Fig and Blue Cheese Pizza

Pizzas have invaded the world and their appeal seems to be almost universal. There’s really nothing not to like about the bases, and the versatility of being able to use virtually anything that appeals to you as the topping means there’s a pizza out there for pretty much everyone. They are ridiculously easy to make and if you can’t be bothered making the bases pre-made ones are readily available to buy, or Lebanese bread can be recruited to the task. You can even chuck a leftover slice in your lunchbox to eat the next day. All in all they seem to be almost the ideal food.

Ms Onion and I went to an ‘Italian’ restaurant in Osaka, Japan. Like many things in Japan it turned out to be quite an experience and pretty hilarious – this was Italian Jim but not as we know it. It seemed to be run by a group of 20-30 somethings and the menu was really nothing like a standard Italian menu, although it did have pasta. We didn’t try that so can only guess what that was like. What we did have was very good if a bit strange, and we came away wondering if any of them had actually been to Italy or had any idea what Italian food was about.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface into an aesthetically pleasing shape.

On the same trip we went to South Korea, and one evening ended up in a little pizza and pasta place in Busan for dinner. For main course I ordered Pasta Amatriciana in my ongoing quest to find the best one. This one was slightly odd and ‘Korean’ but very nice, but more importantly to this story for dessert we ordered a Fig and Gorgonzola pizza, which was delicious. If you haven’t had Gorgonzola before it’s an (originally) Italian blue-vein cheese with a soft crumbly texture, and a varying degree of sharpness depending on how much it has been aged. It’s also great on pizza, as it turns out. The pizza was really quite simple, the topping being primarily mozzarella cheese, topped with slices of dried figs and a small scattering of Gorgonzola lumps.

This recipe is not quite such a simple topping as that as I’ve developed it a bit more to have as a main course, but it’s still a pizza topping after all so how hard can it be? If you have fresh figs to put on in place of the dried so much the better, but they usually seem to be priced as if they were made from unobtainium.

Add the toppings in a casual manner to look rustically appealing.

For the dough, there’s a few different ways to go, the easiest of which is probably just to buy it or substitute some Lebanese bread as I mentioned in the introduction, but at the risk of sounding a bit of a food snob it won’t be as good. If you are going to make it then in order of decreasing effort you can make it entirely by hand, including the kneading, use the dough hook on a stand mixer to do the hard work, or if you have a breadmaker chuck all the ingredients in there in the order specified by your machine (generally liquids first) and set it on the dough cycle. For me the choice usually depends on whether I’m cutting into time that would be better spent having a nap with the dogs, which is pretty much always. For the strong white flour in the recipe I’ve found bread flour works best, but if you don’t want to buy it or can’t easily get it just use all plain flour. It makes enough for 3 pizzas, but if you don’t need that many this dough also freezes well.

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Fig and Blue Cheese Pizza

Cooking: About 15 minutes, plus dough making
Serves: 4-6
Note: For the topping don’t get too hung up on the quantities stated. They’re a bit of an estimate on my part but it’s pizza after all.

Ingredients:

Pizza dough

• 250g plain flour
• 250g strong flour
• 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt
• 1 sachet (7g/1 teaspoon) dried yeast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 325ml warm water

Topping

• ¹⁄₂ cup passata or pizza sauce
• 1 cup grated mozzarella
• 80g Gorgonzola or another blue cheese
• 100g sliced ham off the bone
• 5-6 dried figs, sliced or cut into chunks
• 100g rocket
• handful of walnuts, roughly chopped

Directions

For the dough

• To a large bowl add the flour, salt and yeast and mix well, then add the warm water and oil and mix well.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth – it should spring back when pressed lightly with your finger.
• Wipe out the bowl (or use a clean one), add a little oil and return the dough to the bowl and turn it over a couple of times to get a light coating of oil. Cover the bowl with some cling wrap or a tea towel and leave it in a warm place for 1-2 hours until it’s doubled in size.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and press it down with your fingers to deflate it, cut it into three pieces and roll out each one to fit a pizza tray.

For the pizza

• Preheat the oven to 230°C.
• Put the rolled out pizza dough onto pizza or baking trays. If you’re using a circular tray and the dough doesn’t quite fit properly you can just stretch it to the sides a bit with your fingers.
• Spread each base with some of the passata, sprinkle with mozzarella and top with ham, Gorgonzola and figs.
• Place in the oven and cook for 12-15 minutes until the dough is golden brown and the cheese is melted.
• Remove from the oven, top with a scattering of rocket and walnuts and serve.