Pizza Margherita

I went to my kids friends birthday party last Saturday and her mother served us home made pizza. Loved it. The base was soft and I do not usually like the ham and pineapple pizza. I have issues mixing sweet and savory, well combining fruits with any vegetable or meat. I would pick out the fruit, thinking you should not be there and the put it to the side and not eating it. My thought process is that the fruit is tainted and should therefore not be touched and eaten. Yes, that places some limitation to what I cook but I may get over it one day but not today. So eating the pizza and the party got me into a pizza mood. I wanted to cook a pizza. I would have loved to cook a garlic one, a cheesy one. So onto the computer I went, googled pizza and spent a good half an hour looking for a recipe. I found one and one must pay recognition to the source as me, a once a upon a time budding scientist would have done with references. So here is my acknowledgment http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/7394/pizza-margherita.aspx for you made my kids hungry for this pizza.

My time during the week is rather limited. With work, my kids studying, my studies takes quite a bit of the day so I am trying to cook something new during the weekend. We also have been watch My Kitchen Rules on TV and my kids suggested I should go on. Me don't think so. I need a recipe on paper and what I know is rather limited. Even the kids on Junior Masterchef could out cook me.

So here is the recipe for pizza margherita which I loved.

The ingredients

The dough ingredients, did not take a picture of the other ingredients

 The dough:

1 sachet dry yeast

1 1/4 cups of plain flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of olive oil

The topping 500 grams of tomatoes 1/4 cup olive oil 1 finely diced clove of garlic 1 cup mozzarella, drained and diced (I used the shredded version) 1/3 cup red wine 3 table spoons of chopped basil leaves 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese 1 tablespoon dried oregano The method Grease a pizza base of roughly 30 cm diameter with olive oil. Sprinkle yeasts over lukewarm water. Combine the flour salt, oil and yeast in a bowl. Knead the dough for roughly ten minutes, add flour or water if required. I have never created pizza base from dough before, again, this is something I should have learnt from my mother. When kneaded, form the dough in a ball, place it in a bowl and cover. Allow for it to rise for one and a half hours. I thought that this was not looking promising Rise, rise Meanwhile you can work on the topping. On each tomato, mark a cross at the base of each tomato with a small knife. Place the tomatoes in boiling water until the skin on the cut curls back. Then transfer the tomatoes into cool water. Peel off the skins and cut the tomatoes in half. Cut the stalks out, remove the seeds and then dice the tomatoes. Heat 2 tablespoons of garlic in a pan. Add the tomatoes and wine and cook until it is reduced. Then season with salt and pepper. I added a teaspoon of oregano at the point. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roll out the dough on a flour surface to a round shape. Place on the greased pizza pan. The dough before it was rolled out Bake the pizza in the oven for 3 minutes and then remove from the oven. Spread the tomato paste and mozzarella on the base.The sprinkle the basil and olive oil on top. Then I sprinkled on more mozzarella and dried oregano. Place it into the oven until cooked, about 10 to 15 minutes. My kids loved it so I will be definitely making it again. They saw the chopped basil but thankfully that did not deter them from eating it.  Pizza before it was cooked Finished pizza