Pizza

Pizza

There are loads of ways to make pizza, thousands of combinations of base, sauce and toppings and then the ingredients and techniques vary country to country, region to region with different family recipes being handed down through generations. So it's unlikely that my recipe will suit everyone, but this is how I do it anyway. Lets just be safe and say this is how I make what I call a pizza, and if you don't like it then don't call it a pizza. It's still a tasty meal whatever it's called.

When I make pizza I like to take time over it, time most nights that I don't really have, so I tend go do quite a bit in advance such as making the sauce and the dough. To make it really worth while I usually decide I will eat 2 pizzas in the space of a fortnight, so i make 2 pizzas worth of dough and sauce at once. It's not particularly labour intensive, just time consuming and so I tend to do it on a weekend whilst I'm doing a bunch of other weekly meal prep. If I were to freeze the sauce I could make even more of course.

Pretty much essential to a good pizza is a good base sauce and I used to cut corners and just use a jar of salsa until a colleague told me about this method, pointing out that I was wasting fine ingredients on the topping when the flavours were being overpowered by the salsa. I'm glad he did as my pizzas have improved considerably since.

For this I take a dozen or so plum tomatoes, cut them in half and lay then face up in a baking tray. I drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle generously with sea salt and grind over fresh pepper, then cook in the oven at 180degC for about 40 mins.

After they've cooked and softened I push them through a sieve with the back of a spoon.

The sauce is very liquid, too much so for pizza, so I reduce it on the hob over a low heat until it is the required viscosity. While doing this I skim off any impurities that come to the surface.

All done I have a jar of tomato base sauce that should keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or the freezer for about 6 months.

Then the dough


I use a straightforward white bread recipe with half the bread flour substituted for plain flour.

I mix it, knead it, then separate it into 2 or 3 freezer bags and leave it to prove for a couple of hours.

Once it's bulked up I take it out the bag, knock it back and knead for another couple of minutes before putting it back in the bag and tying it up.

These then go straight in the freezer. The night or morning before I want to use it I take it out of the freezer. The dough will defrost and second prove in the bag so that when I get home from work it will be perfect and ready to use for my pizza base.

Pizza day


It's now the morning of my pizza making and I take a jar of sauce and a bag of dough from the freezer.

When I get back from work I preheat the oven to 200degC and lightly dust my pizza stone with semolina.

I empty the dough out the bag onto a well floured surface and work it, stretch it and roll it with a floured rolling pin until it is the same size as my pizza stone and even thickness all over. It's about a quarter of an inch, maybe 3mm thick when I'm done.

I transfer it to the pizza stone and punch a few holes in it with a fork to let trapped air from underneath out whilst it's cooking. This is where you can get fancy if you feel like it and do a stuffed crust. Simply roll the base out larger than the stone, put some cheese or salsa round the edge, leaving a half an inch gap from the very edge, brush some water on the gap and fold over the filling and in towards the centre. Make sure it's stuck down firmly. I then put it in the middle of the oven for about 15 minutes.

Once that's done it's time for the fun part! I take my part baked base out of the oven and empty my jar of sauce over the top using the back of a table spoon to spread it all over. Leave none of the surface uncovered, no one like wasted crust space at the edges.

Now the topping. I slice up a ball of mozzarella and sprinkle half of it on the pizza, then layer some chestnut mushrooms and serano ham before finishing with the rest of the cheese.

I've kept this one simple but I've included a list of my favourite toppings at the end of this post. They all work in any combination. Be generous with the toppings, the whole point in making your own sauce was to get the most out of these toppings.

I put the pizza back in the oven for about 10 mins until the mozzarella has melted and started to bubble and brown. I took mine out and sprinkled fresh basil over before popping it back in for another 2 or 3 mins.

All done! Take it out, portion it up and enjoy.

Here are some of my favourite toppings:


Parma Ham


Greek style black olives (dry and salty, really cut through like mild anchovies)


Pepper


Red onion


Talleggio cheese (melts superbly, use half and half with mozzarella)


Sun blushed tomatoes (for a little sweetness)


Pesto


Artichokes


And if you're really wanting to push the boat out, some crispy duck and hoisin sauce with spring onions sprinkled on right at the end is amazing

Parsnip Mash

In an effort to be a) more healthy, b) more organised and c) make my sausages and mash more interesting I've been making my own parsnip mash in advance and freezing it. The day I fancy sausage and mash for dinner I drag the sausages and ready made mash out in the morning and simply reheat the mash while the sausages are baking later. Parsnip is great with pork, it makes perfect sense really!

Quite simply you could boil parsnips, mash them and throw in some butter and garlic, but I find that alone can be a little dull and disappointing. Besides, I'd rather not add butter if I can avoid it.

Use nice big monster parsnips for this job, less peeling and bigger evenly sized chunks for mashing. I do peel, chop and boil half the parsnips...

... but the others I like to bake. I stab them several times all the way round, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with smoked sea salt and fresh ground black pepper and then wrap them up in foil and place them in the middle of an oven at 180degC for about 40 mins to an hour.

The parsnips when they come out need to be tender enough to mash obviously. They should be a golden colour rather than white like your boiled ones and will have sweet caramelised brown juices in the foil tray that need to be added to your mash.

Chop down the middle lengthways and leave to cool. The skins peel easily off and the parsnips can be mashed in with the boiled ones.

Perfect with a good pork sausage, some peas and a spot of gravy. A great winter warmer meal.

January update

January update

Ok so a little about what's been going on lately. I started a new job in London at the beginning of November, I don't live in London which has meant getting up earlier, going to bed earlier and spending 3 hours a day commuting. I'm pleased to say that the job is worth it, but I have all of about 2 hours left every night to cook and eat dinner and try and spend some time with the family. Obviously the weekends are busy with family time and household chores and so keeping 2 blogs going has been virtually impossible. I've been working on a new text only project whilst on the trains but its unrelated to either gardening or cooking.

So there are my excuses, I do still have plenty of foodie ideas and recipes to blog about though. Recently I've been back to basics and have been cooking up solid healthy meals for during the week and freezing them. I've been experimenting with reducing fat and carbs without substituting flavour, I've been reducing food bills by buying large amounts of ingredients and making them go further, and reducing waste by using left overs to create completely different meals. It's all a bit different from the usual fare of breads, cheese, oils, sauces and cakes but I'm very happy with the work I've done in the kitchen over the last couple of months and so I will be blogging a few of my experiences. Tomorrow I'll blog a simple but excellent dish to have handy in the freezer as an example of the sort of stuff I've been churning out - parsnip mash.

I would recommend spending an afternoon once a week preparing ready meals. I feel much happier eating my own prepared dinners than I do buying the supermarket ones. Not only do I enjoy the rush of cooking 5 dinners for 2 people at once but it's also great to know that when I come home I can simply re-heat my own cooking and have great home cooked meal without spending hours in the kitchen.

More recipes soon, and keep an eye out for Scuff's Garden updates because I have some genuinely interesting things planned this year for that.

Have a great 2013 everyone!