Some years ago in America, a friend of mine took me to a restaurant called California Pizza Kitchen. The pizzas were both very imaginative and of a high quality. Unfortunately not all pizzas are made with quality ingredients and that makes a great deal of difference to taste.
Of course other things such as having a wood-burning stove to cook the pizza in can also have a great bearing on the taste. Well I’m not about to encourage you all to build a pizza oven but I would like more of you to try making pizza and discover how easy and rewarding making your own pizza can be; indeed you could bake it on your barbecue using the indirect cooking method that I posted about recently.

For 2 x 24cm pizzas
450 grams Strong bread flour
1.5 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 sachet of active yeast
50 ml olive oil
260 ml warm water
2 tins of tinned chopped tomatoes
200 ml water
1 medium onion finely diced
1 large bulb of garlic
6 large basil leaves chopped
1-2 small red onions peeled & cut into wedges
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 x 150 gram fresh mozzarella
Pinch of sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 120 C gas mark 1.
2. Carefully remove 3 cloves of garlic from the bulb, peel & reserve for the tomato sauce.
3. Place the remainder of the garlic bulb in an ovenproof dish and drizzle with half tablespoon of olive oil. Bake until the cloves are tender but not brown, set aside.
4. Combine the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar olive oil together in a large bowl.
5. Once the dough is well mixed transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, then place back into the bowl and cover with a clean tea towel.
6. Put the red onion into a nonstick saucepan with half tablespoon of olive oil, pinch of sugar and cook on a medium low heat until tender and brown around the edges.
7. In a separate saucepan put the finely dice onion and 1 tablespoon olive oil, cook for 3-4 minutes on a medium heat, then add the chopped tomatoes, reserved garlic & water.
8. Adjust the heat so the sauce is gently simmering and reduce until you have approximately 475 ml left.
9. Using the pulse setting on your food processor to make the sauce slightly less chunky then season and allow to cool.
10. Divide the pizza dough into 2 and roll out into 2 circles about 24cm each, then transfer onto a suitable flat pizza tray*
11. Turn up the oven to 200C gas mark 6
12. Spread the cool tomato sauce onto the pizza circles, getting fairly close to the edge.
13. Cut the 2 mozzarella cheeses into 6-7 circular slices each and arrange on the pizzas.
14. Bake the pizzas for 20-25 minutes in the middle of the oven until then top with the caramelize red onions; few garlic cloves and a sprinkling of the chopped basil.

Chef's Tips
*If you don’t have a pizza tray, cook it directly onto a cake wire rack then place that onto the oven shelf. Just place a roasting tin at the bottom to catch any drips. If you prefer your pizza crust thin & crusty then make the sauce and toppings ahead of time then roll the pizza dough out immediately after kneading, top with sauce & cheese and bake.

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