Pizza, Mediterranean style! Make you own and Enjoy!
Who doesn’t like a pizza every now and then?? Make your own at home with whichever toppings you like (or have in the house). Great for a ‘Leftovers Sunday’ or as a party snack.
Or if your hosting a kids party in your house, this is a great way to get children involved in cooking. They can create their own pizza’s and enjoy them afterwards. Activity & lunch sorted!
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
🍕 Main ingredients
- flour (all purpose)
- plant based milk
- salt
- dry yeast (or fresh yeast)
- onion cut
- shallots
- red peppers
- garlic
- courgette
- green pepper
- tomato paste
- olives
- olive oil
- tabasco
- sugar
I personally like to pre-roast some of the vegetables to get the final texture exactly how I like it. In this recipe I used the thinly sliced green Cuban pepper raw as a final topping, together with the olives. I do this because I like to have a little raw crunch on top of my pizza. The shallots I lightly caramelised to add a little sweetness to the spice. It is quiet nice to add a few drops of balsamic vinegar to the pizza, to get more acidity with the spice and sweet. You can be 100% creative with your toppings, mix and match with whatever you like. Or even keep it 100% raw (except the dough of course;) )
🔪 Instructions
The dough…
The dough is very personal , we all have our own favourites base. Thin, thick, crunchy or ‘bready’.
When I go out for a pizza, I would always choose to go for the classic Italian thin base one, preferably from a wood fired oven.
But, I don’t have a wood fired oven at home. And to be honest, I don’t make that many pizza’s, maybe 3 to 4 times a year. So I don’t even have a pizza-stone (baking stone) at home. In my small kitchen my space is very valuable. So when I started testing different dough’s, the dough in this recipe I liked most for my ‘at home equipment’. It is easy to work with, and never failing.
🍷 Wine Pairing
Wine pairing with a pizza totally depends on the toppings. In this case it is a very Mediterranean topping with roasted peppers, courgettes, onions, and olives. So this pizza is very versatile for wine pairing, you can go from a light red (pinot noir, merlot, light tempranillo) to a medium bodied white (chardonnay, viognier, albarino), but the most classic wine pairing, and for me the big winner, is a Rosé!
So give it a try! and become your own pizza baker. Send me your creations on Instagram by adding @haricoco1 to your post. Have fun! and ENJOY!
📋 Recipe
Ingredients
For the dough (1 Big Square pizza);
- 300 grams (2 cups + 1½ Tbsp) flour (all purpose)
- 195 ml (⅘ cup) plant based milk
- 6 grams (1 tsp) salt
- 2 grams (½ tsp) dry yeast (or 4 gr fresh yeast)
For the toppings;
- 1 large onion cut in quarters
- 4 shallots cut in quarters
- 2 red peppers
- 4 cloves garlic leave whole
- 1 courgette sliced
- 1 green pepper Cuban chopped in fine slices
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- 10 green pitted olives cut in slices
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 10 drops tabasco
- 3 teaspoon sugar
Instructions
- Start with preparing the dough (in total about three hours proving/resting time)
For the dough;
- Put the flour in a large bowl and add the salt on one side, and the yeast on the other side.
- Make a hole in the middle, and start adding a little at a time the plant based milk (preferable room temperature)
- Combine the milk with the flour into a dough ball.
- Knead shortly (5 minutes)
- Let the dough proof for 1,5h to 2h, covered with a tea towel.
- After the first proof, beat the air out of the dough, and form a ball.
- Rest for about 1 hour
- After stretch and shape the dough into a big square. You will have to let the dough rest sometimes to take it’s shape.
- Prepare the big square of dough on a oven tray
For the topping;
- Pre roast the red peppers, and de-skin them.
- Roast the onions and the garlic cloves at the same time. Be careful not to roast the onions too much (not brown), as they still will continue roasting while on the pizza.
- Fry the shallots in a bit of olive oil, and after 2-3 minutes, add a cup of water and cover the pan. Let the shallots soften for about 7 minutes. Take the lid off and reduce the liquid.
- Add the sugar, so the shallots caramelise lightly.
- Prepare the slices of courgette by adding a little bit of olive oil and salt.
Topping:
- Spread the tomato paste evenly over the pizza dough.
- Scatter the onion parts over the pizza, followed by the slices of courgette.
- Brush olive oil on the sides of the pizza
- Put the pizza in a pre-heated oven 200C for 10 minutes
- Take the pizza out, and now add the flesh of the roasted red peppers, the caramelised shallots, and scatter some pieces of the de-skinned roasted garlic.
- Back into the oven for another 10 minutes
- Lastly take out the pizza and add the thinly sliced green Cuban pepper and the sliced olives, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, and the tabasco.
- Ready to be served!