No Oven, No Grill Pizza

A pizza you can make without and oven or a grill?  Yes this really is a dream come true!  This post is for all of you who, like me, love pizza but don't want to always order a take-away which is often overpriced and greasy.

Edit: I have since tried making frying pan pizza again with a better dough recipe, have a look at the updated post here.

No oven, no grill pizza

All you need to make this pizza is a frying pan with a lid/a plate that will fully cover the top of the pan, a hob and the following ingredients.

Self-raising flour
Olive oil
Tomato base (passata and tomatoes)
cheese (mozarella)
toppings (anything you like!)

Prepare your toppings in advance.  I diced a couple of tomatoes, some red onion and finely chopped a couple of cloves of garlic.  Make as much or as little topping as you fancy.  I fried the onion and garlic before adding about 4 tbsp passata and the tomatoes.  You could alternatively use some chopped tomatoes from a can mixed with some tomato paste or replace my normal tomatoes with some halved cherry tomatoes.  I also added a few olives to the frying pan for the last minute.

Next make the dough.  My base didn't come out very well but I have some suggestions regarding how to make it better and will update this post next time I try making pizza again.  I used 225g plain flour, first mistake, along with 3 tbsp olive oil and 6-7 tbsp warm water.  Next time I do this I will be sure to use self-raising flour so that my dough isn't as dense and to mix the ingredients in a larger bowl so that I can combine them more easily.  Essentially you want to mix in the oil with about half of the water, then add the rest gradually until your flour comes together as you are mixing it to form a soft dough.  If you need to add a little more water to combine all the flour then do so, but don't add too much otherwise your dough will be too sticky.  Similarly, if your dough comes together before you have added all the water, then stop, don't add too much!

Roll out the dough on a flat surface.  I don't have a rolling pin, so I found an empty wine bottle, wrapped it in cling film (to make sure I didn't get wine/dirt in the dough) and used that to roll out my pizza base.  This was my next mistake.  You need to roll out your dough until it is the size of the base of your frying pan.  My dough was a little too thick.  If this is the case for you, either don't use all the dough or make two small rather than one large pizza.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and place your pizza base into the pan.  Cook it for a few minutes, then use a spatula to check the bottom.  If it is browning then carefully flip your base over.  If not leave it for a little longer until it does go brown.  Once flipped add your tomato base and toppings (you can use literally anything) and scatter on around 50g cheese (or enough to cover the top of your pizza).  Cover your pan with a lid (or plate or anything that covers the top of your pan) and leave for another few minutes.  Check after 2 or 3 minutes to see if the cheese is melting and try and use a spatula to check the bottom of the pizza.  Once the base has browned and the cheese has melted then your pizza is ready to eat.  Slide it carefully onto a plate and served.  I garnished mine with some fresh basil leaves as I happened to have some left over.

So there you have it, a no oven, no grill pizza.  It took me about half an hour to make and with a few adjustments to the base it will be the perfect, healthy alternative to a take-away.