New York Style Pizza, From Scratch With Vegetables Toppings

Who doesn’t know about Pizza? Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, round bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings. Pizza was originally invented in Naples, Italy, and the dish has since become popular in many parts of the world.

The word Pizza makes our mouth water and adds smiles to our faces. Therefore before I go ahead I will like to share some fun facts about Pizza.

• The average pizzeria uses roughly 55 pizza boxes per day.
• The highest-grossing single-unit independent pizzeria in the nation, Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria, is in Anchorage , Alaska. Its annual sales are approximately $6 million.
• 36 percent of all pizza orders want their pizza topping pepperoni
• 94 percent of Americans eat pizza regularly.
• Cheese wasn't added to pizza until the late 1800s.
• Frozen pizzas were introduced to Americans by the Celentano Brothersin 1957. At that time, frozen pizzas were only available in grocery stores.
• The largest pizza in the world was made in 1990 at Norwood Hypermarket in South Africa. For the pizza, they used 500 kg of flour, 800 kg of cheese and 900 kg of tomato puree. The pizza was measured 37.4 meters, enough to secure an entrance in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest pizza ever.
• The most expensive pizza was created by Domenico Crolla who used edible gold, medallions of venison, sun blush-tomato sauce, Scottish smoked salmon, lobster marinated in fine cognac and champagne-soaked caviar. His pizza was sold at auction for charity with price of about #3000.00.

I hope you all enjoyed reading these facts. Moving to the recipe, this month’s task from  Baking Partners group was to make pizza. Making pizza from starch only sounds tough but making it is very simple and fun. I am happy that I got the chance to try my hands on New York Style Pizza. I was so happy and amazed by its taste and texture. I opted to make thin crust pizza (Mr. Husband likes it this way) with lots of vegetables as toppings. All I can say is there is no pizza better then homemade pizza :)

Recipe source - Serious eats

Recipe suggested by - Archana of Tangy minds

Ingredients:

For pizza dough (for  1 very large pizza or 2 medium ones )

Bread flour - 2 1/4 cup

Salt - 1 1/ 2 tsp

Lukewarm water - 1 cup

Sugar - 3/4 tsp

Instant yeast - 1 tsp

Olive oil - 2 tbs

For pizza sauce

Peeled plum tomatoes - 1 can

Extra virgin olive oil - 1 tablespoon

Red pepper flakes - pinch 

Salt

Basil leaves - 2 sprigs

Unsalted butter - 1 tablespoon

Garlic cloves - 2 medium (grated)

Onion - 1 medium (chopped)

Sugar - 1 teaspoon

Dried oregano - 1teaspoon

Salt - as required 

For topping

Mozzarella cheese– ½ cup grated

Parmesan cheese- ½ cup grates

Vegetables- ½ red, yellow and green capsicum (cubed), ½ onion (sliced), ½ cup cherry tomatoes (chopped rounds)

Method:

For the dough

1. In a bowl combine bread flour, salt, olive oil, yeast, sugar and add lukewarm water to it and knead well for about 10 -15 minutes just like chapatti dough. Keep the dough covered for 30 minutes and then knead again. This time you will reach at a point where the dough will be stretchy and must pass window pane test.
2. Divide the dough in 2 equal parts and keep in the Ziploc bag in the fridge for minimum 24 hours and maximum up to 5 days. Remember to take out the dough from fridge at least 1 hour before baking (to bring it to room temperature).(I kept my dough overnight and used it next day)

For the sauce

1. In a blender blend the canned tomatoes. Do not puree it, blend to form chunky mixture.
2. In a pan heat butter and olive oil and when butter melts throw in grated garlic, oregano, pepper flakes, pinch of salt and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add tomato puree, chopped onions, basil sprigs, and sugar and bring it to simmer. Let it cook for about 1 hour (stiring in between) till the sauce thickens and reduces t half.
4. Mix salt and let it cool.

For Baking:

1. 1 hour before baking; preheat oven to 400F/ 200C. Turn single dough ball out onto lightly flour surface. Gently press out dough into rough 8-inch circle and then roll the dough like a roti with rolling pin to form thin crust. Transfer to pizza pan.
2. Spread approximately 2/3 cup of sauce evenly over surface of crust. Add all the vegetables toppings evenly and spread 1/3 of cheese over sauce evenly.
3. Bake until cheese is melted with some browned spots and crust is golden brown and puffed, 10 to 15 minutes or varies depends on your oven
4. Transfer to cutting board, slice, and serve immediately.

 Do let me know your favourite pizza toppings in the comments below :)

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