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This unusual pizza features four toppings, each representing a season of the year. Artichoke hearts are for spring, olives are summer, mushrooms are autumn and ham is winter.
Make the Pizza Dough
Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together. Pour a tablespoon of oil into the water and mix it into the dry ingredients. Knead the resulting dough for 7-10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Tip it into a bowl and lightly coat the dough with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic film and leave in a warm place to double in volume - this will take an hour or two.
Prep the Toppings
I haven't given quantities for the toppings - you can use as much or as little as you want. Cut your olives in half, slice the mushroms if they are large, slice the artichoke hearts and tear the ham into small pieces. Slice or grate the mozzarella - I found that an old-fashioned egg-slicer does an excellent job of this.
Assemble the Pizza
Sauté the sliced mushrooms in butter for about a minute. Remove from the pan and dry on kitchen paper. Sprinkle some flour on your worktop and tip out the pizza dough. Divide it in half. Roll out each half (or, if you only want to make one pizza, wrap the other half of the dough in plastic film and keep it in the fridge or freeze it for later use) into a thin disc that fits your pizza tray. I used a 30cm / 12 inch tray lined with greaseproof paper and sprinkled with polenta or semolina.
Spread tomato passata or sauce in a thin layer on the pizza base. Evenly space the slices of mozzarella. Use olive halves to outline one quarter of the pizza and infill this quadrant with olives. Mark out a second quadrant with mushroom slices and infill it. Fill the remaining quadrants with sliced artichoke hearts and torn ham, respectively. Or, if that's all too much faff for your, chuck everything on at random.
Sprinkle the toppings with dried oregano and drizzle with olive oil.
Bake the Pizza
Heat your oven to 200°C (392°F) for a fan/convection oven, 220°C (425°F) conventional, gas 7. Bake the pizza for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little before serving.
PIZZA DOUGH 250 grams strong white bread flour 150 ml lukewarm water 1 tsp active dried yeast 1 tsp salt 1 tsp sugar 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil TOPPING 2 tbsp tomato passata or pizza sauce 1 ball mozzarella artichoke hearts button or chestnut mushrooms pitted black olives ham half a tsp dried oregano a drizzle of olive oil
PLUS
Butter for sautéeing.
Makes 2 x 30cm (12 inch) pizzas Prep time: 20 minutes. Proving time: 2 hours. Cooking time: 15 minutes. Total time: 2 hours 35 minutes.