Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Italian Pizza

Ingredients:

1 - recipe of Pizza dough - see Pizza dough.
1/4 - cup corn meal (for the peel)
4 - Tbsp olive oil - the more virgin the better
1 - 8oz. can Contadina tomato paste (has no salt)
5 - cloves fresh garlic - more if you like the taste
3 - 5 inch sprigs of fresh Rosemary, no stems, not chopped
1/4 - cup fresh Oregano - whole leaves, no stems, not chopped
5 - fresh leaves Basil - substitute with 1tsp dry if necessary
dash of crushed or ground black pepper
8 - oz bag of shredded Italian blend cheese - substitute low fat mozzarella and parmesean
1/2 - Red onion sliced in about 1/4 inch thick slices - you can use yellow or white if you prefer
1 - 12 oz can black olives - sliced or chopped
15 - green olives - preferably without pimentos - sliced
25 - Turkey pepperoni slices
6 - oz Turkey Italian sausage cooked, drained and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces - substitute pork if desired.

Directions:
Hand press, toss and/or roll the dough into a shape that will fit your peel or stone. You can substitute a pan if you don't own a stone. Spread the cornmeal on the pizza peel to cover the surface with the object to make the dough slide easily once placed on the peel.
Place the dough topside down onto the peel, hand spread the 3 Tbsp olive oil on the entire surface of the dough.

Crush then dice the garlic until you get a size you like and chop the herbs (oregano, rosemary and basil) until they are similar size to your garlic.

Spread about 1/2 the tomato paste onto the olive oil coated dough with a spoon, knife or spatula leaving about 1 inch at the edges. Sprinkle the herbs and garlic over the tomato paste.

Cover this with about 4 oz of the cheese, then add pepperonis randomly. Cover the pepperoni with the remaining cheese. - note: turkey pepperoni is much drier than pork - always cover with cheese.

At this point its important to shake the peel in short strokes to make sure your dough is not sticking to the peel.

Add remaining toppings in any order you wish, shovel the pizza onto your stone or pan and bake for about 11 minutes or until your cheese looks slightly brown. You may also turn down the oven at 4 minutes to 350 if you have a thicker crust and cook for about 15 minutes. Be sure to keep a watch on your pizza... burned pizza is not very tasty.

Use your peel to remove from the stone, place on a cooling rack for about 5 minutes to allow the molten cheese to cool a bit, slice and enjoy!

I'll post other variants later...