The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

I’ve been trying to master the art of the perfect pizza crust for a long time. It seems that I’ve tried so many recipes by so many different people and really made no progress what so ever. I bought a pizza stone, read every article that exists on the subject and still I find myself extremely disappointed after each attempt. Naturally I came to the conclusion that the perfect pizza made in a domestic oven is impossible.

Well that is until a few hours ago. While flipping through my Jamie at Home cookbook. I came across his recipes for something called Pizza Fritta. Having glanced at this several times before I thought I would read further to see what set it apart, if anything, from all the rest of those recipes that have been nothing but a let down in the past.

Are you ready for this?

The dough is DEEP FRIED. Yes fried pizza dough. Why on earth didn’t I think of this before? It makes perfect sense. The crispy texture of the crust that defines a great pizza has always been the problem and my oven just will not get hot enough to ever achieve this. It does add an extra step to what can be a quite labor intensive process, but it’s totally worth it. According to Jamie Oliver this is the original pizza recipe. Because the dough is fried first I find that it’s less dense than your average dough and is the closest I have come to good texture in the world of at home pizza.

Pizza Fritta - Adapted from Jamie Oliver at Home

makes approximately 12 small pizzas

1x Pizza Dough Recipe (follows)

four for dusting

vegetable Oil: a piece of potato, peeled

1 3/4 Cups of the quickest tomato sauce (follows)

2 x 5 ounce balls of buffalo mozzarella

20 cherry tomatoes, halved

capers

a few fresh oregano or fresh basil leaves

sea saly and freshly ground black pepper

extra virgin olive oil

First make the pizza dough. Once dough has risen and you’ve punched it down, flour your work surface and begin to form dough into small pizza rounds. Don’t be afraid to use a decent amount of flour as this will help to keep it from sticking to your hands, rolling pin and work surface. Form all of your rounds and stack them between sheets of parchment paper before frying.

Heat about 2 inches of vegetable oil in a frying pan over high heat. The recipe recommends using a piece of potato to determine whether the oil is hot enough before you start frying the dough. When it sizzles and floats to the top, you’re all set.

Fry the each round individually for 30 seconds on either side and then immediately drain on paper towels. Once all of the dough rounds are fried make sure to preheat your oven to the highest available temperature and throw in your pizza stone of you’ve got one.

Spread a spoonful of the tomato sauce over each round and tear a few pieces of the mozzarella over, adding several cherry tomatoes, capers or olives and a few leaves of the fresh oregano and finally drizzle some extra virgin olive oil.

Grill the pizzas for about 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Pizza Dough – Adapted from Jamie Oliver at Home

7 cups of strong white bread flour (I only needed 6)

1 level tablespoon of fine white sea salt

2 x 1/4 ounce packets of active dried yeast, or 1 table spoon yeast if you have it in a jar

1 tablespoon of raw sugar

4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

2 1/2  cups of lukewarm water

Mix the lukewarm water, yeast, sugar and olive oil into the warmed bowl of your mixer, with the dough hook attachment, or a bowl if doing this by hand and let it sit for about 5 minutes until the yeast foams up a bit. Once foamy, mix about 2 1/2 cups of the flour into the yeast and set the mixer on 2 until incorporated, or alternatively mix the four in with a wooden spoon and then turn it out onto the counter to incorporate the rest. Add the rest of the flour in 1/2 cup increments into the mixer until the dough comes together and clings to the dough hook. Turn the dough out onto your surface and kneed a bit until you achieve a smooth springy dough.

Place the dough into either a large flour dusted bowl or into a bowl with a bit of olive oil, and turn it around once to cover. Place a damp cloth over the bowl and let rise for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Once the dough has risen and you are ready to use it, remove from the bowl and punch down to get some of the air out.

Quick Tomato Sauce - Adapted from Jamie Oliver at Home

olive oil

3 x 14 ounce cans of good quality plum tomatoes

4-6 cloves of garlic, depending on how you like it. I used 6. – sliced

fresh basil to taste

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat up a pan over medium heat and add in a decent amount of olive oil about 3 tablespoons. Add the garlic and fry for a minute being careful that it doesn’t burn. Add in the fresh basil and fry a second longer before adding the tomatoes. Crush the tomatoes with a potato masher as much as you can, but don’t worry if there are still a few pieces hanging around. Simmer the sauce for 15 minutes.

After simmering turn off the heat and let cool before transfering to a jar and into the refridgerator. You can also strain this sauce before storing as recommended in the original recipe but if you don’t mind the piceces of garlic and basil you can just use it as is, which is what I did.

This sauce will keep for a week in the fridge.