One Pan Pizza
This is a homage to two things - first, Jamie Oliver. And yes, I know Jamie isn’t very Guardian food supplement friendly. Or a discovery. But I really like the way he leans into cooking and food. I like the simple recipes and rough-n-ready-pukka-down-pub upfrontery of his repertoire. The second homage is to my misspent youth fooling around festivals serving up pizzas and drinking my wages away. I did this for four glorious summers with different characters & changing weathers but the constants were the laughter, brilliant pizzas and horrendous clean up at the end.
As noted - this is ripped from Jamie Oliver, I suggest you check out all of the recipes that he is currently doing on the tele box. We love watching them and I think he’s bringing a bit of joy right now.
And also - if your gig is a. Ordering in or b. Pizza aisle-to-oven tray then you have my permission to ignore this recipe. I am not trying to convert anyone from their well tested and much trusted pizza heroes. If you are up for it though - this recipe is simple and the results are very decent.
Right at the end are the results of the family Cook-a-thon - it’s was a really nice Wednesday and everybody made a cracking slice! And also a few others for nostalgia…
Ingredients
Dough - 500g self raising flour, 250ml water, pinch of salt
Toppings - anything you want. We used a scoop of tomato sauce, contents of a few cheap sausages, mushrooms, half a red onion, garlic, red onion, jalapeños & a mix of cheddar cheese & parmesan.
Method
Heat your oven up as hot as it’ll go, 240 degrees for us.
Cook your toppings in a non stick pan & oven friendly pan with a bit of olive oil (I’ve added some toppings ideas below). You are only going to reheat this later so you want to pretty much cook it until you’d be happy to eat it. I like it a bit caramelised. Also you want the toppings to be more ‘dry’ than wet.
Sweet red peppers, chicken slices, red onion, dried mixed herbs.
Mushrooms, sausages (or leftover mince) & jalapeños.
Leftover greens, pine nuts, garlic.
Bacon, garlic.
Antipasto nibbles.
Nothing - skip this stage if you only want a margarita pizza. Sounds amazing.
Remove the cooked toppings from the pan and set aside
Time to make the dough:
Put the self raising flour into a large bowl with your pinch of salt.
Slowly add the water, folding & stirring it in as you go. You want a smooth elastic dough that is quite pliable.
Transfer to a clean, floured surface and knead for a few minutes.
Roll out the dough (we used a wine bottle in the absence of a rolling pin. The wine turned out fine).
Cut out the rolled dough into a circle (that fits the bottom of the non stick pan used to cook the toppings).
Transfer the pizza dough circle to the bottom of the non stick pan.
Build up a pizza -
A scoop of any sort of tomato sauce (pasta sauce is great as is tinned tomato juice) or a white cheese sauce (creme-fraiche would suffice, I am sure) as a base. Or just of a dash of decent olive oil. Pesto would do nicely. And I’ve definitely used hoisin sauce in my time too.
Your toppings - I am from the school of less is more. But if you want more, put more on. More is okay.
Last step is cheese - any and all cheese is good cheese. About a handful.
Cook on the hob, on a medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Check the base - you want a slightly crisp and golden-brown colour to it.
Transfer it to the oven for about 10 minutes. We did 12 minutes because we like it a bit crispy on top.
Take the pizza out - the base will be slightly puffed up but crisp. Serve.
Eat the cold remains, in secret, at 2am.
#KeepCookingandCarryOn
And here is Jamie Oliver doing it properly.
FAMILY COOK-ON
The Pizza Festival Days
Often madness, phenomenally long hours, and always amazing. It was a glorious few years. Shout out to all the other pizza makers, late night bakers and festival shakers.
Images are owned by The Cakebreads, hands off
