Today’s QUIZINE IN QUARANTINE dish is Pizza! We all love it, this great dish is enjoyed worldwide. I’m sure we’ve all had Pizza, but they’re always the best when freshly made. That’s right, we’re going to be showing you how to make some from scratch!
An important note, we use enough ingredients here to make 8 pizzas, so depending on how many you’re after, do the relevant maths. The great thing with Pizza is you can customise as you wish, so choose whatever toppings you like, but we’ll list what we used.
INGREDIENTS
1kg flour
2tsp salt
2tbsp olive oil
14g of dry yeast
650ml warm water
1 handful of Semolina
2 cans chopped tomato
2 cloves garlic
TOPPINGS
Red Leicester cheese
Cheddar cheese
Edam cheese
Turkish white cheese (Beyaz Peynir)
Salami
Chicken tikka
Mushrooms
Red onions
Basil
Green pepper
1. Begin by adding flour and salt into a bowl and mixing together.
2. Pour yeast into water and mix, before adding this to the flour and salt bowl.
3. Mix until everything starts coming together, then transfer to hard surface and knead what has become the dough. At this stage don’t panic if it feels soft, just keep kneading and add flour only if the dough get’s too sticky. Knead for approx 10 mins.
4. Leave the dough to rest for at least 2 hours, making sure that it is covered. When you get back to it, it should have doubled in size.
5. Cut the dough into pieces (in our case, it’s 8) and round them into a ball shape. Sprinkle some semolina on a tray and place the dough on top. This will add a nice crunchy texture to your pizza base.
TIP: if you have some extra dough, you can stretch out, bake for 10 mins, cool, then leave in freezer. This way you can preserve your bases for months. When you’re feeling pizza again, you can chuck some toppings onto your frozen base and put straight into the oven.
6. Now we move on to our tomato base. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a hot pan before adding 2 cloves of garlic. Allow the garlic to simmer then add two cans of chopped tomatoes. Heat for around 5 mins until the sauce is bubbling, then allow it to cool for another 5 mins.
7. Sprinkle semolina over a pizza tray, grab a piece of dough and stretch it over the tray until it’s nice and flat.
8. Smother the dough in tomato sauce, then add toppings of your choice. We went for a cheesy vegetable special and one meat mix.
9. Pop the pizza into a pre-heated oven at 180°C and bake for approx 20 mins. Timing may vary depending on the oven and thickness of dough so keep an eye on it.
10. That’s it, you’re done, cut into slices and enjoy!
Watch how it’d done here: