Day 4: Parma Ham Pizza

inspired by Zia Lucia

I can’t really claim much credit for this one as Aidan definitely took the lead on making pizza. I was more of a sous chef (and kitchen porter – this created a lot of mess!)

Aidan was trying to cheer me up after another failed attempt to buy yeast yesterday.

We’ve never been weekly shop kind of people but now it’s part of the new routine… so off we go to the big Sainsbury’s. My heart soared when we walked in and saw the shelves stacked with fruit and veg! We haven’t bothered going to a big supermarket in weeks – but now its back to normal!

Or so I thought. But the further you went through the shop the more I realised that it’s still got a long way to go. No eggs to be seen (well I bought some quail eggs! more on that tomorrow…)

And the bakery section was empty. Which has me wondering – are people buying all the bread AND all the yeast and flour?? Surely you don’t need to panic buy both do you?? Apparently so.

So we bought a very sad looking sliced white loaf and headed home.

But Aidan was determined that I had something home baked and so here we are with pizza!

I had to dedicate this to Zia Lucia as I reckon it’s hands down the best pizza I’ve had in London in the last year. I normally hate queuing for restaurants (too hungry, too much food anxiety) so don’t bother and just think I’ll try another time. But honestly queue for this pizza!

For the dough used the Jamie Oliver recipe for Cheat’s Pizza from his 30 minute meals book. That recipe doesn’t need yeast and just uses self raising flour. One and a half mugs of flour and half a mug of tepid water creates enough dough for two pizzas (Jamie says this feeds four…we ate it all!)

Tomato sauce was my go to recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for rich tomato sauce (find it at the back of his Meat book). Just fry some chopped garlic in olive oil for a minute then add a tin of plum tomatoes. Break up the tomatoes as they cook and keep simmering it until its rich and pulpy. Add some seasoning and your’e done.

Now it didn’t come close to a Zia Lucia pizza – but it was still pretty good! My only advice? Make sure when you cook this it’s not your turn to clear up the kitchen after!!