A few months ago my Dad’s Godmother had her 90th birthday. It was one of those lovely events where the combination of people is completely muddled, but everyone gets on like a house on fire, with lots of laughing and good feelings. At some point during a lull in the laughter, Tante Erica started telling us her late husband’s favorite dish was tripe. ‘I hated tripe you understand, the whole thing was blahhh! And the smell! Meine Gute… So I never cooked the tripe. It was just too terrible. And he never complained. But now I think I could have just made the man some tripe. You are stupid when you are young you know.’
Fortunately Onkle Hanjo managed to find enthusiastic tripe cooking ladies in every town in which they lived over the years, so all was not complete doom and gloom.
This statement of the tripe made quite an impression on me.
And I thought to myself, if there is anything that the my less culinary skilled other half really likes – no matter how not suited to my tastes – I’d better make it for him every now and again! I then promptly proceeded to forget about this, and life moved on.
And then at some point during trying out this pizza Nick said to me ‘we should make pizza an institution, we could have it every week! Brilliant, brilliant man. Not tripe! Not tripe….
I have not been making pizza at home for that long. But now that I have the hang of it, it is just the most fun meal to make! It feels like a treat, and yet at the same time has the health benefit that it is homemade, and does not need to contain any of the chemical additives and sugar that lots of frozen and take out pizzas do.
For the dough, I always use Jessica’s Merchant’s thin crust recipe from her blog How Sweet It Is . It does not need to rise, which means that if you have to make it at the last minute – no problem!
I am a huge fan of loading on toppings, but sometimes simplicity is the best avenue. I feel like this about the salmon. It is such a big flavor, that it does really well on its own with just a little explosion of contrast from the sundried tomato.
Smoked Salmon & Sundried Tomato Thin Crust Pizza
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Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1/2 cup lukewarm water
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 clove crushed garlic
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup smoked salmon strips
- 2-3 sundried tomato rounds
- Fresh basil leaves for serving
Instructions
How to Make the Dough:
First off, its time to put the dough together. As I said above, this dough is a no rise recipe, so you can simply make it and roll out your pizza bases. I usually make it ahead of time and let the yeast colonize the dough for the afternoon – but if I decide to make pizza at the last minute or have not been home to mix the dough – it’s all good!
- Combine lukewarm water, honey and yeast in a large bowl.
- Leave to sit until the surface is slightly foamy (about 15 minutes).
- Now add in flour and salt. Mix together until combined.
- Grab the dough and form a ball in your hands.
- knead for about 10 minutes, or until the dough has an elasticated consistency.
If you are going to let the dough sit for awhile, coat the ball with some oil. This will prevent the surface from drying out.
Assemble the Pizza
- Heat your oven about 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 degrees Celsius.
- Flour your work surface, a rolling pin (or my personal favorite a wine bottle) and your hands. Flatten and roll out the dough until it is a nice thin pizza base!
- Transfer to your baking sheet.
- Smear on the garlic.
- Sprinkle on the cheese.
- Top with the smoked salmon strips and sundried tomato slivers.
- Place in the oven.
- Now here is the most important part. DO not overcook. Keep and eye and make sure that your take the pizza out as soon as the base is cooked. If you leave the pizza any longer the cheese will harden and the lovely gooying ness melted cheese factor will be lost.
- Top with basil leaves, black pepper and serve.
Notes
If you like your base well baked with lots of brown around the edges, then you might want to prebake it for 10 minutes. Then take it out and top, replace and bake until the cheese is all melted.
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