Salmon & Caper Pizza on a Rye Crust

Rye bread is one of my favourite things to eat so recently I have been learning more about making my own. Rye is a bit tricky to handle compared to wheat flour because of its natural stickiness and lack of gluten but once you get the hang of it the reward is a spicy more-ish flavour with a moist dense crumb. Of course I can’t experiment with an ingredient without seeing if it can make a pizza and rye pizza dough seemed like something I had to try. Here it is, ready to eat! This was a good pizza, my favourite of the night.

salmon rye piza (2 of 3)

Rye pizza dough ingredients – makes two small-medium pizza bases

  • 300g Rye flour (around 2 cups but weigh it if possible). I used whole rye flour which is also called dark rye flour. Light rye is the equivalent of ‘white’ flour made from rye, with bran sifted out. Either should work but the amount of water needed might be different for light rye.
  • 6g salt (1 teaspoon)
  • 3g Instant dry yeast (1 teaspoon)
  • 220ml water ( a bit more than 4/5 cup)

Stir the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl, then add most of the water and stir well. Continue to add water until a workable dough is formed – it will be more like a putty than wheat based doughs. I use around 70% hydration for whole rye doughs, it would be interesting to try a wetter dough but frankly this dough is already hard to handle!

Cover the bowl and set aside for 10 minutes before kneading. Rye is challenging to work with and will stick like glue to your hands. There’s not that much you can do about it (wear gloves? Use an electric mixer?). Knead for a few minutes, then divide into 2 balls and set aside, covered, to rise for at least 2 hours. As always the dough will be better if it is left in the fridge overnight and removed a few hours before use.

Because this dough is so sticky, I recommend assembling the pizza on a sheet of baking paper. You can shape the base, top it, and slide it paper and all onto a preheated pizza stone. Remove the paper after a few minutes of cooking. When shaping the base I aimed for a thickness of about 3mm (3/32 in). It is a bit harder to pick up and stretch a rye dough because it doesn’t have as much gluten as wheat so handle it gently.

Smoked Salmon & Caper topping

Rye can handle bold flavour matchups. I was thinking of a smoky bacon/mettwurst/tomato combo but settled on smoked salmon, capers and cream cheese which is a pretty classic combo with rye bread. I didn’t think it would need any tomato sauce. Cream cheese is great on pizza, just use teaspoon sized blobs and they’ll crisp up on the outside and be light but gooey inside. I laid a few slices of mozzarella underneath to help it all stick and finished with a drizzle of olive oil.

salmon rye piza (1 of 3)
Assembled on baking paper, ready to bake

As can be seen from this last sorry slice the base is not as dense as might be expected.

salmon rye piza (3 of 3)

Conclusions – I’ll be making this again but be warned that it’s a very different thing than wheat based pizza. The rye is fairly dense and not as chewy – I think of it as more of a topped flatbread than a pizza although of course those things are pretty similar. If you give it a go, let me know what you think!

Nettle pizza

Every year I look at the nettles growing in the weedier bits of my back yard and vaguely think about eating them. I’ve seen them used in different dishes in some of my cookbooks, usually in the same kind of place you might use spinach. I know it sounds weird but apparently cooking removes the sting completely and this year we have had a bumper crop so I bit the bullet, gloved up and brought in a bagful. The first dish I cooked was (of course) a nettle pizza. I usually match spinach with salty/sharp flavours, so I decided to combine nettle, bacon and fetta with a little fresh tomato. For a more subtle flavour you could use ricotta instead of fetta and in hindsight you could skip the tomato and let the nettles shine through a little more but the whole family enjoyed how the pizza came out. Verdict: Would eat again.

nettle pizza pasta (1 of 1)

nettle pizza pasta (1 of 1)-2

Ingredients

  • 1 ball pizza dough
  • Pizza sauce of choice
  • Nettles
  • 1 rasher of good smoky bacon, cut into strips
  • A few slices of fetta cheese
  • 1/2 ripe tomato, diced fine
  • Mozzarella

Method

First, blanch the nettles. Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop them in. You might find it easier to remove any thicker stems first. Allow to boil briefly, then remove with a sieve or slotted spoon and dunk in cold water to stop them cooking. The nettles need to be squeezed dry before use so they don’t make the pizza soggy – wrap in a clean tea towel or kitchen cloth and press down on a board or bench.

nettle pizza pasta (1 of 1)-3

Stretch out the base and flop it onto a floured peel. Smear over a little tomato sauce, then blanched nettles and a few pieces of torn mozzarella. Save some mozz for the top. This is far from my best base ever by the way!

