A Spoonful of Sugar

The BBQ sauce recipe that I settled upon is courtesy of the Moosewood Collective's Low-Fat Cookbook and is very straightforward to make and also extreemely tasty. The flavour is smoky, spicy and surprisingly complex. It has a fair kick to it from the mustard and the spices in the ketchup add even more interest. I'll be using the remainder of the sauce on some burgers tonight, I think.

We decided that a plain crust would work much better with such a highly flavoured topping and would also have better texture (we weren't completely sold on the slightly gritty texture in the parmesan-polenta crust), so I just worked out how much crust we would need bearing in mind that Dave likes a very, very thin crust and went from there. I used plain/all-purpose flour as St Delia says that it yields a softer crust than bread flour will. I threw in a tablespoon of best extra-virgin olive oil to give flavour and make the dough more supple.

The topping itself remained completely unchanged as we were both absolutely sold on that. I do wish that we could get non-fat mozzarella in the UK though; we could save massive amounts of calories. Not to mention non-fat ricotta!!

Anyway.... I'm told that to make great home-made pizzas I should have a pizza stone and a peel or a pizza pan. Alas, I have neither so I've improvised with a heavy baking sheet. I wasn't brave enough to attempt to slide the pizza onto the sheet in the oven but this didn't seem to have a massive impact on the crust. I wonder if it would be possible to compose the pizza on a sheet of baking parchment and then slide that into the oven.... Or would the parchment burn horribly?

Despite the lack of professional baking apparatus, the pizza came out amazingly well! I only had a slight bit of trouble with the crust in that I seem to be completely incapable of rolling or pulling dough into a circle. My pizza ended up as a trapezoid. The crust was soft and chewy and even a little fluffy in a slightly thick corner. The spicy BBQ sauce worked seriously well with the topping!! A massive success I think!

BBQ Beef Pizza

Serves 2-4 depending on whether you're serving anything with it (and how gluttonous you are)
WW points (UK): 14, if serving 2

BBQ Sauce
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup tomato ketchup or tomato puree
1/2 cup apple or orange juice
2 tbsp molasses/treacle
2 tbsp mustard (I used Dijon)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Crust
225g plain flour
1tsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 packet easy-blend yeast (3.5g approx)
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
approx 140ml of warm water

Topping
225g extra-lean beef mince
1 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 ball light mozzarella (approx 4oz)
1 medium onion

Place all the sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blitz until smooth. Pour into a medium saucepan and simmer for 10-15 minutes until thickened. The sauce will darken in colour, going from an unappetising muddy brown to a rich red-brown. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool.

Heat the flour in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Stir well. Stir in the sugar, salt and yeast. Make a well and pour in the oil and about half the water. Pour about half the water into the well and stir well. Mix to a soft but not sticky dough adding more water as necessary.

Knead for 5 minutes then put in a clean bowl and cover tightly with clingfilm. Leave to rise for about an hour until doubled.

Meanwhile, prepare the topping. Heat a medium non-stick frying pan over moderate heat. Fry off the mince, garlic, salt and pepper until browned. Try to break up the mince as much as possible. Set aside and leave to cool.

Shred the ball of mozzarella (either by hand or use a box grater). Cut the onion lengthwise through the root, peel and cut into half-moons. Separate each slice into segments and set aside.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 9 (or as high as your oven will go). Move a shelf up to the top third of the oven. Place a thick baking sheet on the shelf to preheat along with the oven. If you're lucky enough to have a baking stone then you already know what to do with it.

When you're ready to eat, spray another heavy baking sheet with olive oil. Punch down the ball of dough and roll it out to approx 10" circle. Transfer carefully to the baking sheet and pull it out, working from the centre, to a 14" circle (or in my case, a rather rough square). Build up the edges slightly.

Pour 3/4 cup, approximately half the BBQ sauce, onto the pizza crust and spread evenly with the back of a spoon. The rest of the sauce can be covered tightly and kept in the fridge for a week. Evenly scatter over the cooked beef and then the shredded mozzarella. Arrange the sliced onions on top and sprinkle over the dried oregano.

Place the baking sheet in the oven on top of the preheated sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, turning the sheet around after 9 minutes to ensure that all of the crust is cooked fully.

Remove from the oven, divide into slices with a sharp knife and consume with gusto!