In crust we trust

Craving a slice and can't order in? A pizzeria chef shares some easy recipes to get you baking with basics at home

Prep time for both recipes: 1 hour
Cooking time for both recipes: Eight to 10 minutes

Margherita pizza

For the dough:
Ingredients
1 cup warm water (40 to 43 degree celsius)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups refined flour
1 tsp salt

Method
Sift the flour and add salt to it. Add yeast and sugar to the water; mix well and let it rest. Now mix the water-yeast-sugar mix to the flour and knead. Once it starts forming a dough, add olive oil to it and keep kneading. Let the dough rest for an hour and cover with a damp cheesecloth. Roll out the base when making the pizza.

Chef Jerry Thomas

For the tomato sauce:
Ingredients
6 tomatoes
10 cloves garlic
2 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp black pepper

Method
Blanch and peel the tomatoes. Heat oil in a pan, and put the garlic and herbs into it. Now, add the blanched tomatoes; cook for 15 minutes and season it with salt and pepper. Once it's done, purée using a blender and then strain it.

Note: This sauce can also be used for the second pizza recipe.

For the assembly:
Ingredients
50g tomato sauce
70g mozzarella cheese
12 cherry tomatoes
10 garlic cloves
5ml olive oil
4 basil leaves

Method
Spread the tomato sauce on the pizza base and add diced mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes and garlic. Bake it at 270 degree celsius for eight to 10 minutes. After it's out of the oven, drizzle some olive oil on it. You can sprinkle some fresh mozzarella and basil on top.

Chicken curry pizza

Ingredients
25g tomato sauce
25g leftover chicken curry gravy
70g mozzarella cheese
100g shredded chicken from the curry
5g chopped coriander
10ml chilli oil

Method
Use leftover chicken curry to make this pizza. Segregate the meat and the curry, and strip the meat into shreds. Blend the gravy and then mix it with the tomato sauce. Spread the sauce on the pizza base and add the shredded chicken. Bake it at 270 degree celsius for eight to 10 minutes. Once out of the oven, garnish with some chopped coriander and drizzle chilli oil.

Inputs by chef Jerry Thomas, culinary head (restaurants), Pizza Express

Topping hacks

. If you have some leftover gravy (like makhani), use it as the sauce and top it off with peels of carrots, stalks of leeks or spring onions and broccoli or cauliflower stems.

. Use leftover hummus as the sauce and add canned tuna as the topping. You can also throw in some onion rings. After baking, top it off with sour cream.

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