Friday, February 17, 2012

Pesto Pizza


This is a really easy pizza to make. Here's the pizza dough recipe.

Semolina pizza dough
Enough for two very thin, 12-inch, round pizza crusts
3/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup semolina flour
1 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp sea salt
3 tbsp olive oil

In a cup, add the yeast to the warm water and stir to remove lumps if any. Set aside. Sift together the flours, sugar and salt. Add the yeast mixture and olive oil and stir with a wooden spoon till the mixture forms a sticky dough. On a floured surface, knead dough till smooth. Put dough in an oiled bowl, turn to coat the entire ball and cover the bowl with a damp towel or plastic wrap and keep aside to rise until it doubles in size. Once risen, you can cut it into half and roll out for 2 thin crust 12" pizzas or use just one portion and freeze the other. Sprinkle the pizza stone with some semolina and place the rolled out pizza on top, add toppings and bake at 220 C for 12-14 mins or until crust is golden.

Pizza sauce

For the sauce, you'd need
2 medium sized tomatoes
1 red pepper
3 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
About a table spoon of olive oil
1/2 tsp of Oregano

Skin the tomatoes and puree with the garlic cloves,  salt and pepper. Cook till the sauce turns a dark red, stir in the olive oil. Add the oregano and keep aside. Remove the skin from the red pepper. (Place it in a pot filled with about 2 inches of water and bring to a boil with the lid on. Let it boil for about 5 minutes. Take off fire and set aside to cool. It should be easy to get the skin off once it's cool). Puree the skinned pepper and stir into the cooked tomato sauce. Spread onto the pizza dough and add toppings.
I used onions, tomatoes, salami, pesto and mozzarella :)