nettle pizza pasta (1 of 1)-4

Scatter with bacon, tomato and pieces of fetta, then a few more chunks of mozzarella. Slide onto a preheated pizza stone with the oven as hot as it gets. Cook until browned on top – 7-8 minutes if the oven is nice and hot.

nettle pizza pasta (1 of 1)-5

 

Apple Crumble Pizza

There’s apple orchards all around my home town and they’ve been busy harvesting this week. My little tree has usable fruit for the first time too!

apple pizza (1 of 1)

So I have some nice fresh apples, and today I had a spare dough ball after making lunch. Apple pizza? Why not? Here’s what I used:

  • 2 large apples
  • 1 dough ball
  • 2 tbsp raw sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1/2 cup flour

I didn’t have them handy but the pizza would have been even better with

  • walnuts
  • sultanas
  • cream to serve

Not that I need an excuse to use any kitchen gadget but I was glad to get a chance to use my apple peeling machine. When I first saw these I thought they were ridiculous. I was wrong. With this little baby I can peel, core and slice a kilo of apples in a few minutes.

apple pizza (1 of 12)
The apple peeling machine. You pull back the shaft and spear an apple…
apple pizza (2 of 12)
turn the handle, and a blade peels the skin and the apple is sliced and pushed through a corer…
apple pizza (3 of 12)
voila! Cored, peeled, sliced apple in seconds.

I put 1 tbsp butter in a non stick pan over medium heat and sautéed the sliced apple.

apple pizza (6 of 12)

After around 5 minutes it started to look a bit soft so I added 1 tbsp raw sugar and stirred until the sugar was all melted and caramelised. Then I added 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, stirred and removed from the heat.

apple pizza (7 of 12)

Next I made a little crumble topping by mixing 1/2 cup flour with 2 tbsp sugar and 1 heaped tbsp butter. The trick is to cut the butter into little pieces and just rub it into the flour with your fingertips. It should form crumbly clumps.

apple pizza (5 of 12)

I shaped the dough ball into a base, scattered over the apple pieces and crumbled the crumble on top. If I had them I would have added a few sultanas and walnuts too.

The whole lot went onto a pizza stone, preheated for 30 minutes in a fan forced oven at 250C / 480F.

apple pizza (8 of 12)

I took it out after 6-7 minutes, when the crumble was brown and the edges of the apple nice and crispy. This was one of my best dessert pizzas – just wish I had some cream left to serve it with too!

apple pizza (11 of 12)

apple pizza (12 of 12)

Lamb Pizza

We had a great lamb pizza recently and I was inspired to try making a version at home. It came out pretty well – definitely one I’ll make again! There’s a lot of scope to use different ingredients on this pizza, I think spinach or avocado would both work well. Lamb has quite a strong flavour, so it works well with other assertive ingredients. Yoghurt is a classic pairing adding some contrast to the roast capsicum too, but it is optional if you aren’t such a fan.

Ingredients were sourced from a local farmers market, with the lamb produced by Wattle Wood Springs.

  • 250g / 1/2lb Lamb backstrap (or diced pieces)
  • 1 red capsicum/pepper, roasted (see below)
  • 1/2 spanish onion, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped fine
  • 2 tbsp natural yoghurt
  • 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • salt
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • Dough
  • Sauce
  • 250g / 1/2lb  Mozzarella

*These quantities are enough to top 2 x 12″/30cm pizzas

  1. Prepare the dough in advance according to your chosen recipe. Preheat a pizza stone if using.
  2. Mix half the garlic with the yoghurt. Mix well and set aside until needed.
  3. Lightly toast the cumin seeds in a small pan. This is easy to overdo, so remove from the heat as soon as they start to smell toasty. When toasted, whiz in a spice blender. As an alternative, just use cumin powder.
  4. Make a marinade for the lamb using 1/2 the garlic, a pinch of salt, the cumin and the lemon juice. Marinate the lamb for at least an hour.
  5. To roast a pepper/capsicum, place under the grill/broiler until the skin blackens, turning until cooked all around. Allow to cool and peel off the skin. As an alternative, you can purchase pre-roasted. Cut into strips.
  6. Remove the lamb from its marinade and cut into strips, as thin as possible.
  7. Shape the pizza dough. Hit it with a splash of sauce, then scatter over a little paprika. Sprinkle over 1/4 of the  Mozzarella.
  8. Arrange the onion and red pepper, then the lamb and finish with another 1/4 of the Mozz.
  9. Cook on a preheated pizza stone or tray, in as hot as oven as possible for around 5-6 minutes or until browned and delish!
  10. Before serving, drizzle with the garlic yoghurt to taste.

