After finishing my last month challenge,informed Swathi,that I will not be posting the next month challenge,as I am preparing for my vacation. But when she announced that this month challenge is "Newyork style pizza" , I volunteered myself for this challenge.The reason behind it was, my son. He is a die hard fan of pizza and when I told him about the challenge, he started bugging me to prepare the pizza. So ,besides my busy schedule,prepared pizza. The pizza sauce recipe was suggested by Pam of "Living Rancho Deluxe" from serious eats . And the crust recipe is from "Feeling Foodish .My family enjoyed this pizza.It was soft and fluffy.I halved the original recipe and prepared 2 pizzas.So the amount of sauce and toppings is for 2 pizzas.
Yield : 2 14 " thin pizzas
Ingredients:
For the sauce:
1.Tomatoes - 3
2.Garlic cloves - 2 (crushed)
3.Onion - half
4.Garlic powder - 1/2 tsp
5.Basil - 1/2 tsp
6.Oregano - 1/2 tsp
7.Salt - as required
8.Pepper powder - as required
9.Butter - 1 tbsp.
10.Pepper flakes - 1 tsp
For the crust:
1.Bread flour - 14oz (3 cups)
2.water - (a little less than 1 1/2 cups) ( luke warm water)3.instant dry yeast - 1/2 tsp
4.Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
5.olive oil - 3 tsp
For chicken tikka :
1.Boneless chicken - 1 cup
2.Curry powder - 1 tbsp.
3.Turmeric pwdr - 1/2 tsp
4.Garam masala pwdr - 1/2 tsp
5.Salt - as required
6.Lemon juice - 1 tsp
7.Oil - for greasing
For the topping:
1.Onion - 1 cup (thinly sliced)
2.Red bell pepper - half (Sliced)
3.Green bell pepper - half (sliced)
4.Chicken tikka - half cup
5.Mozerella cheese - 2 to 3 cups
Method:
Cover a pizza plate with aluminium foil and preheat in the oven for almost 1 hour at 450 degrees.
For the sauce:
* Boil water in a pan.Drop the tomatoes into the water. Leave it for 5 to 10 minutes or until the skin peels off from the toamtoes.After tomatoes are cooled,peel off the skin. Put it in the blender and puree it.
* Take a pan,add butter and sauté the crushed garlic pods and sauté it slightly.Now add the pureed tomatoes.Bring it to boil.Add the half onion into the sauce.Now simmer the sauce for half an hour, or until the sauce reduces to half.Add the basil leaves and oregano to the sauce.
* Adjust salt to taste.At last add pepper powder.At the end, take the onion out of the sauce.Adding whole onion brings out a unique taste to the sauce.We can also add some chopped red bell pepper to the sauce.This will also give a beautiful taste to the sauce.
For the crust :
* Take a mixing bowl,add flour,salt ,yeast .Mix it well.Now add water little by little and form a dough ,little loose. Add oil to dough and blend it well with the dough.Knead the dough for atleast 15 to 20 minutes ,until gluten is formed.The dough should be loose and soft.
* We can check the consistency of the dough by window pane test.Window pane test is when we expand a piece of dough,it should expand into a thin film and at last form hole .Now the dough is ready.Divide the dough into 4 equal sized balls and wrap each of them with a clear wrap.Refrigerate for 24 hours to 72 hours .I refreigerated it for 4 days .It came out perfectly well.
Preparing chicken tikka:
* Take a mixing bowl,add chilli pwdr,turmeric powder,lemon juice ,garam masala powder and blend it well.Now add the boneless chicken into the masala and coat it .Let the chicken marinate for an hour.* We can cook the tikkas in 2 ways, either we can bake them ,by lining them in a tray or just toss them in a pan.I just tossed the chicken tikkas in a pan.Strain the excess oil on a tissue paper.
Preparing pizza:
* Take the refrigerated dough out and keep it on the counter for 2 hours.This will help the pizza to reach room temperature and will help proofing .Now the dough will be soft and fluffy.
Take one dough out and flatten it on a floured area.Using our fingures, flatten the dough into 1/2 inch thicknessed disc.Don't use rolling pin .Just lift the circled dough and expand it using our knuckles. Take a tawa,sprinkle some rava on top of it. Now transfer the rolled out dough to the tawa.
Now generously apply the tomato sauce over the pizza base.Now generously spread the shredded cheese.Evenly distribute red bell pepper,green bell,sliced onion and chicken tikkas.Finally add some more cheese and sprinkle some basil leaves powder.
When the pizza pan or stone is pre heated well, slowly transfer the pizza to the pan.Care should be taken ,when we transfer the pizza from the pizza peel(tawa) to the heated pizza pan or stone.Bake for 10 to 15 minutes ,depending on the thickness of the pizza stone.Or until,the pizza turns golden brown.Slice the pizza and enjoy.
