Makin’ pizza – For schitzengiggles.

I love to cook. I love beer. I love wine. I love music. I love good company.

On the odd occasion that I can combine them all, I couldn’t be happier. When I cook, the stereo is mine! No good tunes, no beer = go hungry.

I emailed a friend recently, who claims she can’t cook – and was eyeing off expensive resturants. I made some lofty claims about the merits of home cooking as opposed to going out and being served overpriced shit, without being served any satisfaction. I reckon D.I.Y. is better than restaurants for 95% of food, especially when you spend the money on top quality ingredients and good wine.

Here’s a rough guide to my pizza. Be warned, it takes about a six pack and a good album and a half to prepare and to cook, will cost about $60, and will feed upto 6. Four if you want to pig out and take some for lunch tomorrow. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Step 1: Open the wine you intend on serving with the pizza (see both suggestions at the bottle of the page), give it time to breathe. It’s essential to collect good ingredients (see bottom of post for suggestions, if you make it that far). Anti clockwise from the kettle, we have a block of good parmesan, a jar of bocconcini, parma ham, proscutto, streaky bacon, two types of pancetta, sundried tomatoes, and marinated eggplant. On the chopping block, we’ve got some bell peppers, a variety of ripe and unripe tomatoes of different breed, a big spanish onion and a small container of mixed organic olives from macedon.

Step 2: In a heavy based frypan, add some good quality extra virgin oil. A tiny dribble of chilli, and some garlic.

Step 3: Add smashed onion(s) and tomatoes. You want to use a mix of tomatoes, ripe, unripe, roma, vine ripened.. Whatever.. It adds complexity. Be aware, you may need to add some sugar if you use a higher proportion of unripe, add a dash of balsamic if you use exclusively ripe tomatoes. Now is the time to sneak in a few anchovy fillets, particularly if your company doesn’t like them. Also, de-pip and smash some olives, sneak them in now too. If you insist on avoiding olives and anchovy, you’re retarded, settle for the inferior substitute – Salt and pepper. If you only use a few olives and anchovies, you won’t even notice they’re there – however, you’ll notice they’re not there, which is why we’re compensating with anchovy and olive. Add a dash of pepper regardless. Freshly cracked black please. Sneak in some sundried tomatoes also. Don’t use all you bought though, you’ll need them later. Drink beer.

Step 4.  Let it all simmer gently, cook it low and slow, add a splash of the red you’re going to be drinking with your finished product. smash it gently using a potato masher or something similar, as things soften – in order to help them integrate. If you’re drying out, drink beer. If sauce suffers same symptoms add water. By now you should probably put a new album on. This is very highly recommended, as is this.

This is what it’ll start to look like, time to taste. if it’s too sharp/acidic, add a little bit of refined white sugar, if it’s too sweet, a dash of balsamic aught to sort it, or wine, that helps too. If you add prawns and scallops now, and pour over pasta when the seafood is done, you’re up for awesome sort of marinara. add 50/50 pork & beef mince, for a schitzengiggles spin on bolognese, not to mention what this gear does to a carefully prepared lasagne, it’s also pretty good over fresh fettucine. Drink beer.

Step 5.  Bung some bell peppers directly on the element to burn up, once they’re nice and black, cover them with clingfilm, let them cool, then rub the flesh off underneath running water. Make sure before you start smoking these things that you remove the stalk. Burning capiscum/pepper stalks smells like you’ve had a huge session on the naughty pipe.  Drink beer.

Step 7. Prove your dough! I was too boozy to photograph step 6 (making the dough). But it’s a messy process. Buy some good quality wholemeal flour, and make your dough according to Jamie Oliver’s basic bread recipe. – Only let it prove once though, do this by covering it with clingwrap and leaving it somewhere warm. It’ll double in size, it’s then time to roll it out. As photographed. Roll it out, and spread your sauce. Drink beer.

Step 8. Assemble other ingredients – meat at the bottom, thin wog smallgoods don’t taste nice burnt, then mushies, roasted & peeled capiscums, eggplant, more sundried tomatoes, pinches of bocconcini and slivers of good parmesan. Bake for about 15 mins at 250c ish.. You’ll see the dough go golden brown and the cheese bubble.

Step 9. Take it out of the oven, cut, eat, enjoy. Step 10. Take a photo. I forgot to.  Step 11. Drink with remaining wine. Cheapskates go for ‘06 Sevenhill Inigo Barbera, those that appreciate the finer things – and as you bloody should if you’ve spent two hours making your mouth and tummy happy, make it happier (as i did) with some ‘05 Monsanto Chianti Classico Riserva – for my review of the Monsanto, see the bottom of this post.

Enjoy!

Ps. Faith No More are coming. A tad excited.

Pps. I get most, if not all of my ingredients from the wonderful folk at Louie’s Deli & Cafe. Glenferrie road, Malvern. Talk to the bloke with tattoos if you fancy cheese, he has a more intimate knowledge of cheese than george michael does public toilets.