I’ve always found making pizza complicated. First, there is the obstacle of the dough. Sure, nowadays, you can find it ready-made in the shops, but it never convinced me. Then there’s the pre-baking stage before adding the filling, which aims the dough to stays firm. And if you mess it up, it ends up dripping all over the place once in the oven.
In the end, therefore, even after having followed the steps carefully, the result is not very good. Of course, it’s edible, but we can do better. As usual, when I fail, I always try to find out why. I always tell myself that if I don’t manage to do what I want to do it’s simply because I’m not doing it the right way.
And I Yeah! After some research on the web and with multiple cookbooks later, I managed to mix several methods and ways for the perfect dough.
The dough: the most crucial step is not the kneading time, but the resting time. It must have time to rise to be soft later. First, prepare the flour and dissolve the yeast in a little water, then let the yeast rise for a few minutes.
Then mix everything together gently and knead vigorously. There’s no need to spend hours, it’s useless, 5 to 7 minutes are more than enough. Once the dough is elastic, let it rest for half an hour before adding the filling.
Today’s toppings are simple, varied, and tasty. With the amount of dough, we made 4 different medium-sized pizzas. And that’s just a small part of the many we’re planning in our next book.
Then comes the cooking method: and here for once, no need for an oven, well almost! A baking tray, the grill mode of the oven, and it’s wrapped.
It’s all a matter of minutes. It goes quickly, so be careful to keep an eye on it. The advantage of doing this is that you can make ahead different pizzas in advance and cook them quickly so that they always stay hot.
Pizza
For the dough :
- 400g T45 flour
- 2 pieces of baker’s yeast
- 20 to 25 cl of warm water
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
For the tomato sauce :
- 4 tomatoes
- 1 clove of garlic
- basil leaves
- olive oil
- salt
Trim :
La Mollicone
Mozzarella
1 Merguez
Minced meat
1 egg
La Reine
Mozzarella cheese
2 mushrooms
1 slice of raw ham
L’Orientale
Mozzarella cheese
2 mushrooms
1 merguez
La Jambon aux olives
Mozzarella cheese
1 slice of raw ham
Green olives
Prepare the dough:
Form a crater with the flour In the middle, place the olive oil, yeast, and warm water Lightly mix in a little flour and leave the yeast to rise for 10 to 15 minutes Mix the dough by hand and knead it for 5 to 7 minutes
Leave to rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour Make balls of about 150g
Prepare the tomato sauce:
Mix in a blender 2 tomatoes, basil leaves, 1/2 clove of garlic, a dash of olive oil and a pinch of salt.
Garnish with your favourite topping:
Heat a well-oiled ovenproof frying pan over high heat and heat the oven grill.
Roll out the pastry to a thickness of 1 cm and carefully place it in the pan. Pour the tomato sauce over the pastry.
The filling (depending on the one chosen): Tear the mozzarella into small pieces and scatter over it. Cover with slices of ham or merguez and beef balls. Add sliced mushrooms
When the mozzarella starts to melt, put the pan in the oven under the hot grill for 4 to 5 minutes.
When the pizza is golden brown, remove it from the oven and transfer it to a wooden board or plate. Sprinkle with basil leaves and serve immediately.