Bacon and Egg Breakfast Pizza

A bacon and egg pizza has been on my mind for a while now, so with a cool sunny morning on the weekend it seemed like the perfect time to do some morning baking in the wood oven! This is the first breakfast pizza recipe I’ve put together and while it wasn’t an unqualified success it was quite delicious, and I’m going to enjoy tweaking the recipe.

A note on ingredients – most commercial bacon is made by injecting pork with a solution of brine and phosphates so that it retains water and weighs more when it’s sold. They use liquid smoke and other additives for flavouring. While any bacon can taste good, I prefer to buy bacon from smaller producers who care about the quality of their products and minimise the chemicals they use. If you can find such a producer at a farmers market or specialty store, or even direct from the farm, stock up – the taste of traditionally cured and smoked bacon is worth the hunt!

You could vary the ingredients to include other breakfast favourites but I chose to keep it simple with onion adding some crunch and tomatoes contributing acidity and richness that goes well with smoky bacon. I chose to dice rather than slice the onions, to give a layer of texture underneath the bacon. Tearing the bacon adds to the presentation a little and makes for more interesting, varied mouthfuls.

This recipe allows for topping 2 small or one very large pizza.

Bacon and Egg Pizza

  • 1/2 a Brown Onion, diced finely
  • 1 ripe Tomato, coarsely diced
  • 3 Rashers of bacon, torn into manageable pieces
  • Fresh herbs to garnish
  • 4-6 Free range eggs
  • Pizza sauce
  • Mozzarella
  • 1 Quantity dough of choice
  • Olive oil
  • Salt & Pepper
Tearing off crust to dip in the egg yolk was delicious!

Shape the base, and place on a floured peel. In a bowl, sprinkle the tomato with a little salt. Place the pieces in a sieve and allow to drain. This will remove some moisture from the tomatoes and give them a little flavour kick as well. Drizzle olive oil over the base, then add tomato sauce followed by a thin scattering of mozarella.

Scatter the onion and tomato over the base. Add a little more cheese, then the bacon pieces.

At this point you need to make a decision about when to add the eggs, based on how well you want them done. I cooke my pizza in a wood fired oven for a minute before I poured on the eggs. This resulted in quite a runny yolk which was great to dip pieces of the crust into. If you are cooking in an indoors oven with a pizza stone, allow a few minutes for the eggs to cook to runny or put them on at the start if you like well done.

When adding eggs, you can choose to beat them in advance or pour them on whole. Whichever approach you take, have all of your eggs cracked and ready so you can get them on quickly and the pizza back in the oven. If using whole eggs, think about the position so that you can give guests an egg on every slice. The next improvement I will be making to this recipe will be to use large egg rings on the pizza – it is quite hard to get them to land where you want! I think egg rings will allow a little white to leak out around the edges and look nice, but hold the eggs roughly where I want them.

Once cooked, scatter with some fresh herbs. It’s hard to go past parsley for a classic egg pairing; I used basil from my garden as well. A final note – you could easily make mini pizzas following this approach, and I bet kids would love having their own breakfast pizza with an egg in the middle!

As always, don't overdo the toppings - leave room for the crust to breathe. This is before adding the bacon.
Enjoy! Yes, I burnt the crust... just a little.

Leek, Tomato and Mushroom with Stracchino

I cooked a bit of an unusual pizza recently on a whim, and it turned out pretty well! I was inspired by a new (to me) cheese that I found at the markets. It’s called Stracchino, and is a soft cows milk cheese. It has a lovely delicate flavour with a hint of sweetness combined with a  little tangy-ness. It melts amazingly, turning into a soft, sticky and creamy puddle.

I wanted to match this up with some ingredients that would complement the sweet cheese as well as something to contrast with the sweet flavours. This is what I came up with. The sweetness of cooked leeks is nice with this cheese and the contrasting texture of slightly crunchy/slippery leek with the smooth melted Stracchino worked well. Pieces of tomato and mushroom are little bursts of intense flavour to contrast with the smooth sweetness of the cheese and leek.

