2010 Cooking Club Week 30: homemade pizza

This is rapidly becoming a favourite in my house. Its so easy and if you make double quantities, it can be frozen for a later date. It can also be made a couple days in advance and left in the fridge. I'll try and load pictures as I go through it, but am not sure if I can upload them.

Ingredients:

Pizza dough (to make some to freeze later, double quantities).

500g Plain flour
1 sachet dried yeast
0.5 teaspoon salt
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
approx 300ml warm water
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon black pepper

Mix olive oil and warm water in a jug. Add dried yeast and stir.

Sieve flour into a big bowl and add in salt, sugar, mustard powder and blackpepper.

Make a hole/crater in the middle of the dry ingredients and add in the liquid.

With your hands mix the water into the dry ingredients until you have a wet dough. This can be done in a blender also (quicker), but I don't own one big enough.

Tip the wet dough onto a well floured surface and knead until you have a slightly shiney smooth dough. If the dough is very wet add some more flour. If it is too dry add some more water/milk.

Put the dough back into the the bowl, cover in clingfilm and leave in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size. Don't worry about the timing. You could make the dough in the morning and leave it to finish in the evening. My photos start here as I made this for dinner this evening, and only volunteered to submit this recipe at this time!



As you can see I just left it on the windowstill as it was warm outside. Sometimes I put it in the hotpress.

The dough should look something like this when its risen:



Pour the dough from the bowl onto a well floured surfact and knead to deflate it. At this stage, if some is to be freezed wrap it in cling film and put it inthe freezer.



Roll out the dough as thinly as possible in a shape to fit your pizza pan. I bought a circular tin with holes in the bottom from Tesco for about E5, but a biscuit/swiss roll tray works just as welll.



I find it easier to stretch it with my hands before using the rolling pin, as it can be too stretchy to roll properly.

Leave for about 10 minutes to rest.

Tomato Sauce

1 can chopped tomatos
3-4 fresh tomatoes (diced)
Olive oil
1 onion
1 stick celery
2 cloves garlic
3-4 sundried tomatoes (in oil)
Salt
Pepper
1/2 teasp Mustard
Dash balsamic vinegar
1/2 teasp sugar
1/4 chilli pepper

Put onion, garlic, sundried tomatoes and celery into a blender and whizz until it is a pulp.

Heat olive oil in saucepan and add pulped vege. Fry until onions are cooked (pulp will turn slightly opaque).

Add rest of ingredients and simmer for twenty mins. Taste and add more salt/pepper, etc to taste. Cool. Sauce can be frozen at this point if required.





Making up pizza

Spread the cooled tomato sauce on the base. Then add whatever topping you want. We put chorizo, cheese, red pepper and spinach on this evening.



Put into the oven at about 180deg celcius for about 20 mins or until dough has turned crispy.

Enjoy with a bottle of wine!