Great pizza at home: This frying pan recipe will blow you away

Ronan Greaney is the co-owner, with his brother Eugene, of The Dough Bros in Galway. thedoughbros.ie

During lockdown and missing our pizza fix, we happily stumbled upon the “frying pan pizza” method and were blown away by the results. Without a fancy garden oven, Big Green Egg, barbecue or pizza stone, it is possible to make really good pizza at home. I actually think the results are better than most of those other options too.

Bust out your best frying pan, turn the grill up full whack and you’re all set. The smoked margherita is a pizza we’ve had on the menu in our restaurant in Galway plenty of times over the years. It’s everything you want in a humble margherita with a smokey addition. It’s comforting, sweet, cheesy, delicious. A good smoked scamorza really brings it to life, but you can use any smoked cheese, Applewood from the supermarket even.

If you happen to have smoked sea salt laying around, fire that on too. Once out of the oven, drizzle some good quality extra virgin olive oil over the pizza, and serve some extra on the side to mop up with those crusts.

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What you’ll need

For the pizza dough (this makes 6-8 dough balls)
1kg of strong/bread flour
6g of fresh yeast (or 3g of dried yeast)
600ml of cold water
30g of sea salt

For the topping
1x 400ml tin of San Marzano tomato (only need 60g per pizza)
Pinch of grated Parmesan
3-4 leaves of fresh basil
70g fresh mozzarella
40g smoked scamorza or another smoked cheese
Extra virgin olive oil

How to cook it

1 Mix the yeast and water together. Add 10 per cent of the flour to act as a buffer before adding salt.

2 Add remaining flour and combine all the dough elements together. Knead for 10-20 minutes until smooth (this will build the gluten network).

3 Cover the dough mixture and let it rest for approximately one hour, this will allow the dough to relax and fully absorb all elements.

4 Divide the mixture into six or eight balls of even size/weight

5 Place the dough balls on a floured tray and cover with cling film. Leave these to prove at room temp for five to seven hours, depending on room temperature. If the dough is starting to prove before that, you can place them into the fridge.

6 After proving, the dough should be doubled in size. At this point, the dough is good to use but for optimum results put into the fridge for 24-48 hours to slow prove.

7 Before cooking, remove the pizza dough from the fridge about 45 minutes to an hour to get it to room temperature.

8 Prepare the pizza sauce and toppings: Mix the San Marzano tomatoes with some salt and extra virgin olive oil and gently crush with a potato masher. Chop the fresh mozzarella into small cubes and grate your scamorza or smoked cheese.

9 Preheat the grill about 15 minutes before starting to cook the pizza.

10 Flatten out your pizza dough ball with your hands on a lightly floured work surface. Starting at the centre and working outwards, use your fingertips to press the dough to about 1cm in thickness.Turn and stretch the dough until it will not stretch any further.

11 Once you have your desired pizza shape, place the dough in a frying pan (on a medium heat) and now you can hit it with your tomato sauce (about 60g or four tablespoons approximately. Sprinkle on the Parmesan and basil.

12 Wait until your base has set and the pizza starts to form a natural crust, then add both cheeses. Add salt and pepper to taste.

13 Once the base is slightly golden you can now place the pizza under the hot grill. It will only need 2 to 3 minutes under the grill, so make sure to keep an eye on it. Before serving, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over the top.