17 November 2010

Homemade Pizza

So we bought an oven, and yesterday it arrived! Immediately we decided to make pizza for dinner. When I got home, about 9, I made dough (using this recipe) and ricotta (using this one), and left both to sit happily for about an hour. Tom got home and, to cut a looong story short, we ended up accidentally mixing powdered peroxide into the first batch of dough, necessitating a late-night run to the nearest shop for more flour. Great fun. Don't add mysterious powders to your pizzas and you should be okay.

Below are the recipes used; for the pizza we just stretched the dough out flat (making sure it would fit in our oven), pricked it several times with a knife, and topped it with tomato sauce, ricotta, grated cheese, and sliced onion.

Dough
Enough for three small-ish pizzas

2 heaped cups of flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until a smooth dough is formed.

Ricotta


2 cups milk
1 tablespoon vinegar
Cheesecloth or alternative (I used a clean pillowcase)
Lemon juice and salt, to taste

This is a complete guess at the amount of ingredients I used, as I just tipped everything into a pan and winged it. Heat the milk slowly on the stove, stirring occasionally. The curds and whey will begin to separate. Sit the cheesecloth (or alternative) in a colander; after about ten minutes, pour the curds and whey through this. Allow the ricotta to rest for a while before moving it into a suitable container. Add lemon juice and salt to taste (I used lemon vinegar so didn't bother with this step). The cheese keeps, in tupperware in the fridge, for about a week.