Saturday, September 20, 2008

THE BEST PIZZA EVER!

Pizza is on the menu in our household fairly irregularly now, but when we lived in Zambia for 3 years, I managed to make one that was quite acceptable to most who came to eat at our place - considering, that is, that there were no pizza parlours to buy the 'take away' kind until the last few months before returning to Australia. I've attempted to make them infrequently in the past few years, including home made dough and ready made base, but none of them really tasted like 'the real thing' until recently when I attempted another 'base' recipe. This one uses both yeast and semolina and gives a great tasting, crispy edged base. Just throw whatever topping on that takes your fancy. Within reason that is - ham and pineapple for him, mushrooms for me, but no anchovies or capsicum for either.

Anyway if you'd like to have a go, here's what I did:

200gr plain flour, 70gr semolina, pinch of salt, 190ml warm water, 1 tablespoon of oil, 3.5gr dry yeast (I would estimate this to be about 3/4 teaspoon).

Mix all ingredients together and knead till soft and pliable and mixture leaves the sides of the bowl. (I cheated and did this for about 5 minutes in a bread making machine). Lightly grease a clean bowl and place the mixture into this, leaving it in a warm place to rise for about an hour. When well risen, remove from bowl and knead gently before rolling out to the size and thickness needed for your pizza. Place on a pizza tray and top as desired. Bake in very hot oven for about 15 minutes.

Delicious!