Today I shall show you how to make a pizza like this. This is something I do fairly regularly, it's not very difficult, and it doesn't really take a long time so long as you plan ahead. I shall assume you've never made bread before so I'll explain the whole process in detail. So please excuse me if you feel like I'm teaching you to "suck eggs."
I know there are like 6 million varieties of pizza available in supermarkets or takeaways, but there are many reasons to make your own pizza. Firstly you get what you want. You don't have to pick off anchovies or mushrooms, or regret paying a £1 surcharge to simply add a teaspoon of sweetcorn. Next you know the quality of the ingredients. If you want prime fresh chicken breast from a local farmer, that's what you use, not reformed 3 month old chicken beaks from Brazil. Lastly, bought pizzas are frankly small. You want a good quality pizza topped high with your favourite stuff right? Not a skimpy thing that is mainly cheese and a few slices of topping.
So for this pizza we're going to have a bit of a fruit and some chicken. The fruit will be pineapple and banana, and the chicken we thought of doing tandoori style, because we found a really nice spice mix. The spices are mixed with Greek yogurt and a little lemon juice. We just need to mix these together and set them in a bowl for a little while. The spice mix we used was a Schwartz one, with coriander seed, cumin, garlic, chilli, ginger, cardamom, onion, bay, star anise, cinnamon, clove, salt, pepper and "spices". The chicken breast came from a local farm, in fact the other breast was used in the Chinese chicken and cashew recipe.
Next we're going to make the dough for the base. This is a very simple recipe I got from the Leiths Baking Bible. You must buy this book for your library if you like baking, it's
really good. The base is on page 542. This is a 'dry' dough you can work by hand, and is good for thin bases. If you want an authentic pan pizza though you'll need a mixer with a dough hook as the dough will be too wet to work by hand.
For this dough you will need
- 200g plain flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 10g of fresh yeast
- pinch of sugar
115 ml of lukewarm water- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
If you don't have fresh yeast, you can use 5g of dried yeast or 3.5g of quick yeast. Dried yeast is the stuff that's needs to be activated in water before use. Quick, or fast action, yeast is the tiny granular sort that can be added directly to flour. Sometimes this comes in little sachets, or in larger bags. I use the quick yeast for ease. Lukewarm means somewhere between 35 and 39 degrees Celsius. If the water is too hot the yeast will die. If it's too cold then, well you'll just be waiting longer. The salt, sugar and oil are all important. The yeast will need both the fat and the sugar to grow. And the salt is there to add flavour, but also to keep the yeast in check because it will inhibit yeast growth a little.
I tend to mix all the dry ingredients together, make a well, then mix the oil with the water and pour it in and mix it together. You can add the oil before the water, or afterwards if you prefer. You will get a slightly different base texture depending how you do it because oil will tend to coat the grains and can affect the development of
gluten. Gluten is the thing that makes dough and bread chewy. We are relying on the yeast to form these gluten chains in the dough.
You may have noticed I am using Canadian Very Strong White Flour. The "strength" of flour relates to the amount of protein in the flour, and how well the gluten will develop. Low protein flour will not produce very much gluten. Now this might be good for making biscuits or quiche, but it's not good for bread. So we need a flour with a lot of protein, or a strong flour. It just so happens that the very best flour comes from Canada, because it's colder there than in winter than it is in the UK, and the ground temperature in spring will affect the grain. There are some excellent British flours available though, just make sure the protein is between about 12%-15%.
