About 4-5 TBSPs should be enough and leave the outer edge uncovered. Add cheese and other toppings as desired and bake one at a time in the top of the oven.
Domestic ovens are not as good as commercial pizza ovens so baking one at a time helps improve the end result. If you have a very good oven you might manage two at a time. Bake until the base has risen and the toppings and crust are nicely caramelised. This will be around 7 minutes if the oven gets to 250ºC but may take some trial and error to perfect. I usually give it 5 minutes and take a look.