PIZZA

I am making a middle of the year resolution, in order to curb my cook book buying addiction, I hereby promise to make at least one dish from each new book I buy within a fortnight - starting next week!!!

While gearing myself up to this, I decided I'd better use some of my more recent purchases - "The Australian Women's Weekly - The Complete Book of Modern Entertaining", it is a lovely looking book, fantastic photography and very doable recipes.

I have made pizza before, without much success (could be the yeast phobia issue!!) my pizza bases were too thick and spongy - I like my pizza thin and crispy!  But I knew from all my favourite Australian blogs that the AWW are ultra reliable, so I decided to take the bull by the horns (so to speak) and give it a go.  My favourite pizza restaurant is "The Steps of Rome" off Grafton Street in Dublin, and they make a fantastic potato and rosemary pizza - and when I saw one in this book - I knew it was for me.

The pizza base recipe makes enough for two large pizzas, so I made one potato and one asparagus and tomato.

The base was really easy to make - I used the kitchen aid mixer.  I found it easy to roll out to the desired thickness (or actually thinness!)  The recipe called for raw potato, but I have a "thing" about undercooked potato so I decided to use up the previous nights left over roasted baby potatoes, and that was a good decision the pizza was delicious - I just spread the sliced potato over the uncooked base (which I spread with some goats cheese) then sprinkled with chopped rosemary and maldon salt, drizzled a little extra virgin olive oil over and popped into the oven.

As I was on a "use up the leftovers" roll, I chose to use the roasted asparagus and tomatoes which I had stored in the fridge.  I spread some "Bunalun" (an excellent product) concentrated tomato puree over the base and then placed the veg on top.  I then cut up a ball of mozzarella and distributed the pieces over the top.  The result was a deeply flavoured topping over a light and crispy base.  Good stuff!

I am having a problem with the alignment of this post  - the only thing I can  think to do is post the recipe for the  pizza base separately, and then publish this post. I'm really sorry about this!!

PIZZA RECIPE

Pizza Base
7g          dry yeast
1/2 tsp   caster sugar
180ml    warm water
300g      plain flour (I used bread flour)
1 tsp      salt
2 tbsp    extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp    polenta (corn meal)


Mix the yeast, sugar and water together, allow to stand (covered) for about 10 minutes or until frothy.
Sift the flour and salt into the bowl of your mixer.
Add the yeast mixture and olive oil - mix to a soft dough.  Add extra water if necessary.
Knead the dough until smooth and elastic about 10 minutes by hand, 6 by machine.
Take the dough out of the bowl with one hand, oil the bowl with the other and then replace the dough (saving washing up!)
Leave covered in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size.
Remove the dough from the bowl and massage the air out (AWW tell you to punch it out - but I'm too nice!!)
Turn on the oven at 240 C.
Knead on a floured surface until smooth.
Divide the dough in half, and roll each half to your desired thickness - about 20x35cm.
Place on a oiled (or floured) baking tray.
Sprinkle the dough with polenta and prick the base with a fork.
Cover with your topping of choice.
Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes, or until it looks ready.

Enjoy!