The owner and executive chef at Sidart restaurant gives us a slice of his Sunday life, including a delicious pizza offering.
What does Sunday look like in your kitchen?
We have three kids 5 and under, so it’s always an early start and Sundays at our house begin with a cup of milo with the kids and avocado or peanut butter on toast.
We like to have lunch outside, weather permitting, and I love doing pizzas for the family. I think most kids, and even most adults, like pizza - it’s one of those things you can have any way you like eg plain cheese, mushrooms, meat lovers, and even butter chicken!
Having a family lunch and dinner together is important too because as a chef I don’t get to enjoy dinner with them as often as I want, and I find making pizzas brings us together.
Usually my eldest Sofia (now 5), will help me with making the dough a few hours ahead, and Luca, (3) will help with stretching out the dough. Our youngest, Toby is 4 months old and isn’t quite ready for pizza just yet but salivates looking at our efforts.
Why have you chosen this dish?
I like this combination with the heat of the nduja - spicy, spreadable pork sausage - and the richness of the blue cheese. You can also add some honeycomb if you want to take it to the next level.
The beauty of making pizzas is you can cater for individual tastes, and pizza toppings options are endless.
My kids love cheese and olives, my wife likes blue cheese and courgettes and I like either the truffle ‘nduja and blue cheese pizza (below) or a cheesy pepperoni.
When it comes to pizza cheese, I like to use a blend that usually consists of 50 per cent cheddar and 50 per cent mozzarella.
Usually we stretch the dough by hand but you can always use a rolling pin. We have a pizza oven but you can still make a great pizza in an oven or barbecue
Nduja, truffle and blue cheese pizza
Ingredients for 1 pizza topping
100g pizza sauce
100g mozzarella and grated cheddar cheese
1 Tbsp truffle paste
Nduja paste, to taste
100g blue cheese
Pizza dough (makes 6 to 8 medium pizza bases)
1kg bakers’ flour or Tipo ‘00′ flour
1 tsp salt
10g dried yeast
1 Tbsp sugar or honey
4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
650ml of lukewarm water
- For the pizza dough: Sieve the flour and salt on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle.
- In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and oil into the lukewarm water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well.
- Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.
- Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.
- Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands – this is called knocking back the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required.
- If using straight away, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas – this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas.
- Stretch out pizza dough (by hand or rolling pin), and spread out pizza sauce, add the preferred amount of cheese and, using a spoon, dollop truffle paste and nduja, then add blue cheese. Put in oven until nice and golden around 220C for approximately 8 minutes - or in a pizza oven if you have one.
- Slice and eat!