Pizza / Homemade Pizza (Made from Scratch)

                The presentation here is my second try because my food critic - my hubby did not approve my first try as the pizza was fat (used more dough than necessary). The second time around, I figured the crust had to be a bit thinner so it dint end up fat and was perfectly cooked from top to bottom. I simply loved the process of making pizza, so different from our conventional cooking style, ready to make it any number of times. Can't wait to share this whole process.

             
          I planned to use my cookie tray and bake a square pizza but my hubby dint want to compromise on the appearance, especially as I was planning to post it in my blog. So he ran to the store and got me pizza pan just minutes before baking - oh how lovely hon!

            

               Please don't forget to read the "Note" in the end of the post. I linked this recipe with my Pizza dough recipe separately to avoid the length of this post. so click on for the basic references.

Ingredients:

Pizza dough (Click for a step wise method for making pizza dough at home)
Pizza / Pasta Sauce - 1/2 cup
Tomato - 5 thin slices
Mushroom - 3 no's (Sliced thin)
Bell pepper - 5 thin slices
Onion - 3 tablespoon(roughly chopped)
Mozzarella cheese - 200 grams
Pepper powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Olive oil - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - a pinch
Chicken - 100grams(cubed small)
For Vegetarian pizza add ingredients other than chicken. We can also buy pizza base from outside and follow the process.

Method:

• Grease the pizza tray with some olive oil and dust it with some flour and keep aside.

• Take a bowl and mix pepper, salt and olive oil together and toss the vegetables in it. (I chopped the vegetables for my little one). Take a tawa and saute chicken pieces for 5 minutes(Half cooking the chicken helps the chicken to bake fast and be tender soft).

• Divide the dough to two equal parts. Now on your counter top spread some flour and take one part and spread it well to round or square shape and place it on your greased pizza tray and let it sit for 10 minutes to set again. Use a fork and poke all over.

• Spread the Pizza sauce, arrange the toppings.

• Preheat the oven to 400`F for 5 minutes and keep this pizza tray on the middle rack and set the timer to cook for 15 minutes or until the cheese on top gets melted well and the bottom of pizza is slight brown.

• Take the pizza outside and let it rest for 10 minutes.

• Slice and serve..

My Note:

• Its very important that we pat and spread the pizza dough equally on all sides. when i tried for the first time i made the batter thick from all sides and made my pizza fat.
• Taken batter should be spreaded using hand to the maximum.
• Use less Pasta sauce to spread.
• I used bread flour because it helps in giving a crisp crust for pizza but using APF is also fine.
• The moment you take out your cooked pizza you will see some water like structure on top. That is only because of the cheese getting melted. Allow to set for 10 minutes and then serve.
• If you are using chicken, dice them to small bits. this will help chicken to cook well.
• After the step of raising the batter(letting it sit for 2 hours) take the required and store the unused remaining batter in a air tight container. It will sit for 2 weeks long.
• Amount of cheese and Toppings are absolutely our choice. There are "n" number of toppings so you can use any vegetable you like.