So once we have combined our flour, yeast and water we need to knead it. This will help to spread the yeast, fat and sugar around the dough and also help to align the gluten chains as they begin to form. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the dough changes texture and becomes more, well dough like. You might need some extra flour depending on the liquid. If the dough gets too sticky just put a little flour on your hand or on the board and keep working. Kneading is quite easy, you basically flatten the dough with the heel of your hand and push away from you. Then fold the dough back in half toward you, and rotate it 90 degrees and repeat. You can use both hands if it's easier, or just use one. To be honest I found it easier with just one because this was such a small piece of dough. If you find it easier to know if you are kneading correctly, you could add a few herbs or some black pepper to the dough (not to the flour!) As you work the dough you should see the grains disperse and when you think they are spread evenly about the dough then so will the oil, sugar and yeast be. Once the dough is sufficiently kneaded, we can just form the dough into ball, and put it back into the bowl. Cover the bowl in a clean wet cloth then just leave it somewhere warm. At this point I put the oven on to somewhere near 200 degree Celsius, so I just leave the bowl on the work surface nearby. It doesn't need to be hot, it just needs to be warm and comfy.
So once the dough is taken care of, we can make a start on the pizza toppings. I decided to grill the chicken so this can go under the grill now. It doesn't really take very long, maybe 15 minutes. The pizza only needs to be in the oven long enough for the cheese to melt and brown, so anything that needs cooking should be cooked before hand. The chicken came out like this.
Also on this pizza we shall be having some red pepper, pineapple and banana. So we can chop these up while the chicken is cooking. Banana might sound strange for a pizza but it's really nice. In fact there are many fruits that taste good on pizzas. Again the beauty of making your own is that you can include anything you want, even if you could never buy a pizza like this in a shop.
After cooking our chicken and preparing the fruits, and taking pictures, I think our dough has probably had enough time. Ideally you want it to have doubles in size, probably this will need somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour. Personally I don't think you need to worry too much, it's a pizza base not a loaf of bread. It does taste better if the gluten chains are well formed but if you're ready for the dough then go ahead and use it. You first need to "knock back" the dough, which basically means compress the air out of it. The first rising of bread is only to develop gluten. If you're making a loaf you do the same thing, but then let the dough rise a second time in whatever you are going to cook it in. This second rising gives the bread it's shape. Since we're making a pizza we don't need it to rise, so we can just make a large disc. You can use a rolling pin if you like, I did. But if someone is watching feel free to whirl it around your head. Actually joking aside sometimes it does help to throw it between your hands just to stretch it out.
I should have mentioned earlier, than when I preheated the oven I put my "pizza stone" in. This is just a large ceramic disc, about 1cm thick that just absorbs heat. This is what I will be cooking my pizza on. By now this is very hot. What I generally do is to actually prebake the base for a few minutes. I prefer this and I find it easier to manage the pizza. I just take the stone out of the oven, drizzle a little oil onto the stone then put the pizza base onto it. It will sizzle a little. Then just pour a little more oil onto the base and pop it into the oven for a couple minutes. Just to give it some colour and firm it up a little.
This is a personal preference. I just find it easier to prebake the base slightly. I find firstly it's easier to apply the tomatoes to the base this way, and I have real trouble trying to make the whole pizza and then slide it in one piece onto the pizza stone when it comes to cooking it. Either way, whether the base is now cooked or still raw you need to add your tomatoes. I've just used tomato puree here. It's okay, but I prefer passata. Again though I do it for convenience. I can keep a tube of puree in the cupboard for years, and once opened it can live in the fridge forever. Bought passata only last a couple days and there is far too much in a jar for one pizza.
Once we have sufficient tomato coverage then, we can add the rest of our toppings. As mentioned previously, when you make a pizza feel free to go while. You don't have to use a teaspoon to measure the toppings, just pile them high!
And of course you can add any cheese you want. I prefer the mozzarella that comes in balls, the kind in a bag with water. You can try to chop this if you like, but I've just gone for the torn approach to match the rustic base.
Red Leicester is another good cheese to use because it has good melting properties and it's a fun colour. But use whatever you like.
Next we just pop the little fella into the oven until it's done. I don't know how long this will take exactly. It depends how think your cheese is, and how melted you like it. It probably takes in the region of 15 minutes. Just keep an eye on it while you clean up the work surfaces and when it's looks right, take it out and serve. Garnish with some black pepper and some fresh basil. I also added a little dried oregano.
Enjoy!
