Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Amanda Tastes.
Today, I am going to show you how to make a Spring Veggie Pizza.
I have made a tutorial about making pizzas, but I did not walk you through how to make a pizza dough. So today I will explain a bit more.
I learned this recipe from Jim Lahey, an American Baker. It is very smart and time saving.
No kneading required, but you need to be prepared a day before. As the water content inside the pizza dough grows, the pizza dough becomes more glutinous.
So even though you are not kneading the dough, the flour gluten molecules align with each other so as to produce a strong elastic strands. It creates something like European bread, with a crispy crust, but a very soft and airy interior.
Now let us go over the ingredients for our dough. There are plain flour, water, sea salt and instant yeast.
First off, get the flour inside a mixing bowl, blend in instant yeast.
Dissolve sea salt in clear water. Water should be about 75% as much as that of plain flour。
Slowly stir in salt water into flour.
Since a no-knead dough has a higher water content, so it should be easy to put them together. Just mix well until there is no dry flour left out.
It looks like this when it's done. It's rough on the outside, but no worries.
Cover with a piece of plastic wrap, and allow it to rise for about 18-24 hours at room temperature. The time needed depends on the temperature and how active is your yeast.
On the next day, let's start with some topping to go with the pizza.
Here I have salami, in season asparagus, new potatoes, chestnut mushrooms, mozzarella cheese and some garlic. We also need olive oil, salt and fresh ground black pepper.
Now , slice chestnut mushrooms.
Then potatoes into thin slices.
Remember to slice them as thin as possible, a thick slice of potato is very hard to cook through.
Next, use your hands to break the thick end off asparagus.
Then cut the other thick ends off along with this one, and make sure they are of the same length.
If your asparagus are as big as mine, cut them in halves in the middle. If they are small, you are fine.
Press garlic cloves.
Add in 2 tbs. olive oil.
Add in some sea salt.
And some ground pepper.
Mix well. And this will be the sauce on top of our pizza.
Preheat the oven to 230C/446F under fan cooking mode. If your oven only has one upper and lower heat cooking mode, then preheat to 250C/482F. The key is a very high temperature.
And then let's take a look at the pizza dough.
You can see clearly that there are some air holes in the dough, and the dough has tripled in size.
Prepare a roasting pan. If you don’t have one without the edges like me, you can just use the back side of a regular pan.
Flour the surface and set aside.
Flour your work surface as well with a little bit more flour, because the dough is very sticky right now.
Transfer the dough to the work surface with a scraper.
Divide it into two parts. The portion in my recipe is enough to make two pizzas, and each makes two servings.
For each of the dough, shape it with your hand and gently pull it towards the center.
Turn seam side down. Make sure to flour your hands. And be gentle.
Shape the other portion in the same way.
Lift one of the dough.
Lift it with one side and slowly turns it with your hand. Let the dough spread our with its own weight.
Or you may use your knuckles to drape the dough and spread the dough sheet even bigger.
Put it over the roasting pan, and then stretch a little.
Shape it into a rectangular. Be gentle with your dough all the time.
Try to keep the air inside your dough to make a soft and spongy crust.
Then, brush the garlic oil over the pizza dough.
Divide fresh mozzarella ball into pieces. You may use shredded mozzarella as well.
Line half of them over the dough base, and set the other half aside.
And add on some asparagus.
Some potato slices.
Then mushroom.
Salami.
Salamis are very thin, so I layer some of them together so that they won’t get burned in the oven.
Don’t place everything together, spread them out.
Finally add on the other half of mozzarella cheese.
Finish with some ground pepper.
Now it's ready to cook in the oven.
Set it in the middle under fan cooking mode at 230C/446F, or upper and lower heat cooking mode at 250C/482F, for about 10-15 mins.
Cook until its golden on the edge, and cheese on top melts. Then it's ready.
Drizzle a touch of oil to create a very appetizing look.
Make a few slices on top, and then it's ready to go. It is totally up to you what kind of toppings you'd like to put on a pizza.
Just remember, if you like cheese cheese cheese, then add less veggies.
If you like veggies, then less cheese. Don’t add many of them together, otherwise they will add too much water.
Once the dough base gets watery, the texture of it won’t come out good.
A well baked pizza should have a crispy outside crust with a spongy and elastic texture.
Make some twists of your pizza toppings, and use your imagination.
I hope everybody enjoys my in season and homemade spring veggie pizza.
Don’t forget to get me a thumb up and subscribe to my channel. If you have questions or any ideas, please feel free to leave comments down below to discuss with me.
Lastly, thanks for watching. See you next week.