Homemade Pizza Margherita!!!!

Hi guys!!!

Ganesh and I are die-hard pizza lovers. We have tried pizzas in authentic Italian restaurants to every other countries' version selling restaurants. The only thing left is to have pizza in Italy itself :-) Anyhow.... whatever the version, according to me pizzas are to die for!!!!

I have tried quite a few varieties of pizza toppings when baking them at home. But hands down, my all-time favorite is the basic pizza margherita. The divine combination of tomato and cheese!!! This year being the first Valentine's day with Ganesh, I prepared a special dinner. It was a while since I prepared pizza at home and for a couple of weeks Ganesh was asking me to prepare it over a weekend. So I decided to do that on Valentine's day :-)

This pizza is easy to prepare even if every important part of it is prepared from scratch. But there is an even quicker version when u opt to use some store-bought products. I am gonna explain both the quicker and from-the-scratch methods.

Quick version:

Ingredients:

Store-bought pizza base - 1
Hot & Sweet tomato sauce - 2 tablespoons
Grated mozarella - 1 cup ( Can be even more generous for a more cheesy topping)
Italian seasoning & Oregano - 1/2 tsp each

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil and sprinkle some maida/APF on the sheet.
3. Place the pizza base on the sheet and spread the tomato sauce all over it. spread the grated cheese evenly on top of the pizza and sprinkle the seasonings on top.
4. Pop it in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges turn brown and the cheese has melted and turned bubbly.
5. Take the pizza from the oven and slice them and ENJOY!!!!!

Detailed version:

Ingredients:

For the pizza dough:
Maida / APF - 1 cup
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp
Active dried yeast - 1/2 tsp
Luke-warm water - 1 cup
Olive oil - 2 tsp

For the pizza sauce:
Tomato - 1 big
Onion - 1
Garlic - 2 cloves
Tomato ketchup - 1 tbsp

Grated mozarella - 1 cup
Italian seasoning/Oregano - 1/2 tsp each

Procedure:

1. Add the sugar and yeast to the luke-warm water and cover and let it aside for 10 minutes. Wait till it turns frothy.
2. Take the flour in a mixing bowl and add the salt. Add the water with the yeast and knead well to form a soft elastic dough.
3. Finally, add the olive oil and knead thoroughly. The dough should be really soft and elastic. Now, close the bowl with a wet towel and let the dough rise for a couple of hours. Prepare the dough earlier that day so u can use it when baking. It can also be prepared days ahead and frozen.
4. To prepare the pizza sauce, heat a tsp of olive oil in a kadai. Add the chopped onion, tomato and garlic to it and saute well. Turn off heat and let it cool.
5. Once cooled down, grind it well into a paste. Add the ketchup and pulse the mixer to get it mixed well. Now, the sauce is ready.
6. Preheat the oven to 180C when preparing the sauce.
7. Line a baking sheet with a foil.
8. The dough would have risen by now. Sprinkle the kitchen stand with flour and rava and try and spread the dough into a circular base. My pizza bases are never perfect circles and I don't care about that 'coz before u know the whole pizza is gone from the plate. So why worry about the shape!!!
9. Now place the base on the sheet and spread the pizza sauce all over the base. Sprinkle the grated cheese throughout the base and finish it with the seasonings.
10. Pop it in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges brown. The cheese sure would be bubbly and melted throughout by now.


The pizza is ready. Take it from the oven and ENJOY!!!!