Iranian Pizza

The base is thick, the cheese goes on in quantity, and it is often made with no tomato sauce at all.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, mozzarella whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

for the base

• 500 g strong white bread flour
• 320 ml water
• 7 g fast-action yeast
• 10 g salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

for the topping

• 600 g mozzarella or pizza cheese, grated
• 300 g minced beef, browned
• 200 g beef sausage, sliced
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 200 g mushrooms, sliced
• 1 white onion, sliced
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• ketchup, to serve

Method

1. THE BASE IS THICK, THE CHEESE GOES ON IN QUANTITY, AND IT IS OFTEN MADE WITH NO TOMATO SAUCE AT ALL. Its article says the term refers to the style and preparation rather than the toppings, and then gives all three things that define that style: it is characterised by its thick bread and large amounts of cheese; the toppings are notably abundant, covered with a THICK LAYER of pizza cheese over a hand-made dough of medium thickness; and a good many pizzerias leave the tomato-based sauce out altogether, in which case ketchup is used as a must-have condiment at the table. Six hundred grams of cheese on a single pizza is not a misprint -- the cheese is the dish, not a binding layer.
2. THE DOUGH IS MEDIUM-THICK AND PRESSED BY HAND. Its article says hand-made and of medium thickness. A centimetre in the middle and a little more at the rim, pressed out rather than rolled.
3. THE MEAT IS COOKED BEFORE IT GOES ON. Minced beef browned and drained, sausage sliced. Raw mince on a pizza under six hundred grams of cheese will steam rather than brown and release fat into the cheese.
4. THE VEGETABLES ITS ARTICLE NAMES ARE THREE. Bell pepper, mushroom and white onion, specifically. All sliced thin and used raw -- they have long enough under the cheese.
5. THE SPICING IS FOUR DRY THINGS AND ITS ARTICLE LISTS THEM. Oregano, red pepper powder, black pepper and dried garlic powder. Dried garlic rather than fresh, which is worth following: fresh garlic burns in the open on top of a pizza.
6. IT IS BAKED HOT BUT NOT AS HOT AS A THIN PIZZA. 230C for sixteen to eighteen minutes. A thick base carrying that much topping needs time for the middle to cook; the 300C that suits a thin Roman base would blacken the rim first.
7. WITHOUT TOMATO SAUCE, SOMETHING MUST STILL GO UNDER THE CHEESE. Brush the base with olive oil and scatter the oregano and garlic powder on it. A dry base under that much cheese tastes of flour.
8. THE TWO STANDARD ORDERS HAVE NAMES. Its article gives them: makhloot, mixed, with ground beef, several kinds of sausage, mushroom, pepper and onion; and makhsoos, special, which is the same without the ground beef. Chicken and vegetable versions have become common more recently.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes