Pizza Schmizza

For a quick pizza-wine-movie, impress-your-other-half fix, make pizza in ten minutes using prefab, homemade frozen dough. See function plus below.
But for now we'll just go for the normal version.

Ingredients (El cheapo)

Home Brand* Flour $2.50
Home Brand Black Olives $3.75
Home Brand Tuna in Oil 425g $3.99
Home Brand/ Valumetric Cheese (Choose your type)1KG $7-8
Home Brand Tomato Soup Condensed 415g $1.49
Home Brand Salt 1 Kg $1.35
Home Brand Olive Oil Pure 500ml $5.99
Onions $1.99 per kilo
Edmonds Yeast Active Dried 150g $4.39

Shopping cost, approx $32.
Cost per pizza, approx $4

Ingredients (El expensivo)
High Grade Flour
Spanish Kalamata Olives
Fresh King Prawns, Bell's Italian salami
Mozzarella
Delmaine's tomato paste
Olivio Extra Virgin Olive Oil ...


Substitute tuna with left over cold meats (Chicken, roast, chops, sausages) Pam’s ham or salami (To be got at New World)

All ingredients can be used in other recipes.Most of them last for a good while in the refrigerator and dry storage/ pantry.

Wherever you are in the world, your Super will have its self owned low budget brand so go and get it Tiger because there is nothing wrong with using it and saving your money for a trip abroad!

* Home Brand is a Woolworth Brand. Substitute with Pams and Budget which are a New World brand.

Method

Pizza Dough

Add the following in a big bowl
3 c flour
Pinch of salt

Separately, mix together
3 tsp Yeast
1.5 c Tepid water (Means warmer to colder than warmer to hotter water)
1 tsp sugar

Wait until it has a nice head of froth then tip into the flour mix with
3 glugs of oil

Knead the mix thoroughly in a big bowl until you get a nice smooth dough, like the one you see in Mystic Pizza the movie

The dough is better to be loose than tight and floury.

Divide dough into two parts. Clean the bowl. Grease bowl with oil and place two dough balls inside. Cover up with cling film or towel and let sit for half a day. The dough should have doubled in size before they are ready for pizza making.

In-a-hurry alternative - Put the oven on lowest temperature setting, put bowl with the dough balls in the oven and let them rise the artificial way. Be careful to put the temperature on 20 or 40 degrees. If the oven is too hot it will dry out the dough!
Should take an hour for the yeast to activate in the dough and double it in size faster.

Rolling out dough is tricky. It requires loads of practice.

You need to flour well your bench and roller (Empty wine bottle works a treat) or the base will stick and tear.

Punch the dough down and start to work with it. It works best when the dough is cold as the proteins have not expanded which makes the dough go sticky!

Chemistry aside you need to try and get the base the shape/size you want.Don't make the dough tough, keep air in it so it becomes crispy.
The more flour you add the drier the dough becomes and we don't want that.

For immediate pizza gratification ...heat oven to 220 degrees, prep toppings and add toppings in the following order.

Toppings

Tomato paste (Use soup) – Thinly spread
Onions - Finely chopped into rings
Meat, fish, soya
Cheese - Grated
Olives - De-pitted (Nothing worse than enjoying a meal while having to pit olives).
Mixed herbs - Sprinkle over the whole pizza

GO EASY ON TOPPINGS! Too much on the pizza base will make the crust soggy.It is better to be sparse with toppings and have seconds!It will ruin the base and the flavour if otherwise overloaded with stuff.

Bake Pizza 20-30 min until crust start turning brown in colour and bottom is hard.

For extra flavouring

With chicken – Try chutney
With Tuna or fish – Pour some olive oil, lemon scented if you ‘ve got it
General, garnish with rocket - tastes delish

FUNCTION PLUS

Freeze or refridgerate dough once it has risen for later use in zip lock bags. Make sure to rub oil over dough and inside bag before putting it in the freezer so the dough is easier to take out once it has thawed.

Tip

Remember Mario Battali’s adage on Molto Mario, it's better to start out with a slightly gooey dough than a too dry one as it is easier to add a bit more flour than liquid. Good luck!