Thin and crispy, a rich tomato sauce and lots of garlic. Those are my three golden rules for a drool worthy pizza. Tonight I kept the ingredients simple and made one margherita and one silverbeet and cheese pizza.
For the pizza base, I used semolina, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, a drizzle of olive oil and a couple teaspoons of yeast. And mixed it all together with some hot water (hot to the touch, not boiling) to form a non sticky dough. While the dough rested, I heated up the oven on maximum temperature and started preparing the toppings for the first pizza. (I rest the dough for about 15 minutes before rolling it out into a thin crust.)
Although a classic margherita is a tomato base, mozzarella and basil, I didn't have mozzarella and so I had to make an extra tasty tomato base.
Margherita topping:
- handful of garlic cloves
- 4 anchovies
- 1 fresh chopped tomato
- v8 juice and/or tomato paste
- green tomato chutney
- pinch of salt
Crush the garlic and the anchovies together and spread evenly on the crust with some olive oil. Place into the oven to half bake. Place the tomato, v8 juice/tomato paste, salt and green tomato chutney into a pan and cook until well incorporated and somewhat reduced into a sauce.
Spread the sauce onto the crust and continue baking until the crust is golden brown. Sprinkle basil leaves all over and serve.
Silverbeet and cheese:
- 3 - 4 large silverbeet leaves (spinach can be used too)
- 1 small brown onion
- couple of handfuls of soft cheese such as feta
- pinch of salt
- pinch of pepper
- tomato paste
Spread tomato paste onto semolina base and half bake. Finely chop all the vegetables and quickly fry in a pan with salt and pepper until just starting to wilt.Shred the cheese and mix into the vegetables. Layer the vegetables on top of the base and continue to bake till done. Sprinkle some olive oil and top and eat.
