Cooking with your oven

There are different styles of pizza dough. High-grade-flour dough can stretch and capture more air bubbles but if handled too roughly result in a tough pizza. This dough gives a chewier pizza with more crunch in the crust and requires a little more water than plain-flour dough. Plain flour gives you a lighter dough for a pizza that is soft and has less rise.

The Italians use tipo 00 flour (available through specialty food stores). Other options are half highgrade and half wholemeal flour for a more wholesome pizza base, or three-quarter high-grade and quarter fine rye flour. ‘Retarding’, or slowing down the yeast activity, will improve the flavour of your pizza base. Make the dough early in the day and retard the divided dough pieces in the fridge. This process can be done up to 12 hours ahead. Make sure to bring them up to room temperature before using them.

Pizza dough

500g flour (high grade or plain) 2½ tsp active dried yeast (or 20g fresh yeast)

1 tbsp olive oil (15g, traditionally not required)

1½ tsp salt (10g)

1¹∕³ cups+ water, tepid (320–350g)

Place the flour, active dried yeast, oil, and salt dissolved in some water into a large bowl. Slowly add the remaining water into the centre of the bowl and stir by hand, or with a wooden spoon, until the mixture starts to form a ball. Tip the dough out and knead it on a floured work surface, pushing and folding the dough back on itself continuously. Adjust the consistency by adding water or flour.

Knead the dough for about 15 minutes, leaving it to rest every three minutes for about a minute. Dough develops faster with resting time. Properly mixed dough has a satiny sheen and smooth elastic texture — a small piece should stretch thinly (do it gently) without ripping too quickly. Put the dough into a lightly oiled container covered with a lightly oiled plastic sheet or cling film to prevent a skin forming. Leave it to rise in a warm place at a constant temperature (yeast ideally ferments at between 25°C and 28°C) for 1–1½ hours or until it has doubled in size.

Halfway through this time, push and fold the dough gently to ‘knock it back’. This will revitalize the yeast’s activity and strengthen the dough. Place back into the bowl and cover. Divide the fully risen dough into four equal portions, shape into balls, and let them rest, covered, on a lightly floured

work surface for five minutes. Shape or roll out a thin, round disc, leaving the rim slightly thicker to contain the filling.

Place the pizza base onto your wooden peel, generously sprinkled with semolina or fine polenta to assist with sliding. Spread the base lightly with tomato sauce, then add your toppings. Top with thin slices of mozzarella or standard cheese. Remember not to use too much sauce and cheese, as the pizza base will not cook properly and become soggy. Italian pizzas are thin and light on toppings.

Drizzle with olive oil and bake.

Pizza tomato sauce

1 can tomatoes (discard the juice) ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper ½ tsp salt

1 tsp oregano

Use a potato masher to get a good sauce consistency. Don’t use a food processor or hand mixer, as those will break the seeds and give your sauce a bitter flavour. Do not cook the sauce if you are using a brick oven, as the hot oven will cook it perfectly. Other flavouring options include single teaspoons of either dried basil (2 tbsp of fresh basil) garlic powder or olive oil, or 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar or lemon juice.

Wood-fired oven

You can use your wood-fired oven like a barbecue, especially when the fire is still going and temperatures are up near 450°C. With the intense heat, items such as vegetables, meat, or fish can be cooked very quickly as long as the cuts are not too large and pans or oven-proof dishes are not over-filled. You might be surprised at how moist meat can be when cooked in a pizza oven.

Vegetables

Vegetables such as red onions, mushrooms, courgettes, or asparagus, chopped, sliced, or quartered, can be marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic, salt and pepper, and fresh garden herbs. Cook them in an oven dish, adding the onions first as they take the longest to cook. Two minutes or so later add the mushrooms, courgettes, and asparagus to the dish. The whole lot should only take around 5–10 minutes from start to finish. Make sure you use a large enough oven dish, as you do not want to stew the vegetables.

Fish

A good marinade for fish is 100g of peanut oil; a chopped, seeded red chilli; and single teaspoons of chopped garlic, lemon juice, ground coriander, lemongrass, and a sprinkle of turmeric powder. Marinate for no longer than 20 minutes, as if left longer than this, the marinade will start to cook the fish.

Cooking

Use large, seasoned frying pans and oil lightly (thin pans, no wooden or plastic handles) and place for a minute into the oven to heat up. Place food items into the hot pan and put in the oven. Make sure to use large pans, as overfilling will stew the fish or meat. Any white fish is suitable, as is chicken breast meat (cuts with bones take too long and may end up burnt on the outside and raw inside — unhealthy), and low-fat sausages, which cook quickly.