Recipe: Homemade Portuguese Style Pizza

To eat the crust on pizza

For the first time in weeks we had a free weekend at home.  For us that could only mean three things; Wine, pizza and movies.  I visited my mother in Portugal a couple of weeks ago and brought back queijo curado (a hard, salty cheese, creamy in colour and texture) and black pig chouriço (a lesser known spicy sausage equal in taste to the Spanish varieties).  Along with the cheese and chouriço, we decided on toppings of piri piri chicken, olives, onions, peppers and obligatory egg. We also made the tomato sauce slightly piquant.

We have recently got into the “habit” of making pizzas at home, which are by far superior to take-aways or store bought.  Incidentally, making a pizza after a hard day in the office or with the kids is a great stress reliever / fun.

Portuguese style pizza from scratch

• Prep time: 1 hour
• Cook time: 10 min
• Total time: 1 hour 30 min
• Makes: 2 x 12" thin crust pizzas

Ingredients for the pizza dough for two pizzas

• 250g strong white flour plus more for dusting
• 1/2 sachet of dried fast action yeast
• 150ml tepid water
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon olive oil

 Topping ingredients for two pizzas

• 2 chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons piri-piri marinade
• 50g Portuguese chourico
• 60g Portuguese mature cheese shaved or grated
• 1/2 medium red pepper, sliced
• 1/2 medium green pepper, sliced
• 200g tinned tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 piri-piri chilies
• A handful of chopped parsley
• Pinch of salt
• Black pepper
• 2 eggs

Method

1. Score each of the chicken thighs three times on the fleshier side. Mix together with the piri-piri marinade, cover and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours
2. To make the dough, empty the sachet of yeast into a cup with the sugar and half of the water and leave for 10 minutes.
3. Whilst the yeast begins to activate, add the flour to a mixing bowl with the salt and form a well in the middle.
4. Empty the activated yeast into the well and use a wooden spoon to start mixing together with the flour. Continue to do this, adding the remainder of the water a bit at a time.
5. Empty the dough onto a floured surface, dust your hands with flour and knead the dough well for 10 minutes. Add more flour to the surface you are kneading on if it becomes too sticky.
6. Add a little bit of olive oil to the bottom of a suitably sized bow and put in the kneaded dough. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for an hour until it doubles in size.
7. After the chicken has been marinading for at least 45 minutes, preheat the oven to 200C or gas mark 5. Cook the chicken for 25 minutes on a rack in the oven so excess fat can easily drip off whilst cooking.
8. To make the sauce, empty the tinned tomatoes with the juice into a suitable pan on a gentle heat. Add the garlic, chilies, a pinch of salt and ground black pepper and simmer for 5 minutes. Use a hand blender to whiz the sauce so that it becomes a nice even consistency.
9. Take the dough out after it has doubled in size (depending on how warm the place where you left it was) and cut into two equally sized pieces. Use a rolling pin to each piece to as uniform a shape as you can and it must be about on average 4 to 5 mm thick. It doesn't need to be circular, this is a rustic pizza so taste is the key this time.
10. Roll the dough up around your rolling pin and use it to lay it back over a floured baking sheet you'll be cooking the pizza on.
11. Construct the pizza by first adding a layer of the sauce but try not to put on too much. Cut the chicken thigh meat into chunks discarding the left over bones and skin.
12. Add the peppers, sliced chourico, onion and cheese evenly over the pizza leaving a space in the middle to crack an egg before transferring to the oven
13. Cook for 10 minutes or until the edge of the crust becomes golden the remove from the oven and sprinkle over with chopped parley and serve immediately.

With massive Portuguese pizza, glass of vinho tinto and “Shutter Island” we had the perfect, chilled out Saturday evening. 

Wine Paring

Quinta do Carmo Dom Martinho, 2000 (Not widely available in the UK - sorry!) Ripe fruits with notes of black cherry. Peppery feel in the mouth with sweet tannins and a smooth but lingering finish.

WenniesAffairs.com

Recipe: Pizza Pinwheels, Hors d'oeuvres perfect for New Year's Eve

Big wheels keep on turning

Friends of ours invited us to their beautiful barn conversion in the Essex countryside. I had enthusiastically promised I would bring an appetiser having spied a blogging opportunity and of course because we love cooking. We were due to leave at 2pm and at 12:30pm we were still glumly starring at a packet of puff pastry. Then inspiration struck.  Pizza pin wheels.  We used ingredients you will find in your pantry and fridge. Bearing in mind that you can buy similar snacks to these in Waitrose for around £4, you can make these for a fraction of the cost!  As always, at Wennie's Affairs, we encourage you to have fun and be inventive. You can experiment with a whole variety of fillings as you would on a pizza; spinach and ricotta, chicken tikka, mexican ground chilli.  Plus you can even make dessert varieties with left over sweet mince meat (which never made it into those mince pies) and drizzled with icing. They are perfect for a New Year's Eve gathering. 

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of puff pastry
• 3 tbsp pesto 
• 1/3 Yellow Pepper
• 3 small tomatoes
• 100g prosciutto ham
• 60g Parmesan cheese
• Milk for brushing
• 2 tsp Dried oregano
• Black pepper

Method:

1. Roll out the pastry onto a lightly floured surface.
2. Brush the pesto evenly over the rolled out pastry.
3. Remove the seeds from the tomato (very important to avoid excess moisture) and finely chop with the pepper and spread on top of the pesto layer.
4. Chop up the ham and evenly distribute over the the peppers and tomatoes.
5. Sprinkle three quarters of the grated parmesan cheese over the ham and grind over some black pepper as the final layer.
6. Starting from one of the short edges roll the pastry up as tightly as you can until it becomes a long roll.
7. Use a sharp knife to cut about 16 discs about 1cm thick and lay out evenly onto a non-stick baking sheet allowing enough room for them to puff up.
8. Preheat the oven to 190C or gas Mark 5. 
9. Leave in the fridge for 20 minutes.
10. Brush the top-side of the wheels with the milk mixed with oregano and the remainder of the Parmesan cheese.  Cook for 20 minutes until golden.

The mixture can be prepared in advance the night before baking and then the rest of method will take less than 10 minutes.

They are a lovely herby and peppery amuse bouche.  Our friend Claire, popped them in the oven for 5 minutes to heat.  We then washed these little treats down with Champagne- our friends know how to look after us.    

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