How this is not the go-to pizza cooking method at home I don't know. I can proudly call this the quickest and most effective way to get a super crispy base without the luxury of a wood fired oven. The key? A blazing hot frying pan and a maxed' out grill.
Pizza's great, but making the dough is often what dreads me out and stops me from indulging. Actually, it really shouldn't be. Yes it gets messy, but if you have a good clean space of work surface and keep within it, you'll have your base dough prepped and ready to prove within 25 minutes. Is that really that bad?
Firstly, get ahead of yourself by prepping your dough the day before you want to eat. I did these for our house last Sunday so made-up the dough after breakfast on the Saturday.
Pile your flour onto the work surface and push outwards from the middle to create a well.
Fill a measuring jug with 600ml of tepid water and mix the yeast in with a fork until it has dissolved completely.
Pour half the liquid into the middle of your flour well and begin bringing in parts of the side and rubbing between your hands to start forming the dough. Once you have one big piece of dough, knead for about 10 minutes.
Once your dough has a nice sheen and stretch to it, divide into 8 balls.
Flour a baking tray, roll on your balls and throw over a damp tea towel. Sit in a warmish place (e.g. airing cupboard) for 24 hours.
On pizza day, whip out your balls and plonk them on a floured work surface.
Now for the pizza professionals base stretching tekkers... Rather than using a rolling pin, begin using your fingertips to push the sides out gently from the middle, spinning it as you go, gradually forming a circular or close to circular shape. If/when you do tear it, pull part of the broken area side over the break and press with your fingers all around to reform it. As your base gets thinner and larger, tears will happen.
Once you've got the base as thin as you dare go, set to one side whilst you prep your toppings.
My winning pizza sauce consists of just two ingredients. Because we can't get tomatoes tasting as good as the Italian's, I blend a roasted red pepper with a tin of chopped tomatoes. This helps add a natural sweetness to the sauce. Give a good grind of salt and pepper and that's it. 30 second pizza sauce.
Prepare your toppings of choice. For me, the king and queen of toppings are Nduja (a Calabrian soft spicy sausage) and Burrata (a softer, wetter mozzarella). But, these are a bastard to get hold of so I've used some good quality Chorizo and Buffalo Mozzarella. To garnish, I'll add some chopped Red Jalapeños before cooking, and some fresh Basil after.
Simplicity is king, stick to no more than 2 lead toppings.
Cooking time... Crank your grill to its highest setting (mine goes to 275 degs) and when it's almost up to temperature, get a large frying pan up to a similarly screaming hot temp.
Throw your pizza base into the pan, pour on a little less than a ladle of tomato sauce and build your toppings. Don't build the toppings before as the sauce absorbs into the base really quickly and it doesn't crisp up nearly as well.
Slide a spatula under the base after about 2 minutes and tap the bottom to check it's nice and crispy. Once it is, place under the grill and check it after about 3 minutes.
Once you've gauged the first pizza's cooking time you can apply it to the remaining ones.
Once complete, garnish with some fresh basil or oregano (don't use dried herbs with pizza). Slice and serve.
:: Ingredients ::
Dough
1kg 00' Flour
2g yeast (if in a 7g sachet, use a roughly a quarter)
600ml tepid water
30g or 2 dessert spoons of Salt (sounds a lot but it's really not and it's SO key)
Tomato Sauce
1 tin of Chopped Tomatoes
1 roasted Red Pepper (from a jar or just bung one in the blender fresh)
Toppings (your choice but mine were...)
1 Chorizo ring (sliced diagonally to get bigger slices)
Basil
Red Jalapenos
Buffalo Mozzarella (or as best quality as possible)
