Most week nights, I like to make sure that we have a home-cooked meal for dinner. Nothing fancy or traditional, like roast chicken or lasagne. Usually wraps, a grain salad, pasta, something simple and hopefully reasonably good for us. The only drawback is that I almost always get too many ingredients for whatever I plan to make during the week, and then often also make for too much food for dinner. By Friday, our fridge is full of bits and pieces of leftover ingredients and dishes. While we eat some of the bits and pieces over the weekend, some of it always goes off before we get to it and has to be tossed.
Now, I hate throwing away food – in this and many other respects it seems I’m becoming more and more like my dad. I needed a solution for the bits and pieces, and so – Friday night pizzas.
I love gourmet pizzas with carefully coordinated toppings, and I do make that kind sometimes. But pizza was originally invented as a way to make a few scraps of food go a long way, so now, that’s what I do when our Friday bits and pieces seem to lend themselves to becoming pizza toppings. All I need to do is make pizza dough, assemble and bake.
Here is this past Friday’s pizza. The base was covered in tomato-red pepper sauce, red pepper slices and caramelised onions. Andrew’s side got Black Forest ham and camembert, and my side got smoked salmon and brie. And to top, avocado for both sides.
Pizza dough
Makes enough dough for two large pizzas – I make one large pizza for two of us and freeze the other half of the dough to use later.
3 cups bread flour
7g instant yeast
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
½ - 1 cup warm water
Place all the ingredients except the water in either the bowl of a stand mixer, or a mixing bowl. Then start adding the warm water slowly, while at the same time stirring slowly, either with a dough hook attachment on the stand mixer, or with a wooden spoon. Keep adding water and stirring until the dough starts to come together into a sticky ball.
Now, if you’re using a stand mixer, turn the speed up to high for about 3 to 5 minutes, until the dough is soft and smooth and just a bit sticky still. If you’re making the dough by hand, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, also until the dough is soft, smooth and retains just a bit of stickiness.
Now place the dough in a large oiled bowl, turning it once to cover the dough in oil. Cover the bowl with a dishcloth and place the dough in a warm spot. Leave the dough to rise for about 30 minutes, until doubled in size.
While the dough rises, preheat the oven to its hottest setting (this is 240 C for my oven) and if necessary, prepare your toppings.
When the dough has doubled in size, give it a quick knead in the bowl, and you’re ready to assemble your pizzas. Here’s where you can get fancy with pizza stones, pizza peels, and more, but if I want a perfect restaurant-style pizza, I’ll go to a pizza restaurant. When I’m making homemade pizza, I keep it simple. Brush a cookie sheet with olive oil, cut the dough in half, and place one half on the oiled cookie sheet. Gently spread and push the dough to cover the whole cookie sheet, making raised rims all along the edges. This usually takes a bit of time since the oiled cookie sheet makes it a bit difficult for the dough to stick once stretched, but you’ll get there eventually.
Then just add whatever spreads, sauces, and toppings you like. Slide into the hot oven and bake for 10 to 20 minutes – the time depends very much on how hot your oven can go, and how crispy you like your pizza. I like very crispy pizza with dark brown edges, so sometimes I bake mine for as much as 25 minutes.
