Pi.... Pi.... Pizzzaaaaa :)

Making Pizza from scratch - the easy way :)

Kalyan & I have many things in common. But we have very different preferences in some things. Of course , one of that is food. He loves Chinese & would be happy if he gets to eat noodles everyday. If you are thinking that I am lucky & should not be complaining, stop right there . You might say that it makes my life so easy since making Maggi hardly takes any time.. The problem is he loves noodles which is not Maggi or Top Ramen.

Coming to my food preference, I have a thing for Italian - Pasta, Pizza & the like... For that matter, anything with cheese dripping on them. So if you are a cheese hater, please do NOT close the link. You could still make a nice pizza sans cheese :)

Baby corn & Mushroom Pizza

When I moved to Bangalore, along with the spare time in my hand, I got a cooking range provided by my landlady. I wanted to put it to use immediately, since I had not seen a cooking range before :) But alas, I didn't know how to use one.

Then, of course I made my SOS call to my saviour, all-in-all azhagu raja, sorry azhagu rani, Abirami. Under her able guidance, I quickly discovered that I could make a variety of things with the oven & grill in the cooking range. You can make delicious Roasted Chicken, Pizza, Caramel Custard, Grilled vegetables, what not!!

So, one of my initial experiments in the oven was pizza. It was a lazy evening & Kalyan had gone out for a office dinner. Our friend - Aparna Sree dropped in. She is an excellent cook by the way, though she hardly cooks :) She makes awesome cakes. So look out for some cake recipes soon

Since Kalyan was out, Appu & I  decided to make Pizza without using the store-bought base. So, we found the recipe online & started with the experiment. The first time, the base became crunchy. But after 2 attempts, I got it right and now I have kind of perfected my pizza. If you want proof, you can get in touch with Gopalakrishnan or Indu who recently tasted my all veggie pizza.

Making Pizza is fun! Proving it right here is Madhu & Ananya with Kalyan

So here is the recipe:

Pizza with Chicken Sausages

Part 1 - Making the Dough

For the dough:

Maida/Plain Flour -  1.5 cups

Dry Yeast - 1 tsp

Sugar - 1/2 tsp

Salt - 1 tsp

Olive Oil - 2 tbsp (You could use Refined oil instead of Olive oil)

Water - 1 cup

Making the Dough:

1. In a bowl, mix maida & salt. Heat water slightly. Water should be warm & not boiling. Add the yeast & sugar to little water. Stir it until yeast dissolves and then add it to maida.

2. Add more water if required & mix it like a rough Roti dough. Add the oil to the dough & slightly mix it again

3. Cover the bowl with a cling sheet. If you do not have cling sheet, just cover it with a plate & let it sit for 1 - 1.5 hours. In Chennai kind of climate, you could just leave the bowl anywhere except a fridge :-) If you are making Pizza in Bangalore in winter, then find a warm place to leave the bowl (may be near the stove)

4. Your pizza dough will almost double in volume when its ready

5. Preheat the oven to 200 deg cel. Grease your pizza pan with oil & then start stretching the pizza by hand. Do not use a rolling pin (belan) since that would take all air out & make the pizza hard. Thickness is upto you.

6. Place the pizza base inside the oven for about 3-4 mins for thick pizzas & then continue with the topping. If you like thin crust pizza & you could make 2 pizza base out of the dough & you can cook it just for a minute

The topping recipe is coming in the next post. But don't expect too much. Its going to be the easy way :)