Pizza and beer is the earthquake comfort food of choice here on Planet Portaloo, but our local takeaways fall into two categories – fallen down, or not quite good enough – and it’s easier to just make one from scratch. I am exceptionally impatient so I am not a big fan of yeast based dough as I poke at it and sniff it and get annoyed and cook it too early and then it tastes like concrete. No yeast doughs are better because they take little skill, fuck all ingredients, and very little time.
Thankfully, my time on the hospo front lines taught me a number of helpful things. I cooked at a cafe for a couple of years – it was the best of times (cooking all day, good workmates, excellent coffee, nice place), it was the worst of times (minimum wage, 12 hour shifts, asshole employers, carpal tunnel syndrome) – and pizzas were the best way to keep the cabinets filled over the very busy lunch rush as once you got a production line going they were bloody quick to put together. The first helpful thing was to never stay longer than your shift because of understaffing otherwise you’ll have done 17 hours and your boss will still think you are scum, just scum he can walk all over. The second was that everything belongs on pizzas.
Start with the base – you can season it if you’re feeling inventive. Then, sauce: chutney, tomato paste, hummus, anything gloopy. Then, a small amount of cheese. Then, anything (meat, veggies, leftover roast dinner, seeds, nuts, herbs, spices, pickled things). Then, more cheese. Then, more sauce if you want it, plus cracked pepper. Then, cook. For a dessert pizza use cream cheese mixed with brown sugar and cinnamon as the sauce, topped with sliced bananas and stewed fruits or berries, then sprinkle with nuts and brown sugar and chocolate oh yeah chocolate.
No Yeast Pizza Dough
I am pretty sure I found this recipe online somewhere but I have no idea. Either way, it’s a good recipe and seeing as it’s now in my handwritten cookbook, the rules of the kitchen qualify it as mine.
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 2 ¾ teaspoons of baking powder and a generous pinch of salt OR 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ tablespoons oil
- Up to 1 cup of cold water
- A little extra flour for dusting
- Optional extras: a few pinches of dried herbs like oregano or rosemary, a small handful of grated or dried parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to 220°C. Combine the dry ingredients (including the optional extras) in a bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the oil and 3/4c of the water. Stir until it forms a ball, adding a little more water if it’s too stiff and adding a little more flour if it’s too sticky. When the dough is nice and soft, sprinkle a clean surface (like a sheet of baking paper or a chopping board) with a little flour and knead the dough for 3 or 4 minutes. Roll the dough out into your pizza shape – if you don’t have a rolling pin then wrap a wine bottle or other sturdy bottle with glad wrap and use that instead, being careful not to press too hard thereby killing your friends with glass shards in their food. Put the rolled out dough on a baking tray that you’ve sprinkled with flour (stops it sticking, see). Add your toppings, then cook for around 20 minutes or until you’re happy with how everything is looking.
Serve with garlic bread, wedges, and beer.
Spicy wedges
Preheat the oven to 220°C. Take three or four large potatoes and slice them into wedges, like you would an orange - 8 wedges per big spud seems to work well. Put a very light coating of oil on a tray or roasting dish (the spray stuff is good). Take the wedges and put them into a clean, intact supermarket shopping bag. In a little bowl, mix up your flavourings – I use a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of soft brown sugar to start, then a couple of big pinches of cumin and paprika, a pinch of rosemary, a teaspoon of chicken stock power, a bit of pepper, and (if you’re Mr Longbean) a bucketload of chilli for flavour.
Splash some oil over the wedges in their bag, then add the mixed up flavours, and shake it all about. Arrange the wedges skin side down (if they balance) then cook for 20 minutes – you can use a baking tray, but I scored an enamel roasting dish at Briscoes in one of their ridiculous sales a while back and now I prefer to use that as you can be a bit messier. Shake them around a bit, then cook for as long as it takes for them to look like they are done. (Your mileage may vary.)
A word about ovens: firstly, check that they are empty before you turn them on. This is a burny, smelly lesson you only need to learn once. Or maybe twice. The Very Important Thing to remember is that if your oven is fan forced, you need to drop the cooking temperature by 20 degrees or you’ll end up with something, at best, crispified, or at worst, carcinogenic.
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