Homemade pizza with nduja and aubergine

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 200g bread flour
• 200g plain flour
• 1tsp miso paste
• 2tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• Water, as needed
• 500g tomato passata
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 large aubergine
• Olive oil, as needed
• Semolina, as needed
• 2 drained balls of Buffalo mozzarella
• 4 sprigs oregano
• 1tsp sugar
• Salt, as needed
• 200g nduja

Method

1. The night before, combine half of the bread flour and half of the plain flour with the yeast in a bowl and add enough water to form a porridge-like consistency. Cover with a clean dish cloth and allow to ferment and rise over night.
2. The following morning, uncover the bowl and add in the miso, 2 tsp of olive oil and the remaining flour. Bring it together and add a little bit more water if it is too dry.
3. Knead consistently for ten minutes. The consistency of the dough you are trying to achieve is a smooth, soft and elastic. It should be pliable and come together easily in aball. You do not want a dough that is too sticky or difficult to work with. If this is the case add more flour to the mix.
4. Grease the inside of a clean bowl with olive oil, place the dough in there and cover with oiled clingfilm. Allow to rise for 2 hours or until doubled in size.
5. Preheat the oven to its highest temperature and place the pizza stone inside.
6. In the meantime slice the aubergine into slices 2 cm thick and season with salt. Fry in a dry pan adding a good drizzle of olive oil to the pan halfway through. Once cooked remove from the pan and set aside to cool. Continue with the remaining aubergine.
7. For the tomato sauce slice the garlic cloves and fry in a little bit of olive oil until slightly golden. Add the passata and the sugar and simmer for around ten minutes.
8. Once you are ready to construct your pizza sprinkle a good amount of semolina onto the surface. Take a fist sized amount of pizza dough and use your fingers to press all around the circumference of the dough around 2cm away from the edge to form the crust. Giving the dough time to rest in between motion, gently tease the dough pulling it from opposite ends whist rotating until it opens up into a circle around the size of a main course plate. The base must be quite thin but not thin enough that it tears easily.
9. Turn a baking sheet upside down and sprinkle a generous amount of semolina onto the surface. Place the pizza base on top.
10.  Spread the base with a thin layer of the tomato sauce and tear one quarter of the mozzarella on top. Dot small pieces of nduja around the pizza ( depending on how spicy it is) and drape a few slices of aubergine on top of that. To finish tear some oregano leaves.
11. Open the oven door and carefully shift the pizza onto the hot stone. Bake for around 6 to 8 minutes or until the dough is properly browned and the cheese is sizzling away.
12. Take it out of the oven and drizzle with a good glug of finishing olive oil.
13. Repeat the process with the remaining dough and ingredients.

This recipe first appeared on Gourmet Today TV, July 2019

Watch the full episode below: