Decided to make pizza tonight and thought that some of my left over Terrine filling would be an excellent start. While taking it out of the freezer I also found some home made bacon and home made Pastrami. Excellent I thought, this will make a kick-ass pizza.
I’ve also wanted to try making a Pizza Fritta for a while, Pizza Fritta is a small base that’s shallow fried in oil, topped and then grilled briefly under high heat. So I decided to make a garlic and parmesan one as a side dish.
Pate de Campagne meatball, Bacon and Pastrami Pizza with Garlic Pizza Fritta
My first step was to infuse some olive oil with garlic and basil. Crushed two cloves of garlic with the side of my knife and then chopped it roughly, did the same with some basil and poured a good glug of oil over the top.
I also made some pickled garlic and onion by chopping some of both, adding some torn basil and covered with white wine vinegar and the juice of half a lemon.
Onto the Base I mixed 300ml tepid water with some sugar, 2 tsp yeast and a glug of sherry. got out the kitchenaid with the dough hook and mixed this with 500g bread flour, and a dash of the infused olive oil.
After a few minutes of kneading I formed the dough into a sphere and floured it.
I then preheated the oven to 70 C and then turned it off, waited 5 minutes and put the dough in to rise in the nice warm oven.
Next up I sauteed the meatballs in a pan with a glug of the infused olive oil.
I put the meatballs aside, and used the nice oily flavoured pan to start my pizza sauce. Some garlic and chopped onion went into the pan.
Followed by some finely chopped red capsicum.
A glug of Marsala and a tin of tomatoes
I left it to simmer and thicken up.
Next up I checked on the dough and it had risen beautifully.
I rolled it out into a big circle and sprinkled the top with Polenta ( the top will become the bottom when put on the pizza stone ).
Meanwhile I’d preheated the oven to it’s highest temp with a pizza stone inside it. When it was at heat I pulled out the stone and slid the pizza base on top. I then spread a good covering of the Pizza Sauce over the top.
I topped the pizza by sprinkling over some of the pickles, Meatballs, bacon and Pastrami along with some freshly torn up mozzarella and grated parmesan. I then baked the pizza until cheese started to turn golden, and it was ready!
For the Fritta, I heated some olive oil in a pan, and through the fritta base in, cooked it for about 30 seconds either side. Was really interesting to watch it cook this way, you could actually see it rise and bubble as the yeast went into overdrive.
Spread some sauce on it, followed by some chopped garlic, parmesan and a few basil leaves.
Put under a hot grill, and finished!
