Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food Week 4

Hello Dear Reader,

Week 4 of Jamie Oliver's MOF was all about Pizza, Pesto and Salad. Everything was made from scratch and I have to say the simple pizza dough was everything a pizza base should be, chewy, crunchy and robust enough to take a heap of toppings. We made veggie loaded, 3 cheese Pizzas, a Pizza sauce, a jam jar salad dressing, fresh Pesto and a simple green salad.

We started our Pizza session off by making a Pizza sauce, which was made with a can of diced tomatoes, a clove of garlic, grated on a microplane, a small handful of torn basil leaves and salt and pepper this was left to bubble away of low heat while we started our Pizza dough. The basil leaves are stirred in at the end.

The secret to Jamie's Pizza dough is the addition of semolina using the ratio of 4 parts bread flour to 1 part semolina. On the day we made a dough consisting of 400 grams bread/strong flour, 100 grams semolina, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 7 grams of instant yeast and 325 ml of tepid water. This was enough for 6 individual, but still very generous, Pizzas. I simply made a second lot of dough on the day when we made these for dinner at home.

The yeast was mixed into the tepid water along with 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar and let prove till risen and bubbly

The bread flour and semolina was added to a big bowl, along with the salt

Then the proved yeast and water mixture was added, we used a fork to start to bring the dough together

Then it was onto a floured bench to finish kneading

Smooth, elastic, alive

The dough was then set aside to prove in an oiled bowl for 45 minutes

Weigh out, then divide the proven dough into 6 even portions and press and stretch out into a roundish shape, top with what ever you fancy and bake at 250 C for 7 to 10 minutes

The Pesto was made with Rocket, Parsley and Basil along with the usual pesto ingredients of toasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese, lemon juice and olive oil.

This photo has not been touched up or improved in any way, that is the colour of fresh pesto

My sister tasting the freshly blitzed Pesto, she thought it was amazing.

And the simple green salad was a beaut combination of mixed salad leaves and an amazing and again simple dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and minced garlic. The magic ratio for the perfect salad dressing is 3 to 1, 3 parts oil and 1 part vinegar, along with this magic formula we added 1 teaspoon of Dijon and 1/2 a minced garlic clove.

Pop all salad dressing ingredients into a jar

Pop the lid on a shake, shake, shake

Our finished Pizzas with dressed salad and the brightest greenest Pesto I've ever seen.

This was probably my favourite week out of the whole MOF 5 week cooking course, as I love pizza and we never have it as takeaway. Of course this kind of pizza was so much better than the bought or frozen kind and as I've mentioned the dough is just right.

Have a lovely day,

💗Fi

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