Friday 10 August 2012

Tomato and Beetroot Pizza


From Elisa Celli’s Italian Light Cooking, Prentice Hall Press, 1987.

Elisa Celli has three different recipes for pizza bases and none of them has yeast. I was interested to try one to see how they would turn out.

For the one I made I used one cup of plain flour with one-half cup of corn meal. The recipe actually called for whole-wheat flour and plain flour. I had no whole-wheat flour so made the changes. Two tablespoons of butter were now mixed into the flour and rubbed until like breadcrumbs. Cold water was now added bit by bit until the dough held together. It was kneaded a little, then formed into a ball, covered in cling wrap and refrigerated for about half an hour.



The dough was now divided into two pieces and rolled out to form two pizza bases. They went into a hot oven for about 10 minutes. They then came out to have their toppings added.

I had some tomato sauce left from a previous cooking burst so spread this on the base and then added sliced tomatoes, sliced cooked beetroot, Kalamata olives, red onion, mozzarella and chopped basil. A sprinkle of salt and freshly ground black pepper and a dribble of olive oil and it went back into the oven for a few minutes more and it was ready.

As a pizza base this one turned out to be rather like a type of biscuit. It worked well as a base and was easily made. When you make your own pizzas the toppings always turn out to be much richer, thicker and tastier than the ones you buy.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔
Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

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