PIZZA TO TOP: PART 2

So two hours and at least 2 Sangaria down, what do you do now... Good news is that, all the science-y part of the recipe is over. No more of measuring or waiting but simply to taste and make. The first thing you should do once your dough has risen, is to preheat the oven to 220 deg Celsius with your pizza pan in it.

The topping can be as many as there are stars in the sky. Choose whatever you want and get it ready!! Read on what I did with this freedom and how I topped pizza, my way!!!

Ingredients:

For the tomato “cheats” sauce:

5 tbsp Tomato ketchup

½ tsp fresh garlic paste

Dried herbs of your choice; I used some oregano and thyme.

Method:

Ok, I don’t believe in simmering tomatoes for hours and hours with meat and stuff to make a sauce which wont even shine out. Can you even begin to calculate the amount of LPG it’s gonna require. Though I did find a cheats version of cooking the best tomato sauce with fresh ripe tomatoes, within half the cost, but for a pizza top only, its not worth it! I will share my secret fresh sauce for a pasta dish later, but here I feel a simple no-cook sauce works wonders!!

Also don’t be tempted to buy the jarred pizza or pasta sauce. Invest that sauce money on a good quality, bigger quantity ketchup instead. These jarred sauces are nothing but ketchup spiked with lots of oil and some dry, mostly synthetic flavours. The organic ones are good, but hell expensive. And trust me after you make this no-cook sauce by combining the ingredients mentioned, you are gonna fall in love with it and make a full jar and store in the refrigerator to have it with masala omelettes and stuff.. it will stay up to a week or so in refrigeration!!

Just combine the ingredients and taste. If you want to spike it more with garlic, be my guest.

Now to the topping of your choice:

I made a half and half of mutton pepperoni and bacon with cottage style veggies on the side.

The assembly

Roll out the dough in your desired thickness. I adore and enjoy the thin crust and hence I am gonna make the recipe for that. However you can roll it less and make a bulgy thick crust pizza. The cooking time for both will differ tremendously and depending on your oven, it can be close to double the time it takes for a thin crust.

Now take the heated pizza pan (or any other flat plate or a cookie sheet), and sprinkle it with the corn meal or semolina. What this does, is, it makes the pan completely non-stick and your pizza gets an extra crunch.

Put in the rolled out dough on top and lightly brush it with some olive oil.

Top it with some of your no cook sauce. Remember though; don’t go overboard with smearing. Moderation in the topping is the key to light & crispy base.

Pile on all the topping you want in a single pretty layer. Top it with some fresh mozzarella and some real expensive but amazingly flavourful Parmigiano Reggiano. Use the other jarred parmesan if you want to, on your own risk. After tasting parmeggiano, I sweared myself off that jarred muck, for good. The real stuff is expensive, but the flavour is worth it.

Cook the pizza in a hot 220c oven for 20 minutes on the top-most rack. Once the veggies seem cooked, spike down the temperature to 200c and cook for another 10-12 minutes, till the edges of you base has turned golden and crispy.

Viola!! And here comes your very own master creation. There are very few joys in this world which compares to the joy of looking into something that you made and it turned out damn hell, pretty well!!! This is a no fail, but yet a healthy version of our first love fast food, and you guys should definitely enjoy it to the fullest!! 

Cheers!!