Pizza!!

First off, I put a full bag of strong white flour in a mixing bowl with a dessert spoonfull of salt, 50g fresh yeast, or two sachets of dried, and 850-900ml of warm water. Give it a good mix through with a spatula and it should look something like this;

 

 

 With fresh yeast it will start fermenting within thirty minutes. Dried takes a fair bit longer. Once it rises to double the size knock it down so it looks like this.

 

The sauce is 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, 3 cloves of garlic, a good glug of extra virgin olive oil, dried oregano, fresh torn basil, salt, pepper and sugar, to your taste. Simmer it for about 15 minutes to reduce, and allow to cool. *tip* If its for kids you can push it through a sieve so no big chunks of tomato. Never, ever liquidise tomatoes, the seeds are bitter and likely to ruin a good sauce...

 

 

 

I use a 10' frying pan with the handle removed, over a medium heat, and shallow fry the base in a little olive oil until its puffed up on top and crisp on the bottom. I then put it under a very hot grill for a couple of minutes just to colour it, then add the toppings. I wish I could show a pic of this one as it came out of the grill but it was surrounded by gannets within seconds.

 

This one has pepperoni, potato, green chilli, onion and Parmejano Regiano. I'd love to be able to tell you how delicious it was but I took a pic, turned my back to find the peppermill, and it had disappeared like a fart on the wind....

 

 

I like to serve pizza with a mixed salad and fries, and friends and beer and wine....

 

 

In Italy, pizza is peasant food, meats and cheeses are a luxury added by the Americans and ourselves. It originated as a flatbread with tomato, olive oil, garlic, herbs and vegetables and, the flatbread was originally deep fried.