Recipe: Puttanesca pizza with mozzarella and thyme

Make the most of a rainy day by trying this store cupboard staple pizza. Photo / Olivia Moore

The classic puttanesca - tomatoes, olives, anchovies and capers - is a combination that always wins.

I love this bright balance of tangy and salty flavours.

This pizza is incredibly simple to put together, as most of the ingredients come in jars.

This also makes it a perfect pizza for winter, when fresh tomatoes and capsicums are off the menu!

Puttanesca pizza with mozzarella and thyme

Makes one large pizza (40cm diameter)

Ingredients

For the pizza dough:

• 250g flour
• 150ml lukewarm water
• ¼ tsp instant yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt

Toppings:

• 4-5 Tbsp passata or pizza sauce
• 1 small chargrilled capsicum in oil, drained, and sliced
• 75g fresh mozzarella, sliced
• 6 anchovy fillets
• 4-5 Kalamata olives, pitted and torn
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 2 tsp capers
• 1 large sprig thyme, leaves picked
• Parmigiano reggiano, to finish

Method

1. Firstly, make the pizza dough. Stir yeast with lukewarm water in a bowl to dissolve.
2. Place flour into the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Turn the speed to medium-low and, with the mixer running, slowly pour in the water. Continue mixing for 15 minutes until smooth and elastic. Add salt and knead to combine.
3. Lightly oil a large bowl and add the dough. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise in a warm spot for four hours.
4. Once risen, transfer to a clean work surface and briefly knead. Place back in your lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean damp tea towel for an additional 30 minutes.
5. Place your pizza stone in the oven and begin preheating to 240C fan bake. Make sure to preheat the stone with the oven, as placing a cold pizza stone in a hot oven can cause it to crack.
6. Generously dust a clean work surface, and your pizza peel (or a flat thin tray if you don’t have one), with semolina. Use your hands to gently stretch your pizza dough (don’t worry about getting a perfect circle!) to roughly 40cm in diameter.
7. Lay the stretched dough on your dusted work surface. Spread over the passata or pizza sauce, leaving 3cm bare around the edges for the crust.
8. Arrange over it the sliced capsicum, followed by the sliced mozzarella and anchovies. Scatter over the olives, garlic and capers and season with salt and pepper.
9. Use your semolina-dusted pizza peel to quickly transfer the pizza onto the stone in the oven. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until nicely browned, cheese is melted and dough is cooked through. Finely grate over a little parmigiano reggiano, and scatter over the thyme leaves. Lightly drizzle with olive oil and serve immediately.

Olivia Moore and her Taupō business That Green Olive offer recipe development, food photography — in studio or on location — for restaurants and cafes, recipe video creation and social media content creation. Go to Olivia’s website for more recipes: www.thatgreenolive.com.

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