Quick Pizzas

A few years ago I was given The Savoy Cookbook by Anton Edelmann as a present. It's a great book, with some fantastic recipes, albeit, as you'd expect from the Savoy, fine dining\dinner party fare rather than anything practical for midweek credit crunch eating.

But, there's one particular recipe I've cooked countless times, and it ticks all the right 'get in from work, and cook up something tasty and quick' boxes.

It's Pizza on a wholemeal Pitta base. and apparently a version of these is on the Savoy room service menu.

I make these regularly, and over the years have changed the recipe slightly to suit my own taste in toppings, which I guess is the beauty of pizzas as the pitta base and tomato sauce are a blank canvas to which you can add anything you fancy, so feel free to adapt as you see fit.

Here's the recipe...
Serves 4 (or in my experience, 2 Hungry/Greedy people).

Quick Pizzas
You'll Need:-

Pack of 6 Wholemeal Pittas.

For the Tomato base sauce.

1 Onion Chopped
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Garlic Cloves crushed
1/2 tbsp tomato puree
400g tin chopped tomatoes, drained.
100ml Chicken Stock (I use 1/2 a Chicken Oxo cube in 100ml boiling water)
1/2 tsp dried Oregano
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the topping.....(This is what I like, again, feel free to change it to suit your own taste)

1 Ball of Mozzarella
Chorizo Sausage sliced
1 Large Tomato
6 Large Basil leaves.
1/2 finely chopped red onion.
Fennel Seeds.

To make the base sauce: sweat the onions in the olive oil until translucent, add the garlic and sweat for 1 minute. Add the tomato puree and caramelize for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes, chicken stock and oregano, and simmer until reduced to a paste. (10-15 minutes). Season with salt and pepper. (The base sauce can be left to cool, and then refrigerated for 4 or 5 days).

To make the Pizzas: Heat the oven to 200C.
Slice the mozzarella, chorizo, tomato, and finely chop the red onion.
Spread a generous amount of the base sauce over the pittas and top with the mozzarella, chorizo, tomato, red onion and a scattering of fennel seeds.
Put the pizzas on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes. A few minutes before the end, divide the basil leaves among the pizzas and bake for another couple of minutes.

Eat! -

I'm a bit of a greedy guts, so I normally manage three of these. Although suprisingly my Girlfriend who is extremely petite also manages to put three away at a time!