PIZZA


Italy's national dish...


Pizzas are as old as the hills.  People were making pizzas long before anyone called them “pizzas” and much longer ago than Dominos or Pizza Hut.  The “Pizza Margherita” was created 130 years ago for the Queen Of Naples: she liked it because it was the same colour as the Italian flag, which is red, white and green.  Red for tomatoes, white for cheese and green for the herb, basil.

Pizzas are easy and fun to make and because they are really just a hot “open” sandwich, they can be a very healthy meal.

You can make your own pizza dough and your own tomato sauce, but that will be for another lesson.  Today we used ready made dough (from the Northern Dough Company) and some home made tomato sauce (from Rosie)

How To Make Your Pizza

The first thing we did was to prepare our toppings and put them to one side.  We chopped some onions, then sliced some peppers, olives & mushrooms.

Next we spread out some semolina (flour) on our work surface and stretched our dough.  Remember that we stretched it out with our hands and that we used our rolling pins as little as possible.  This is because stretching makes a much better pizza base than rolling.  Remember that a pizza base does not need to be round - it can be any shape you like!  Even square!!

When we had stretched out our dough into a good shape (or “base”) we put it on a baking tray (put some semolina flour onto the tray first).  Then we covered our base with tomato sauce and cheese.  We left about ½ an inch around the outside.  Then we assembled our toppings on top:  onion, peppers (even hot ones, like Jalapeños!) strips of ham, pepperoni, mushrooms, etc. Remember, you can use any cheese you like - although mozzarella is best!  Lastly we finished it off with a drizzle of olive oil, some herbs and fresh black pepper.  Don’t forget, you can use any toppings you like - even pineapple (although the Italians would not approve!).  Experiment!

Lastly we put our pizza onto a tray and into a VERY hot oven (about 240 degrees).  We checked our pizza after about 10 or 12 minutes.  When the edges look brown and “toasty”, it’s done!  Deeeeeelicious! 

To see how the best pizzas are made (in Italy), see this terrific video: italymagazine.com/featured-story/pizza-margherita-history-and-recipe

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