Whare’s Paekakariki home made pizza

Paekakariki has a fantastic little deli that we well and truly support. However the amazing pizzas that they sell aren’t that good for the budget so Whare has taken to making her own replicas. And when it was time for me to look after Aneke on Friday, Nicole gave me instructions on how to make the pizza base during the day…..

While little Ms Whare is a fantastic cook, she’s not as methodical as me, and therefore most of her recipes are ‘reminders’ to her of how to cook stuff ie. they’re not particularly specific. But I struggled on…. with the help of google and YouTube!

Here’s Whare’s recipe for the pizza base:

• 7g dried active yeast (in the fridge I was told – took me a while to find it, but yes it was in the fridge)
• 1 tsp caster sugar (normal white sugar worked fine)
• 1 1/2 cups flour

Instructions as follows:

1. Put the yeast and sugar into a bowl of 150ml lukewarm water. Whisk with a fork and stand for 15 minutes until bubbles appear.
2. Sift flour into a bowl, add salt and then add yeast mix.
3. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes (I only did about 5 minutes and it still worked fine) and mix into a ball.
4. Then place in a well oiled (olive oil not engine oil) bowl and cover with glad wrap.
5. Stand in warm place for 1 hour (hot water cupboard).

A few hours later after doing a bit of house work, reading a book in the park while rocking the sleeping baby, having a coffee  at the deli and then a pint at the bowling club, start phase 2.

On a floured surface, roll out dough into a 3mm thick rectangle. Transfer to oiled baking tray and cover with a wet tea towel. Stand for 30 minutes (back into hot water cupboard). Then add sauce and toppings and cook on 220 degrees celsius foe 10-15 minutes.

It’s all in the preparation

Time to roll up

Don’t stir the sauce

Finishing touches

Hey presto – we have pizza

Even the AK enjoyed Papa Jim’s debut pizza

The sauce I made was as follows.

Fry two diced cloves of garlic in a well oiled pan. Then add a can of whole peeled tomatoes  (I cut them up in the pan), add 2 teaspoons of white sugar and a teaspoon of chilli flakes and some salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer on a low heat for about 30 minutes. Don’t stir (Whare has told me off several times for stirring the sauce) as yoiu want it to thicken up.

When that’s done, get the base out of the hot water cupboard and spread the sauce over it. Then add toppings: bits of cut up feta, olives, salami and basil leaves are all good.

Then pour the wine, vacuum the shag pile rug, stoke the fire and crank up the Barry White record. Bon appetite.

Check out this link for a great video clip of how to make the base: http://howto.yellow.co.nz/food-drink/cooking-and-baking/how-to-make-pizza-dough/

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Tags: Paekakariki Deli, pizza