My husband’s favourite foods are pizza and baguette. Yes, he will survive very well in both France and Italy. Whenever the question of “what shall we eat today?” surfaces, his answer will likely be pizza. Our family may well be eating pizza every other day, if he has his way around things. Fortunately, he doesn’t.
So, he has been on a “I want to eat pizza” mood for a couple of weeks, and since the family wasn’t quite well (the flu bug has been going around), he hadn’t had his pizza fix. He signed up for cook for family event, I suggested to him to kill two birds with one stone – have his pizza fix AND cook for the family. He gamely took up my suggestion and we had fun making pizza!
We modified a Jamie Oliver’s basic pizza dough recipe and had enough dough for four medium size pizzas. One of the pizzas was made with a tomato base and the other with a pesto base. We even had a splitza! Half ham, mushroom and peppers and the other butter chicken.
It was all hands on deck for pizza night! Yes, even my two year old toddler had fun adding ingredients to the pizza. Here in this picture, she is adding her favourite mushrooms to the pizza. I love this candid shot!
I made the above pizza with a pesto base, using a good ready-made pesto sauce. Spread the pesto as a base, heap on the ingredients to your liking, sprinkle with mozzarella and in the oven it goes!
And this picture brings me to the discovery of the day: Butter chicken pizza. Ok, I know what you must be thinking. This gooey mess of red? Are you kidding me? Well, we did go overboard with the butter chicken sauce, but trust me, this is the most delicious combination we have had on a pizza in a long while. Perhaps, it would have looked prettier if we had remembered to spread butter chicken sauce on the base, heap on chunky pieces of butter chicken with added onions and peppers and topped it with mozzarella cheese. But no, I forgot to spread the pizza base with sauce so I decided to drizzle it most liberally on the pizza. The result? This messy looking pizza that tasted every bit delicious.
So are you sold yet? What is butter chicken, some of you may ask. It’s this tasty chicken dish that is sold at most tandoori food stalls and it is a fantastic accompaniment to naan. I say, it is even better on pizza.
The next time you are wondering what to do for dinner, consider making pizza and having fun with your family! Pizza making is one of the the things that is sure to engage everyone, from the oldest to the youngest. No real recipe, just your favourite ingredients mixed and matched the way you like it. After all, dinner together as a family is supposed to be fun!
- 500g bread flour
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 7g dried yeast (not instant)
- 1½ tsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 325 ml warm water (43-46°C)
- Sieve flour and salt onto a clean surface.
- In a large measuring jug, mix yeast, brown sugar, olive oil and warm water.
- Leave it to stand for about 5-7 minutes (the mixture should look foamy).
- Make a well in the centre of the flour.
- Add the liquid mixture into the well and slowly mix in flour from the sides.
- When the dough comes together, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic (about 10 - 15 minutes).
- Shape dough into a ball and place it in a large flour-dusted bowl.
- Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave it to rise until double in bulk.
- Remove dough from bowl and knead it gently to remove some air.
- Divide dough into four portions and cover dough with a piece of cling wrap for 10-15 minutes.
- Roll out each piece of dough till about 0.5cm thick.
- Use immediately or stack them up, cover with cling wrap and place them into the fridge.
- Preheat oven to 205°C 20 minutes before pizza is to be baked.
- Place a baking stone (if using) in the oven while it is heating up.
- Place pizza on a baking sheet.
- Spread sauce on pizza and place toppings on top of the sauce base.
- Sprinkle liberally with mozzarella cheese.
- Place baking sheet on top of baking stone and bake for 15 minutes, or until pizza crust is golden brown.
- Serve hot.
