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| If you’re making a pizza at home during lockdown, try doing it in a frying pan. |
During lockdown, cooking and baking were routinely suggested as a fun way to keep both adults and children busy. And the best thing about pizza is that you can put on any topping you want, and satisfy your cravings while keeping full.
By cooking with your children, you’re also spending quality time together, doing something enjoyable and productive. The extra time spent together during Covid-19 has been shown to strengthen bonds too.
This pizza recipe require no oven, you can try today and impress everyone at home.
– Total time: 90 minutes
– Servings: 3-4 people.
– Total calories: 2, 347 kcal
Ingredients
300 gr wheat flour
5g of flour (for work surface when rolling bases)
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (or cooking oil)
150 ml unsweetened milk (or water)
Base sauce: 3 tomatoes, 1 tablespoon ketchup, sugar, salt, butter, garlic, ground pepper.
Topping (optional): sausage, sweet corn, onion, basil and mozzarella.
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| You can add your favourite toppings just after the cheese and finish off with fresh basil after cooking, to add some Italian flair. Credit: instagram/@thatsamorepizzaco |
Instruction
Mix instant yeast with the luke warm, then stir to activate it.
Sift the flour into a large bowl, add salt and olive oil, slowly add the yeast mixture and milk.
Sprinkle 5g of flour on a clean work surface and kneed the dough until smooth, add oil and mix again
Apply oil inside a bowl, put the kneaded dough in, cover with damp cloth, and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Then, continue to knead well for 4-5 minutes so that it is nice and elastic, cover with a damp cloth, and rest for another 30 minutes.
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| If you don’t have yeast, you can use 2 egg whites instead. However, the baking time will be longer. |
After the dough has doubled in size, press it down, gently knead the dough for 15 seconds and let the dough rest for 5 minutes and divide into 2 parts.
Coat rolling pin with a bit of flour and roll, so that the center is thinner than the outer edge of the cake. Squeeze the edges to prevent the filling from spilling out.
If you want the bases to be thinner or thicker, roll the dough out less or more depending on your preference.
Use a fork to cover the surface of the base to prevent swelling.
Brush a little butter or cooking oil on a frying pan, heat it, cover and cook the pizza over low flame until cooked from one side for 4-5 min.
Flip and cook the other side.
Turn off the heat and set aside.
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| Take your frustrations out on the homemade pizza dough. |
Making the tomato sauce:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil, make an incision with a paring knife, in the shape of a cross, at the top of each tomato. Once the water is boiling, plunge the tomatoes in the water and boil for 30 seconds to 1 minute until the skins start to peel back (the riper the tomato and the thinner the skins, the faster the skins will peel back). Immediately transfer the tomatoes to iced water and let stand for a minute or two until cooled.
Drain the tomatoes and remove the skins, they should come right off. Once peeled, halve the tomatoes and remove the core. Cut each half in segments and remove the seeds pushing the seeds and their juices out with your thumb. Place seeds and juices in a medium sieve and stir until all the juices have been strained. Discard seeds.
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| You can use all that’s left in your fridge to make a delicious homemade pizza. |
Fry chopped garlic with butter, add diced onion, tomato puree, season with sugar, salt, a little ketchup and water, cook until the mixture is thick, add pepper, scoop out and set aside.
Chop the sausage, split the sweet corn kernels, and finely chop the onion or bell pepper.
Get your pan really hot, then put the roll out pizza dough into the pan to start cooking and assemble the toppings in the pan.
Sprinkle salt, chilli flakes and seasoning. Cover and cook for another 4-5 min in low flame.
After the cheese has melted (about 5 minutes), open the lid to avoid steaming, increase the heat to medium to make the base more crispy.
Note: Use a cast iron or non-stick oven-proof frying pan. If you don’t have one of these, start your pizza in your frying pan and move to a pre-heated baking sheet to finish cooking under the grill. If you don’t have yeast, you can use 2 egg whites instead. However, the baking time will be longer. If wheat flour is not available, all-purpose flour can be used and fresh milk should be used to make the base soft and delicious. Gluten free: replace the whole wheat flour in the dough with the same amount of rice flour. If the dough becomes drier, add a little more oil until the point is reached. Lactose free: Use a zero lactose cheese option in the filling in the same amount indicated in the list of ingredients. Vegan: remove the mozzarella from the filling and replace it with vegan parmesan. You can prepare the pizza dough and freeze in portions in the form of balls for busy days. A pizza is the ultimate playground to experiment with flavours. During the lockdown, you can test your creativity by preparing uniquely-flavoured pizzas at home. |
