A friend of mine went whole-hog with the pizza post the other day, and sent me his variation on the theme. It’s long, so I’m going to put it after the jump.

Dough

I used the dough recipe from this site: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pizza

Follow the instructions exactly. The hardest part is actually rolling out the dough to get it ‘pizza’ shaped. Mine ended up all rectangulovoid.

Also, pay attention to where she says to use baking paper. That stuff is a lifesaver.

Sauce

This was mostly improvised. This was also the longest bit.

• 2 cans diced tomatoes (14oz) – Spiced garlic flavoring (no idea what this was.. just get any flavor that looks good)
• 1 can diced tomato – Regular/no flavor (this was to kill the over-zealous use of vinegar so you may not need it)
• A BIT of red wine vinegar (or just red wine)
• a teaspoon of dried basil
• a teaspoon of dried oregano
• salt
• a bit of butter
• 4 cloves (you will want more probably) garlic, crushed and chopped)
• half a big white onion, diced

Fry up the onions and garlic with the butter on medium-hot. When browned, add the flavored tomato cans. After it simmers for a bit add a bit of vinegar (or red wine) and let that evaporate. Throw in the basil and oregano and stir it up. Keep it on medium heat for a while (10-15m) and keep stirring every once in a while.

At this point, start tasting it. Ideally, it should have a bit of sour-sharpness, while being tasty. You may need to add salt or more vinegar/wine. If it’s too vinegary/winey, add another can of tomatoes. It doesn’t hurt, you just end up with more sauce (makes great pasta sauce too).

When it tastes ‘done’, take it off the heat and, when it’s cool enough, puree the whole thing into a proper sauce.

When you add it to the dough, a couple of tablespoons is all you need (might even be too much). You just need a thin covering on the dough, as this dough is designed to be super thin, and too much sauce will just make it gooey.

Toppings

This part is of course up to you, but these are the toppings I made for the two pizzas. Both were great.

1) Margherita

• 1 medium sized tomato
• 1 buffalo mozzarella ball.

This one was super standard. Cut the tomato and the cheese into rings. Layer on the dough, sauce, then tomatoes and mozzarella on top. Get as much coverage as you can with the cheese, as it will melt, but not as much as you’d like.

2) Vegetarian

I had fun with this one.

• 2 medium sized sweet peppers (capsicum)
• a bunch of fresh mushrooms
• 3 (you will want more) cloves of garlic
• some salt and basil (dry) to taste
• some olive oil
• some butter
• grated mozzarella cheese (not buffalo)

First, the peppers. Chop them up into pizza-sized chunks and put them on a big piece of tin foil. Drizzle with some olive oil and stick them in the oven (I had it at 200C) for about 10-15 minutes (until they start blackening). In a frying pan, get the butter hot and fry up the garlic (smashed then chopped). When browned, throw in the mushrooms and swish them around so they get buttery and garlicky. After a while, toss in some salt and the dried basil. Cook them up until they taste done.

Put some sauce on the dough and then toss on the mushrooms and peppers (if you made too much, awesome.. they make great sandwiches or pasta topping later) and then cover generously with the grated cheese.

Baking

Simply put, bake at silly temperature (I had it at the highest my oven would go : 530 F) for a few minutes.. Neither pizza took longer than 8 minutes. Just keep an eye on the crust of the dough; it should start browning. The cheese will also get melty (buffalo) or browny (normal).