Ratatouille Pizza

Chef Hope Mdakane has been staying at the Saxon Hotel during the lockdown period as part of a small team including Managing Director, George Cohen. During this period he has been preparing meals for the team – including the Ratatouille Pizza below (first published in Sunday Times Lifestyle/Food). Read more about what Hope has been up to during the lockdown in this interview.

Ratatouille Pizza
(Yields: 1,8kg of dough)

Ingredients:

For the semolina pizza dough:
Bread Flour 850g
Semolina flour 454g
Instant dry yeast 7g
Water 680g
Olive oil 29g
Salt 29g

For Napolitana (tomato) base:
Tomatoes 10, washed
White onion 1, diced
Garlic 2 cloves, crushed
Celery stick 2, diced
Tomato paste 20g
Salt and pepper
Sugar 20g

For the Ratatouille:
White onion 1, sliced cylindrically
Baby zucchini 6, cylindrically
Yellow and green Peppers 1 each, sliced thinly
Garlic 2 cloves, crushed
Baby aubergine 4 each, sliced cylindrically
Grated Fresh Mozzarella cheese 500g
Fresh basil leaves, as a garnish

Method:

For the dough:

1. Combine the flours and yeast into a electric mixer fitted with a dough hook.
2. Add the water, oil and salt and beat together at a medium speed for 7 minutes. The dough should have a good gluten development.
3. Leave dough to ferment until double in size for about 50 minutes.
4. Fold gently. Then scale dough into 113g portions (enough for one pizza) and form small rounds. Leave dough in fridge for 1 hour.

For the Napolitana sauce:

1. Put a small pot of water and let it reach boiling point. Score the tomatoes at the bottom and remove the core. Set a bowl of ice water.
2. Blanch tomatoes for 30seconds in the boiling water.
3. Transfer tomatoes into the bowl with ice water, cool for 3 minutes. Remove the skin and dice tomatoes into medium sized cubes.
4. Sauté the onion, garlic and celery until translucent into a small saucepan on a medium heat on the stove.
5. Add the tomato paste and cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.
6. Add the tomato concasse, sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
7. Cook for 30 minutes at a medium heat.
8. Transfer tomato into blender and puree until smooth.
9. Leave on the side to cool before using for pizza.

For the pizza:

1. Preheat oven to 260˚C.
2. Take the dough out of the fridge 30 minutes prior to baking the pizza.
3. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on your surface and using a rolling pin roll out the dough into circles. Transfer onto greaseproof paper on a tray or a pizza pan which has been dusted with semolina flour.
4. Prick the dough using a fork and add a small layer of the napolitana sauce in the centre and spreading it onto the dough.
5. Add the ratatouille vegetables and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
6. Bake the pizza at 260˚C until golden brown around the edge, approximately for about 3 to 4 minutes

Serve with a garnish of fresh basil leaves.