V and I love pizzas. We like to eat them once in a while at Pizza Hut. But I get a real urge to make my own pizzas sometimes. Recently, I was watching the show Emeril Live and it was a pizza special episode. I thought of giving the pizza base a try. I did a small addition. I added 1 tea spn fried garlic to the base. I wasn’t sure it would make a big difference, but I was so surprised at the result. The whole pizza had such a great taste. Next time I will try with 50% wheat flour, this time I decided to make it with whole purpose flour because I wanted to see how it comes out. It was just superb. For the first time, we finished the whole pizza in one go!!!.
Ingredients: 1 cup water 1 envelope (2 and 1/4 tea spn) active dry yeast 1/2 tea spn sugar 3 cups(approx) all purpose flour 1 tea spn salt Olive oil 1 tea spn chopped garlic
Method: Heat water till it is lukewarm (105 F). I usually microwave it for 10-20 secs. Now add the yeast, sugar, 1 tea spn olive oil. Leave it for about 10mins till the yeast becomes active. You can see some bubbles on top which shows it’s active. In a pan, heat a little olive oil and fry the garlic till it becomes brown. Now add salt, 2 cups of flour, garlic and mix. If necessary add more dough till it can be handled easily (but still a bit sticky. I would say something like chapathi dough). Knead it on a lightly floured surface for few mins. (Do not knead for long, just 2-3mins is enough). Apply olive oil to a large vessel. Transfer the dough to the vessel. Cover the vessel with a plastic wrap and leave in a dry warm place for about 1 and half hours (or until it is doubled in size). Take the pizza dough out from the vessel and spread it into a large disc. Drizzle some olive oil on top. Spread a little corn meal over the pizza stone. Keep the disc on it.
How to assemble pizza: Preheat the oven to 450F for 10mins. Top with your favorite sauce(I use marinara sauce), vegetables(I use olives, onions, capsicum, sun dried tomatoes, jalapenos) and mozzarella cheese. Spread a little pepper and salt(optional). Drizzle little olive oil. Bake at 450F for about 12-15mins. Serve hot with your favorite sides.
Makes 1 large pizza
There is a saying in Kannada “ Tambali antha ootavilla kambalianth hodikeyilla ” -Â meaning, there is no meal like the one with tambali and there is no cover (wrap up) like blanket or rug.
Rice is the main constituent of any meal for people in the south Indian region. Hence a curry is an essential thing to go with rice. As coconut is available freely, people started using it to make different types of tamblis which are easy to cook and very tasty. Tambli and chutney are the two varieties of the same preparation. Tambli is not cooked or heated. In Kannada, tampu (cold) + huli (gravy) = tambli . As the name suggests, it is a cold recipe. There are usually 45 -50 types of tamblis .
BonDi is the flower of banana as seen in the picture below. Many people know that different parts of banana tree are used in the cooking – like stem ( bale dinDu ), leaves, flowers( bonDi or bale mooti ) and bananas itself.
Ingredients: 1 cup grated fresh/frozen coconut 2 – 3 green chillies 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract Salt 1 tea spn cumin seeds 2-3 peppers 1 banana flower
Method: Take the banana flower and remove the outer coverings one by one, till it is free from all the flowers surrounding it. Put the banana flower on burning red charcoal (I normally put it in fireplace).
Once it is baked, usually it takes 5 minutes, then take it off. Try to peel off the blackened portion and keep aside the white portion.
Take all other ingredients in a mixer and grind to a smooth paste. Add the baked banana flower to it and continue grinding for some more time. Add some water to make it like gravy. Serve it with hot rice or chapatis. It is simply out of the world when consumed with rice and urad papads.
