Delishuss Blog

So you’ll know if you have read my blog before that I love Jamie Oliver. He is my cooking idol. However, I must admit I find his recipes quite difficult to follow. I personally prefer each point of the cooking method numbered so that I don’t have to keep re-reading the paragraphs. I’m going to blame the recipe format for the fact that I made too much dough for each pizza and also missed what the purpose of the breadcrumbs was. Okay, okay, I will take a smidgen of blame for not reading the recipe before I bought the ingredients and started making it. Note to future self, read the recipe thoroughly both in advance of food purchasing and preparation.

I got this recipe from Jamie’s cookbook, Save with Jamie. I’m doing a 12 week health and fitness challenge, not quite sure that this recipe fits in the scope of healthy eating but it was delishuss. A little of what you like is good for you, right?

Here’s a few things that I wish I knew before I started this one. The dough recipe will make about 3×12 inch pizzas. I depends on your outlook whether you think 12 inch is medium or large :-0 I made 2×12 inch pizzas and there was too much dough. I know the intention is that it’s a pie, so it’s going to be thicker, but I found it a bit doughy to be honest.

You can freeze the uncooked, prepared pizza as well.

The breadcrumbs go on the pizza tin’s base before you add the dough. Given that I forgot to add this, I can only assume that because my pizzas stuck to the bottom of the tin that this is to prevent this happening.

So here goes (itemised method because that’s the way I like it):

Serves 4-5 people (original recipe states 8-9, I will let you be the judge).

Prep/cooking time = 1 hour + proving time

Ingredients

1kg strong white bread flour or Tipo ’00’ flour, plus extra for dusting

1x7g sachet of dried yeast

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or leftover pork dripping

2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1x400g tin of chopped tomatoes

Red wine vinegar

50g ciabatta or stale bread

Olive oil

350g leftover cooked pork and crackling or 6-8 quality sausages (at least 80% meat)

1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced

25 slices of pickled jalapeno or 2 fresh green chillies, finely sliced

159g cheddar cheese or mozzarella

1 heaped teaspoon fennel seeds

1 good pinch smoked paprika

Method

1. Put the flour and 1 heaped teaspoon of sea salt into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.

2. Add 600ml of tepid water to the well and stir in the yeast.

3. Add the extra virgin olive oil (or the equivalent amount of leftover pork dripping, for incredible flavour), and use a fork to gradually bring in the flour, then pat together into a dough.

4. Knead on a flour-dusted surface until smooth and springy.

5. Place in a bowl, cover with a damp tea towel ( I used cling film/glad wrap) and leave somewhere warm until doubled in size (roughly 1 hour).

6. Meanwhile, peel and finely slice the garlic and put it into a blender with the oregano, tomatoes and 1 tablespoon of vinegar or liquid from the jalepeno jar. whizz until smooth, season and put aside.

7. In a food processor, blitz the bread into fine breadcrumbs. Oil the pizza tins, and lightly dust with the breadcrumbs.

8. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius, 375 degrees Fahrenheit or gas mark 5.

9. Knock the dough back (this means taking the excess air of it), then divide into 3 and stretch or roll out each piece on the flour-dusted surface using your tin size as a gauge.

10. Place in the tins, pushing the dough up to the sides to create a crust when cooking and then let them prove for another 15-20 minutes.

11. Divide the sauce between the pizza bases.

12. Finely chop the pork and any leftover crackling, or squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins, then sprinkle over the pizza.

13. Toss the slices onion in a drizzle of olive oil (prevent them cooking too quickly and burning) and scatter over the top with the sliced jalapenos or chilli and bombs of cheese.

14. Bash the fennel seeds and paprika in a pestle and mortar until fairly fine, then sprinkle over the pizzas from a height.

15. At this point, you can cover the pizzas and freeze if not required.

16. Bake the pizzas for around 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and the base is golden, puffed up and crispy.

Note: you can cook the frozen pizzas straight from the freezer, just add another 30 minutes to the cooking time.

This seems like an exceptionally long recipe but it the method itself is quite straight forward, so give it a go at the weekend when you have a bit more time on your hands.