Since the mid 1990s, Pizza has been a popular fast food in Nairobi and other major cities around the country. But, have you ever wondered how make Pizza at home? Well, it turns out it isn’t that difficult and the ingredients are readily available in Kenyan supermarkets.
Pizza Ingredients
There are no rules on many of the ingredients and it all depends on the type of topping you want on your Pizza. The only thing you need to note is that meat toppings will have to have been pre-cooked. So for example, if you want beef cubes or strips as topping, you have to cook them separately first. You will also need an oven to prepare your Pizza.
The main Pizza ingredients are:
- Half a kilo of wheat flour
- Half of teaspoon of baking powder (yeast)
- 1 Teaspoon of salt
- 1 Tablespoon of sugar
- One and a half cups of luke warm water
- Cooking oil
- 2 Peeled and chopped tomatoes or tomato paste
- I peeled clove of garlic
- Quarter kilo (250 grams) of grated cheese – you can buy cheese in any supermarket (Check the frozen foods section) preferably Mozzarela (150g) and Cheddar Cheese (100g), the are well labelled at the Supermarket. Grate the cheese and have it ready in a bowl.
- Toppings of your choice e.g. bacon, meat cubes/stipes, mince meat, pineapple, omena …like stated before, there are no rules but of course don’t put njahi or some other weird thing like carrots.
Pizza Preparation Process
- Start by making the dough.
- Pour the flour into a big bowl.
- Mix the sugar and baking powder (yeast) into the luke warm water and stir using a fork.
- Pour the liquid into the bowl of flour and stir with a fork until it becomes sticky.
- Use your hands to mix and knead the dough the same way you would when making chapati.
- Apply flour to a kitchen top surface to prevent the dough from sticking to the surface and knead it thoroughly for ten minutes.
- Spread some oil all around the bowl, place the kneaded dough back into the bowl and cover the bowl completely. If you have cling film, even better. Leave it for one hour.
- In the meantime, start working on the Pizza sauce.
- Pour the peeled tomatoes into a small sufuria.
- Crush the garlic and pour it into the sufuria as well.
- Turn the cooker on and let the mixture simmer on low heat for about 5 minutes. Stir the mixture well to make a nice thick sauce. Take the sufuria off the cooker and allow to cool.
- Take the dough out of the bowl and tear it into two equal pieces and then tear each piece into two additional equal pieces so that you end up with four separate pieces of dough.
- Pour some more flour on the preparation surface.
- Take one of the dough pieces and roll it using the a rolling pin the same way you would roll a chapati. Roll it quite thin because it will rise as a result of the baking powder.
- Preheat your oven to 230 Degrees Celsius.
- Place the rolled dough on an oven pan and spread 1 tablespoon of sauce on it. Spread the sauce evenly on the dough. You can apply as much sauce as you like. There are no rules on this.
- Sprinkle the cheese generously on the dough.
- Next, apply your toppings in any pattern or manner that pleases you.
- Sprinkle a dash of oil you pop it into the oven ten minutes.
- Repeat steps 14 to 19 with the remaining three pieces of dough.
- Remove, serve and enjoy.
The video below should help you understand the process better.