These pizzas are amazing!! It will make you think twice about ever ordering in again. The base is crisp and not too doughy. The real treat is you can add whatever vegetables and toppings you want, I have recorded a couple of Jamie’s (and my) favourites below – but the options are endless. There’s not much point in making quantities smaller than this, however the dough freezes well (or can be wrapped in cling wrap, placed in the fridge and used the next night … trust me, they are that good). I strongly suggest you get your hands on a bit of granite or a pizza stone (mine was only $20) – place it on one of the bottom rungs in the oven and away you go. Sensational!
Serves 2 – 4 (if making for 2, freeze half the dough for use later)
Makes 6 – 8 small, thin pizza bases
400g strong white bread flour
100g fine ground semolina flour (or strong white bread flour)
½ tablespoon fine sea salt
1×7g sachet of dried yeast
½ tablespoon golden caster sugar
around 325 ml (just over half a pint) lukewarm water
Pile the flours and the salt on to a clean surface and make a 9 cm well in the centre. Add your yeast and sugar to the tepid water, mix up with a fork and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork and a circular motion, slowly bring in the flour from the inner edge of the well and mix into the water. It will look like stodgy porridge – continue to mix, bringing in all the flour. When the dough begins to come together and becomes too hard to mix with your fork, flour your hands and begin to pat it into a ball. Knead the dough by rolling it backwards and forwards, using your left hand to stretch the dough towards you and your right hand to push the dough away from you at the same time. Repeat this for 10 minutes until you have a smooth stringy soft dough.
Flour the top of your dough, cover it with cling film and let it rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature. This will make it easier to roll thinly. Now divide the dough into as many balls as you want to make pizzas, i.e. lots of small ones, or a few larger ones.
Timing-wise it’s nice to roll the pizzas out 15 to 30 minutes before you start to cook them. If you want to work more in advance, it’s better to keep the dough in cling film in the fridge rather than having rolled out pizzas hanging around for a few hours. Take a piece of the dough, dust your surface and the dough with a little flour or semolina, and roll it out into a rough circle about 0.5cm / ¼ inch thick. Tear off an appropriately sized piece of tinfoil, rub it with olive oil, dust it well with flour or semolina and place the pizza base on top. Continue doing the same with the other pieces and then, if you dust them with a little flour, you can pile them up into a stack,
cover them with cling flim and put them in the fridge.
When you’re ready to cook them, preheat your oven to 250°C/500°F/gas 9. At this stage you can apply your toppings. Remember less is more. If you can, cook the pizzas on a piece of granite or a pizza stone in your conventional oven – if not, do them one by one on the bars of the oven shelf towards the bottom of the oven. (If you’re going to cook them on the bars of the oven, make sure they are not too big – otherwise they’ll be difficult to manoeuvre.) Cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the pizzas are golden and crispy.
Spicy salami, courgette, basil, tomato and mozzarella
4 tablespoons tomato sauce
6 thin slices of firm courgette
8 fresh basil leaves
10 thin slices of spicy salami
85g mozzarella
olive oil
sea salt and ground pepper
Smear your tomato sauce evenly over the pizza base. Lay over your courgettes and basil, then your salami – you want this to go on last so it goes crispy. Place small pieces of mozzarella in between the gaps, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook until crisp and golden.
Potatoes, mozzarella, rosemary, thyme and tomatoes (pictured)
6 tablespoons tomato sauce
4 cooked new potatoes (I sliced mine uncooked and then grilled them on my Le Creuset grill plate – before tossing with other ingredients)
a small handful of fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon thyme tips
extra virgin olive oil
lemon juice
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
85g mozzarella
Smear the tomato sauce evenly over the pizza base. Slice the potatoes into 0.5cm/1/4 inch thick slices (I use my mandolin for this – and then put them on the grill until cooked through) and toss in a bowl with rosemary, thyme, a good glug of olive oil, a small squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper. Scatter them over the pizza base and put small torn up pieces of mozzarella into the gaps. Cook until crisp and golden.
It is the simplicity I like most about this recipe, and indeed the whole book. Written in Jamie Oliver’s distinctive laid-back, anything-goes style, Jamie’s Italy is a joy to cook from. The salad, pasta, and seafood dishes are all easily converted into meals for two people. Every recipe is accompanied by a full page photo.