Ingredients

  • Pizza dough (I made one massive pizza with a 500g dough ball, you could also make 2 smaller ones with these quantities of toppings)
  • Pizza sauce
  • 2 Leeks
  • Good handful of button Swiss brown mushrooms
  • 2 Ripe tomatoes, diced
  • Paprika
  • 300g or so Stracchino. You could use mozzarella if you absolutely can’t find this, it will still work well with these toppings

Method

  1. Cut the green tops off the leeks and discard. Wash the leeks well. Dice and saute in olive oil with one crushed clove of garlic until translucent.
  2. Tip the mushrooms into a hot pan, and leave them to cook until starting to brown, shaking to stop them burning.
  3. Shape your pizza base and spread with a thin layer of sauce.
  4. Scatter a few pinches of paprika over the tomato sauce. It’s amazing how much of a difference there is between a good quality paprika versus the ones I have tried from supermarkets!
  5. Scatter the leek mixture evenly over the base.
  6. Slice the cheese and tear each slice into chunks.  Scatter evenly over the pizza. Make sure to leave some gaps so that the crust doesn’t get too moist.
  7. Now scatter over the mushrooms and diced tomatoes. Don’t overdo it – a good guide is to end up with around 2 pieces of each per slice, on average.
  8. Cook on a preheated pizza stone or any other cooking method of your choice.

Fig, Walnut & Mascarpone Pizza with Pear

This pizza recipe is a bit of a different combination. You wouldn’t quite call it a dessert pizza, but is quite light and sweet and can definitely finish off a meal. I make my own plum sauce from our trees, and my sauce is quite light and tangy. If you can’t make your own, try an asian style plum sauce.

Ingredients

  • Plum Sauce
  • A small handful of Walnuts (freshly shelled makes a difference)
  • Mascarpone
  • Dried Figs
  • Honey (optional)
  • Thin slices of fresh Pear
  • Sugar
  • Lime juice

Method

  1. Drizzle plum sauce over your prepared pizza base. You don’t want the base totally covered.
  2. Drizzle some honey if using – just some thin swirls.
  3. Scatter the pizza with halved figs and halved walnut pieces.
  4. Finish with chunks of mascarpone – I use teaspoon sized pieces.
  5. Carefully slide into the preheated oven using your peel and bake until the crust is golden. Be careful with this one as the nuts can burn easily.
  6. While the pizza is cooking, slice your pear thinly and put the pieces in a bowl with the juice of one lime, and a teaspoon of sugar. Toss together to coat. When the pizza is cooked, finish by dressing with the slices of fresh pear and serve!

Onion, rosemary & blue cheese

The strength of this pizza is it’s simplicity and the combination of a small amount of powerful ingredients. The subtle sweetness and texture of the onions is lovely against the bitey blue cheese and the rosemary.

Use your favourite blue cheese here but don’t be afraid to experiment. A nice gorgonzola would be wonderful.

This is a good introduction to the pizza bianca, or white pizza, for those who have always used tomato sauce before!

Ingredients

  • 1 Small brown onion, sliced finely into rings
  • Mozzarella, finely sliced
  • Blue cheese
  • Pecorino (or Parmesan if preferred)
  • 2-3 tsp of fresh Rosemary leaves, chopped but not too finely.
  • Olive oil
  • Pizza dough

Method

  1. Prepare your pizza bases.
  2. Tear up two  slices of mozzarella and scatter over the base.
  3. Scatter rings of onion over the base.
  4. Cut or crumble the blue cheese into small pieces and spread evenly over the base.
  5. Tear up one or two slices of mozzarella and scatter these as well.
  6. Finish by scattering over with a few pinches of rosemary and some grated fresh pecorino or parmesan.
  7. Drizzle with olive oil and cook.

And here how it looks straight out of a wood fired oven!

Rosemary, onion and blue cheese pizza
Rosemary, onion and blue cheese pizza

Zucchini, mushroom & smoked cheese

This is a simple veggie pizza that packs a flavour punch. The earthy mushrooms work nicely with the sweet zucchini, and the smoky cheese is complemented by a little squeeze of fresh lemon.

Ingredients

  • Half a cup of your favourite mushrooms, roughly diced
  • Half a cup of zucchini (courgette), diced to the same size as the mushroom
  • 1 Clove of finely chopped or mashed garlic
  • Olive oil
  • 1 Good pinch fresh or dried Oregano
  • 1 Tbsp Lemon juice
  • Smoked cheese
  • Mozzarella

Method

  1. In a hot pan, add 1 Tbsp of olive oil and then the zucchini and oregano. Saute for 1-2 minutes until just starting to soften. Add the mushrooms and sautee for another minute.
  2. Pour over the lemon juice, and stir well. Season with salt and a little freshly cracked black pepper and put the mixture aside until ready to use.
  3. Top your prepared base with sauce and a thin layer of torn or grated mozzarella.
  4. Scatter a layer of the zucchini and mushroom mixture over the pizza. If any juices have collected, avoid transferring them to the pizza with the rest of the mixture so the base doesn’t get too soggy.
  5. Crumble or dice the smoked cheese and scatter the pieces over the pizza.
  6. Finally, top with a little more mozzarella before baking.