Pizza Bianca – A quick and easy midweek treat!
Posted on November 25, 2013 by in baked goods, cheese
Pizza – show me a kid who does not like it and I show you snowballs in summer! ( Ooops, this year we nearly did have snowballs in summer) I have taught many kids in my lifetime and during mat chats, I would always ask them about their favorite food! Pizza came out tops every time, with you guessed it, spaghetti bolognaise hot on its heels.
Pizza Toppings – one can write a thesis on this, and I think the initial idea of eating just flat bread with oils and herbs is long forgotten! It might be interesting for you to know that it was actually the Greeks who came up with the idea of making pizza! shall we give credit to the Italians for perfecting it! In actual fact, the modern pizza as we know it, originated in Italy as the Neapolitan Flat bread!
The influence of Italy in the evolving of the pizza is evident with the very popular Margherita getting its name from the three colors of the Italian flag. Once the Italians literally covered the base ( excuse the pun)with a thick, rich tomato sauce, the world decided to pack it with all sorts of things and calling it anything from a Four Seasons or Hawain to a Mexican pizza!
Pizza Bianca or the white pizza consists basically of flat bread, oils and herbs like rosemary. Sometimes mozzarella cheese is added, but it does not have any tomato sauce. If you make a good pizza dough, use good olive oil and fresh herbs, the cheese is not at all necessary, but my kids still prefer eating a pizza with long strings of melted cheese!
Last week while making pickles with Hein van Tonder, I made red onion pickles and everyone loves it on meat, sandwiches, even just straight from the jar. I thought this pickle would be perfect with a slice of Pizza Bianca …. and I was right!
I made my own pizza dough, because when I am a little stressed, I find kneading helps, but you can buy dough from your local supermarket or even use this clever idea!
Pizza Bianca
serves 6
Ingredients
800 g flour
5 ml salt
5 ml sugar
10 ml instant yeast
30 ml olive oil
500 ml lukewarm water
For the topping
250 ml cream cheese
500 ml grated mazarella
2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
30 ml olive oil
fresh thyme
salt and pepper
pickled onions – optional
Method
Place the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a big glass or stainless steel bowl. Mix the olive oil and lukewarm water and while you mix the flour with your one hand, add the water bit-by-bit and keep mixing until you have a workable dough, not too dry and not too wet. If you need more water, add a little more. Knead for about 3 minutes, keep the dough in the bowl, cover with a cloth and allow the prove in a warm place in the kitchen. Once the dough has doubled in size, knead it down once more and then divide the dough into 6 even-sized balls. Preheat oven to 220 C. Place a piece of dough on a floured surface and roll out to about 2-3 ml thick. Place on baking sheet that you have dusted with cornmeal and bake for about 8 – 10 minutes. The pizzas will puff up in the oven, but settle again once your remove them after baking.
For the topping
Mix the crushed garlic and olive oil and spread over the warm pizzas. Top with some cream cheese and lastly mozzarella. Sprinkle some fresh thyme over the pizza and bake for 5 minutes or until cheese has melted. Remove from the oven and season with salt and pepper and add some ed Onion Pickle just before serving!