Chicken Sausage And Zucchini Pizza

I was watching a food show on SBS (our multicultural tv channel) the other day, and someone made a pizza bianca with sausage and broccoli.  I decided I had to make it (with a twist or two).  Mr P. gave me a Danish dough whisk for my birthday, and I was keen to try it out.  I've been trying to find an easy and tasty pizza dough recipe for yonks, and yes my friends, this is it!  I was super stoked.  And as regular readers may remember, I'm not a tomato fan so a bianca is a blessing - :-)  Yay, no tomatoes!

Though I do have fond memories of eating pizza by the slice in Rome.  Going into a pizza bar near the Pantheon and just ordering various slices of delicious pizza by the centimetre - ah, such brilliant times!  And then there was McDonald's on the Spanish Steps ...  A tiny bit incongruous it seemed to us.  I also remember disgustingly awful slices of pizza you could buy as street food in Italy.  OMG!  So bad.  So odd to have the best and the worst in the same place.

pretty darn tasty, my dears!

(Recipe by Lucy Tweed)

Serves 4: (or 2 according to SBS!)

ingredients:

Dough:

300g. (2 cups) plain flour

330g. (1¼ cups) plain Greek yoghurt

7g. (2¼ tsp) sachet dry yeast

1/2 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp fine salt

Topping:

2 tbs EV olive oil

2 chicken or beef sausages (about 200g./7 oz), squeezed out of their casings, and ripped into chunks

1 medium zucchini, sliced thinly

1 garlic clove, crushed or chopped finely

100 mL (1/2 cup) creme fraiche

2 tbs parmesan, grated

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp dried oregano

150g. (5 oz) mozzarella, thinly sliced or grated

85g. (3 oz) button mushrooms, sliced thinly

salt and ground black pepper, to taste

2 tbs parsley, finely chopped (optional)

Method:

Place all the dough ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and stir together well.  Add more flour or yoghurt as necessary to get a soft dough (see notes below).  Turn out onto a lightly floured bench and knead till smooth (this took about 20 seconds!).  Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth/tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for 20 minutes

In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a medium frypan, throw in your sausage chunks and fry off till almost cooked through and golden-brown on the outside

Then throw in the sliced zucchini and garlic; stir and allow to cook for just 2 or 3 minutes - and put aside till needed

Turn your oven to 220C/425F to warm up

Now take the dough out of the bowl, and knead it briefly (they say), though I found it only needed patting like on a baby's bottom a few times - you couldn't really call it kneading :-)

Shape into a ball and roll out till about 40 cm/16 in. round and 1 cm/ ½ in. thick - see notes below

Place the rolled-out dough onto a pizza tray (or 2) on which you have cast a wee bit of plain flour to stop it sticking

Gently mix together the creme fraiche and parmesan in a bowl, then spread over the dough

Sprinkle with the chilli flakes and oregano, and top with the mozzarella

Place the mushroom slices over the mozzarella

Season with the salt and pepper, and place the vegetables and sausage pieces (and parsley) over the mushrooms 

Bake for 20 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbling, and it looks and smells delicious, golden and has a perfectly-cooked bottom :-)

Serve with a green salad

Notes:

My flour was very dry so I ended up adding an extra 100 grams of yoghurt = 430 grams all up

I left my dough to prove for about 25-30 minutes, without any problems

I used 3 medium mushrooms

I don't have a pizza tray that is 40 cm, so I used my usual 30cm/12 in tray and another small, rectangular tray (and I like a thin base so I rolled it out to just under 1 cm)

P.S. I'd only recommend the dough whisk for dry ingredients.  It got all glued up with the wet stuff :-) 

mix the dough ingredients together

pat your dough till smooth

give it a wee knead ét voilà - a beautiful dough

fry up the sausage chunks and the veg.

place the rolled-out dough on the tray(s)

add the creme fraiche + parmesan, and mozza and mushies!

add snags, veg. and seasoning

pile on the sausages and veg.

golden and crispy

hoe in folks! and we did ...

© Sherry M.