PIZZA!!!!!

RECIPE PROFILE

Recipe Type: Dinner

Vegetarian Classification: Adaptable

This is the kind of thing the Economist and I like to do on a Friday night after he's had a long week. We make pizza at home and eat it with a few beers in front of a rented movie. This is a pretty nice and cheap way to spend an evening in otherwise expensive London.

If I had to name my favourite food in the whole world, I would say pizza. The Economist and I have been making homemade pizza for a few years, always experimenting to perfect our recipe and method. Here are the basic ingredients:

We have flour, olive oil and a packet of yeast for the crusts. For the sauce, we have more olive oil, the roasted garlic puree from before, a bit of chili oil, tomato passata (tomato sauce), balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. For the toppings, we have some fresh mozzarella, which is the most common way to get mozzarella around here. Blocks are better for pizza, but this is what was available. Not that I'm complaining--fresh mozzarella is pretty darn good too.

We also have anchovies (don't wrinkle your nose--they're awesome on pizza!) and not pictured, but also for a topping, peppadew peppers which are these sweet-spicy little peppers that work really well with the bland, milky mozzarella.

Obviously the vegetarians among us will stick to cheese pizzas and peppadew peppers, and the non-vegetarians will enjoy those delicious salty anchovies.

We used to take the opportunity of making pizzas to pile tons of veggies on top. Then we realised cheese pizzas are the best. And that pizza is not supposed to pretend to be health food.

Start the pizza crust by mixing flour, yeast, salt and olive oil with a mixture of warm water and beer. The beer was an experiment this time and I think it worked pretty well. I happened to be drinking a beer while cooking, so I thought I'd see what would happen.

Then you gradually add the rest of the flour, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Then I divided the dough into four balls and rolled out four pizza crusts.

In the past I have always let the dough rise in one big ball at this stage, then rolled them out, then let them rise again. This time the first rise was after rolling out the pizza crusts. It worked just great, so that's what we're doing from now on!

Here are the pizza crusts all rolled out, resting on baking paper. The top two are stretched rather than rolled. The bottom left is only rolled and the botton right one is half-stretched, half-rolled. Another series of experiments to see what makes the best crust.

Now for the sauce. Put a couple of good glugs of olive oil in a saucepan. I also make it part chili oil so the sauce has some poke.

Add a mere teaspoon of the roasted garlic puree. I usually use fresh garlic, finely minced, 2-3 cloves. I used to use a whole lot more, but realised that the garlic flavour overpowered the sauce. I realised the best pizza sauce is minimalist. Don't do too much to it. My ultimate goal is to emulate the sauce at Pagliai's Pizza. I haven't quite gotten there, but I've gotten close.

The other thing about pizza sauce is I like it smooth without too many chunks or bits. But the exception is oregano. Gotta have oregano. The British pronounce oregano or-eg-ON-oh. Which is just crazy. Stop being crazy.

Now add the tomato sauce and stir up.

Then add a leeeeeeeetle bit of balsamic vinegar. It is very strong too. And of course salt and tons of pepper.

Here is the rolled out crust after the rising time in which I made the sauce.

Here is one of the stretched pizza crusts. It's much more uneven, but it's risen nicely at the edges and looks pretty delish.

Spread that sauce on.

Then smooth it and spread it around. I like to go right up to the edges because I don't really like leftover pizza crusts.

Then add the peppadew peppers, or whatever topping you've got.

Now for the mozzarella. They come in balls like this.

I dice them up into little cubes.

Each little cube will melt and form a pool of bubbling creamy cheese on the pizza.

Ready to go into the hot oven!

For my pizza, I use these anchovy fillets. And, yes, I painted my fingernails black. It's no longer a goth thing.

Just plop those anchovies on. Mmmm so salty.

Finished, and going into the oven.

Here is the first pizza just out of the oven. Some people like their cheese a little more rare. The Economist and I decided a while back we like it with a bit of browning. It actually tastes better that way, don't know why.

Slicing it up. We got this pizza cutter only about 6 months ago. It has significantly improved our quality of life!

Pizza and beer. In case you're curious, the movie we watched was Duplicity, with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. It was fun and entertaining.

Here is the anchovy pizza. Oh, it's so delicious.

And here is what I meant to do with all the pizzas, top them with torn basil leaves. I have a little live basil plant that I tend very carefully. Usually I eat the basil leaves too quickly and the plants die. But when I do have them, they make a big difference in taste.

C'est tout!