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jamie oliver's fried & grilled pizza

jamie oliver's fried & grilled pizza

Adapted from Jamie Oliver as featured in Jamie's Italy

The lightest tastiest mini-pizzas.

Servings 10 small pizzas
Author Rosemary Stelmach

Ingredients

Basic Pizza Dough

  • 6 1/2 cups unbleached white bread flour (28 ounces / 793 grams)
  • 1 1/2 cups fine ground semolina flour (9.75 ounces / 276 grams)
  • 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons active dried yeast (7 grams)
  • 1 tablespoon granulated or super-fine sugar
  • just over 2 cups lukewarm water

Tomato Sauce

  • extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 garlic clove, peeled & finely sliced
  • 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
  • 1 14-ounce can good quality plum tomatoes
  • sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Fried Pizza

  • 1 batch Basic Pizza Dough (or about 3 1/2 pounds fresh pizza dough)
  • flour, for dusting
  • vegetable oil, for frying
  • 1 batch Tomato Sauce (or 2 cups marinara)
  • 10 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into small pieces
  • 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
  • extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Instructions

Basic Pizza Dough

  1. Pile the flours and salt onto a clean surface and make a 7-inch well in the center. Add your yeast and sugar to the lukewarm water, mix up with a fork and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork and a circular movement, slowly bring in the flour from the inner edge of the well and mix into the water.  It will look like sticky porridge - continue to mix, bringing in all of the flour.  When the dough comes together and is too hard to mix with your fork, flour your hands and begin to pat it into a ball.  Knead the dough by rolling it backward and forward, using your left hand to stretch the dough toward you and your right hand to push the dough away from you at the same time.  Repeat this for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, springy soft dough.

  2. Flour the top of your dough, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature. This will make it easier to roll it thinly.

Tomato Sauce

  1. Heat a saucepan, add a splash of oil and the sliced garlic and cook gently. When the garlic has turned light golden, add the basil, the tomatoes, and a few pinches of salt and pepper. Cook gently for about 20 minutes, mashing the tomatoes until smooth, then taste, season again if necessary, and put to one side.

Fried Pizza

  1. Preheat your grill to a low-medium setting.  Alternately, preheat the oven (and pizza stone, if using) to 500°F.

  2. Divide the dough into 10 equal round pieces of about 5 1/2 ounces each.  Press them flat onto a floured work surface.  Roll them out to about 1/4 inch thick and allow them to rest for 10 minutes or so.  Heat a frying pan over a high heat, add about 3/4 inch of vegetable oil and fry each pizza for 30 seconds or so on each side.  Remove with tongs and place on a baking tray.

  3. Once all the bases are fried, smear each one with a spoonful of the tomato sauce, add about a 1/2 ounce of torn mozzarella and a sprinkling of torn basil.  Drizzle lightly with olive oil.

  4. Grill until the cheese is bubbling and the dough is lightly browned and cooked through.  (Alternately, place the prepared pizzas in the oven, directly on the preheated pizza stone.  Bake for 5 to 7 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and the dough is lightly browned.)  Serve immediately.