The Pizza Oven. I know, I know… EVERYONE has one. But that’s ok. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I think it’s a fantastic addition to our garden. Probably helped by the fact that since we purchased it, the sun has been shining non stop. We love pizza in our house. It’s a real favourite, and to celebrate the new oven we were going with a sourdough pizza base, due to “Sabina” being in such good form and all…
Sourdough Pizza Recipe:
500g strong White Flour
360g room temperature water
150g sourdough starter
10g salt
Method:
Mix the flour and water in your mixer slowly for about 2 minutes. Leave this, covered for 30 minutes. You are almost making a starter for your starter! Then add the starter to this, and start mixing slowly.
This needs to be mixed using a dough hook for about 5 minutes. At some stage towards the end slowly add the salt. You can do all this by hand, but I prefer the mixer, leaves me more energy and time to devote to toppings. Finish the dough by hand, then pop this back into the bowl. Cover and leave to sit in a cool place until doubled in size.
This then needs to be split into balls for rolling into the bases. We had added some einkhorn flour to the dough (reducing the amount of strong white used) as I love ancient grains and use them as much as I can.
At this stage it’s all systems go. Everyone in our house is in charge of their own toppings, I usually have the following available:
Roasted and thinly sliced duck breast
Red onion
A couple of different types of cheese
Homemade Passata
Chorizo
Ham
Mushrooms
Spinach
Eggs
The list is sometimes endless- but all are out on the counter ready to roll.
We discovered the secret to lighting the pizza oven and getting it to the hot temperature required was good quality charcoal, and not rushing it.
And although only one pizza can cook at a time, everyone usually shares- and with a big bowl of salad floating around, it makes for a great evening.
But I like mine with a cold glass of something white… it was just fabulous.
