Brocoli Recipes
Brilliant broccoli pizza
There’s something consistently joyful about making your own pizza dough, and here I’m sharing one of my favourite Italian-inspired flavour combos for the topping – sizzling sausage, fragrant fennel, punchy dried chilli and – the king of spring veg – purple sprouting broccoli.
Ingreadient
- PIZZA DOUGH
- 1 kg strong white bread flour , plus extra for dusting
- 1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast
- olive oil
- QUICK TOMATO SAUCE
- 3 x 400g tins quality plum tomatoes
- extra virgin olive oil
- TOPPINGS
- 640 g purple sprouting broccoli
- 4 large higher-welfare Cumberland sausages
- 1 heaped teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 level teaspoon dried red chilli flakes
- 2 x 150g balls of mozzarella
- optional: British cheese, such as Gubbeen or St James ewe’s milk cheese
- 80 g Parmesan cheese , for grating
Direction
- For the pizza dough, pile the flour into a large bowl, make a well in the middle, then pour in 650ml of lukewarm water. Use a fork to mix the yeast into the water with 1-2 tablespoons of oil and ½ a tablespoon of sea salt, and leave for a few minutes.
- Use a fork to bring the flour in gradually from the sides, swirling it into the liquid. When it starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with clean hands, then knead for about 5 minutes, or until you have a smooth, springy dough.
- Place the ball of dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean damp tea towel, and place in a warm place to prove for 1 hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
- Punch the dough to knock the air out, then tip onto a clean surface and cut into 8 equal-sized pieces, shaping into balls. Space evenly on an oiled tray, sprinkle lightly with flour, then re cover with the damp tea towel and leave to prove for another hour.
- Trim the broccoli, halving any large stalks lengthways. Run your knife down each sausage so you can remove the skin, then break into balls in a baking dish. Sprinkle over the fennel seeds and dried chilli, and roast for 5 minutes.
- Remove from the oven, break up the sausage balls a bit, then toss with the broccoli and return to the oven for another 5 minutes or so.
- To make the sauce, tip the tomatoes into a bowl and scrunch with a little extra virgin olive oil and salt.
- Preheat the oven to full whack (240ºC/475ºF/gas 9) and place a pizza stone inside, if you have one.
- Take a ball of pizza dough, coat it in flour, then press the ball out into a fat round disc. Pick it up and gently turn and stretch it until nice and thin but without any holes, using gravity to help you and encouraging a nice rim around the edge. I like to get a couple of pizzas assembled at a time.
- Spoon some tomato sauce across the pizza base, tear over some mozzarella, then spoon over some hot sausage and broccoli. Add a few bombs of British cheese, if you like, then finish with a fine grating of Parmesan.
- Transfer to the oven and cook for 8 to 10 minutes (or just 4 minutes in a wood oven), or until puffed up, crisp and delicious. Finish with a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and crack on with the rest.
