The hunger pang came after watching a pizza ad, showing a pair of pretty hands kneading the floured pizza dough, sprinkling herbs and toppings, before presenting 5 rectangular pizzas, each with a different flavor.
Not too difficult, if you ask me, once you have this bread dough and this tomato pasta sauce ready. I had to settle with frozen beef meatballs, canned button mushrooms and cheddar cheese as toppings as I do not have much items in my pantry, being a Friday, aka empty fridge day; I make it a point to clear out my groceries by Fridays, and start afresh on Saturdays. But you can easily “upgrade” with a simple switch of toppings to fresh ingredients such as mozzarella cheese and basil.
*Hint* Those delivery menus from pizza shops have lotsa great ideas!
RECIPE FOR PIZZA DOUGH
Source
- 3 cups lukewarm water - 1 tablespoon instant yeast - 1 tablespoon salt - 2lb or 910g of plain flour*
/ To Make Dough
01. Place water, salt and yeast in a plastic container that is big enough for the dough. This container preferably with lid (if not, cover with cling wrap will do too) will also be the storage container for the dough to be placed in the fridge. Make sure your fridge has a space for it. A 6-quart container is recommended in the book.
02. Add in the flour all at once. Stir until the dough comes together, it should be a wet and shapeless one. If yours can be kneaded into a ball, you have probably used too much flour. You can still save the dough by adding water slowly, till you get the dough to its rightful consistency.
03. Cover the container loosely, saving a gap for the gases to escape as the dough proof.
04. Allow the dough to rise to double its bulk, anything from 2 hours to 4 hours, depending on the room temperature.
05. Once the dough has risen to its max, it will start to settle down, sink a little and form a flat top. This dough is now ready to be used, or it can be stored in the fridge when you are ready to bake a bread or pizza. I prefer keeping it in the chiller for a few hours so that the dough is easier to handle.
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/ To Bake Pizza (Get your choice of topping ready, I used sliced button mushrooms, sliced ikea beef meatballs, and cheddar cheese)
01. When you are ready to make pizza, take out the dough from the fridge, sprinkle some plain flour on top of the dough and grab a handful of it and cut it out with a pair of scissors.
02. Roughly shape it into a ball with floured hands, and press it down on a baking parchment paper placed on a baking tray. Stretch out the dough to create a really thin crust (the pizza crust will still rise through the baking process, so I am not worried about the dough being too thin).
03. Spread some garlic butter, or this tomato paste over the dough.
04. Place sliced button mushrooms and meatballs on top of the butter or tomato sauce. Drizzle with some olive oil.
05. In a preheated oven 240C (460F), bake for 8 -10 minutes. When pizza is cooked, placed sliced cheddar cheese on top, and leave it in the warm oven for another 1 minute to melt the cheese. If you are using mozzarella cheese, you may add it before baking the pizza. I ran out of mozzarella and didn’t want my cheddar cheese to brown during baking.
06. Serve immediately.
MONO and CO 