I've been pretty busy this past week.. which explains why I've been meaning to post this entry for ages. I've tried my hand at grilled pizza and well, it could do with a bit of improvement. The pizza dough was the best I've had in ages - thin and crispy and more importantly, made with the least of effort. The toppings were those typical for a Capricciosa pizza (without the anchovies and artichokes - beyond-the-border foods for hubby), so much loved by the husband, but not so much by our new gas barbeque. Although it didn't sound like too much on paper, a layer of cubed perzut tal-koxxa (ham), sliced mushrooms, quartered hardboiled eggs and grated mozzarella proved to be a teeny weeny on the kitchen-sink side. Which made for a charred-bottom pizza by the time the toppings were cooked through, despite following the rule for indirect cooking (flame underneath pizza switched off). We'll have to try again with a simpler pizza margherita (in my books: tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, swirl of olive oil) and Parma ham pizza (tomato sauce, Parma ham, mozzarella). After some time researching easy and practical pizza dough recipes, I decided to try out Heidi Swanson's (101 cookbooks) approach. The dough has a multitude of pros for a working housewife like myself - just have the very few and very basic ingredients ready and whizz everything into the food processor. Following Heidi's recipe, I had six small balls of dough, each yielding a medium-sized individual pizza. I wrapped the dough balls that I wasn't gonna use in plastic wrap misted with olive oil, and froze them (defrost overnight in the fridge, then place in a warm place for proving a couple of hours before intended use). Being based on a delayed fermentation technique, the pizza base had a notable yeasty flavour, and was impressively easy to spread out - in fact I just used my fingers till I got the right thickness. The only tricky part of the process was flipping the olive-oiled side of the pizza base onto the grill surface. I let the base cook slightly, with the barbeque lid shut to keep up that all-important high temperature as much as possible, then flipped the dough over (after brushing the uncooked side with olive-oil), spread enough tomato sauce and leaving the edges free to rise, sprinkled the toppings, then shut the barbie top again to finalise the cooking. I had to peep every now and then, to monitor the stage of cooking, and only removed the pizza from the grill as soon as all the mozzarella had melted nicely. The other toppings (ham, harboiled eggs, mushrooms) were all pre-cooked, so they just needed to be heated through. The result was very promising, despite the few charred bits, which I found quite pleasant anyway. This proved to be a very fast and tasty dinner, which we enjoyed alongside a medium sweet bottle of Rose' D'Anjou. Make sure you have all the toppings ready at hand, cause once you turn the pizza base you need to put your act together pretty fast!! The pizza sauce was one highlight which really pulled this simple dish together - cooked in a slowcooker over 6 hours on the LOW setting meant that the freshness of the tomatoes shone through, the onions melted and caramelised, and my nanna's secret tomato sauce ingredients - mixed spice and a sprinkling of cinnamon - worked their magic for a truly yummy sauce. Here's how I made it...
5 large cloves of garlic, chopped finely
ten medium fully-ripe tomatoes, chopped roughly
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
fresh basil, chopped finely, or dried basil
dried mixed herbs
1 tablespoon mixed spice
How it's done
Just put all the above ingredients in a slowcooker and cook on low for 6 hours, (whilst enjoying the aroma as it swiftly makes its way around your house). As soon as the sauce is done, use a hand blender to puree into perfect saucy decadence... hmm.. Oh yes, and freeze any leftover sauce along with the pizza dough - for those days when you realllly neeeeed to go clothes shopping after work :)
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