Good day to you, my fellow Steemian.
Food was scarce in the home by yesterday evening. Hayley was still at work until 6.30pm and she’d suggested eating out after she had finished work. I knew all of this at least by early afternoon. While I’m not averse to a nice meal out, I also know a challenge when I hear one.
Of course, I have no idea if you’re here for the recipe or the story. So I’ll try to separate the two. One of my biggest frustrations is looking for a recipe and finding a two thousand word poem with the recipe tacked on the end, almost as an afterthought. Gah.
Recipe first.
Ingredients (Dough)
400 grams plain flour
2 teaspoons of dried yeast
250 mL warm water (warm water helps the yeasty fermentation process)
30 mL olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp table salt (you can get all fancy with your Himalayan salts.. but use what you have)
Ingredients (Toppings)
Tomato Paste
1 Onion
1 Tbs Garlic (fresh or minced is OK)
Fresh tomatoes
Sundried tomatoes (MUST HAVE)
Eggplant
Button mushrooms
Capsicum/Pepper
Chilli flakes
Mixed Italian herbs or just use fresh basil and parsley
A few handfuls of rocket (Arugula) or baby spinach
The ‘doing’ bit (dough)
The hardest bit is making the dough. You can do it by hand which requires effort (no time for that) or use a Thermomix. I just followed the instructions on the Thermy (ingredients listed above are the same as what it instructed me to put into it). It does its thing and 2 minutes later, I have dough, clean hands and underdeveloped arms. I rested my dough in an oiled bowl twice the size as the dough ball and covered with a clean dish towel (or a dirty one if you want – you’re the one eating it) and left for an hour. The yeast will begin to consume the available sugars and will produce carbon dioxide making your dough light and fluffy. A bit of alcohol is also produced.. but this is bread, not beer. Calm down.
Tomatoes are intensified when they are dried. Use them in concert with fresh tomatoes for flavour variance.
The ‘doing’ bit (toppings)
Preheat your oven now – 180 degrees C / 350 F
Preparing vegetables for pizza is straight forward. Cut things the size you want to fit in your mouth, add what you enjoy eating and think about how much moisture those veggies have, as some of it may make your dough chewy. Fresh tomatoes are full of water, so drain them a little after you cut them and possibly add a little sparingly unless your love for tomatoes overrides your fear of slightly soggy pizza.
The main thing you want to do it prep the garlic, onion and eggplant right. Chop the onion into small pieces and sauté in a pan with the garlic in a splash of olive oil. The garlic will fizzle and pop and probably burn your hands if it touches you, but seriously the tap’s over there. Just rinse under cool water and get back to business. Set those babies aside and now let’s deal with the eggplant.
In the remaining oil in the pan, throw in your baby finger-sized eggplant pieces and fry off some of that bitterness that eggplants are synonymous with. Don’t burn it or you’ll have to start over. The smell of carbon wasn’t what I was trying to impress Hayley with as she walked through the door.
The rest of your veggies should be sliced and chopped up ready to be added to the base later. Speaking of the base..
The ‘doing’ bit (turning dough to pizza base)
I’m assuming you’ve left your dough for an hour, it will have expanded due to pockets of carbon dioxide forming. Don’t beat them all out. Carefully remove the ball from the bowl and gently roll into a circle to fit your pan. I just stretched mine out without the aid of a rolling implement.
Don't add the toppings now. Der.
This is the part where you blind bake the dough - it's just pre cooking the base otherwise you'll just be eating lovely toppings on pizza dough that may be slightly cooked near the edges. That's gross. Blind baking won't take more than about 10 minutes or so. But you don't want to overcook your dough.
This looked right to me. A little browning of the top is just perfect!
Add generous quantities of tomato paste (I used heaps more than this).
The base is ready for the other toppings!
Add the onion/garlic sauté mix
Eggplant on next.
Mushrooms.
Fresh and sun-dried tomatoes as well as capsicum went on here.
Not much left to do now.
Get that baby back in the oven. Oh I'm hearing you squeak that I forgot the arugula. That's an addition to our pizza after we place it inside a spinach-wiltingly hot oven. Add as much as you want when it comes out.
Well, as you have just experienced, reading my recipes is full of adventures and insults to your intelligence. I didn't even give you a story to go with it - just a really long recipe for one of the easiest dinners in existence.
If you were pleased, annoyed, peeved, educated or just plain entertained, UPVOTES are appreciated!
All the best,
Nick