Healthy and Delicious Pizza

When we talk of the NextGen foods, encounters are common in most Indian households about the difference in food culture that changed over time. Most of the older generation often speaks about the home food that they used to enjoy. Snacks like poha, upma, sheavai-upma were common in holds as evening snacks and later replaced by chats like shevpuri, bhelpuri etc. In the event of foreign food culture that seem to have raided here Italian dishes like Pasta and Pizza have included in the likes of children and they have dominated most menus of restaurants too. The only reason that I would restrict is the presence of refined flour or maida while making the base, the use of various sauces that are prepared many days in advance and contain many preservatives, and loads of cheese that is usually unhealthy and said to be the major cause of childhood obesity in these days.

In these circumstances, I would best suggest to make the pizza at home . With a little pre-preparation and planning a delicious pizza can be made at home.

Ingredients for the Pizza base.

Whole wheat flour / Atta – 2cups

Melted butter/ oil -2 tsp

salt-1/2 tsp

Baking powder- ½ tsp

 water as required

Method :

Knead the dough with the above ingredients and allow to rest for about half an hour. Keep the consistency same as for rotis/ Chapatis. Variations such as adding some chilli flakes, oregano, ajwain to the dough can be done for some extra flavor.

Ingredients for Pizza sauce

Chopped onions- 1cup

Tomatoes -2 large –blended coarsely

Tomato puree/ Tomato Ketchup- 2tbspns                   

Salt to taste

Pizza masala- A blend of spices like oregano, pepper, basil, rosemary etc.-as required

Black Pepper- as required

oil-2 tsp

Capsicum- 1 finely chopped(optional)

Garlic – 8-10 cloves- finely chopped

Chopped parsley or coriander

sugar- 1tbspoon(optional)

Method:

Heat oil in a pan and add garlic, sauté for some time and add onions, sauté till they turn pink. Add tomatoes and other ingredients and cook till they blend well. The consistency should be thick and therefore do not add much water. The sauce can be made spicy by adding green chillies/ capsico sauce.

This sauce turns out very tasty and can be used as a sauce for pastas too.

How to proceed:

Roll out the dough into a 6 inch thick base about 1/8 of an inch thick. I preferred keeping the base thin as it turns out crispy and since we have not added yeast , a thick base is not preferable.

Add some butter on a hot tawa and keep the base on it, Spread about 3-4 tsp of pizza sauce on it.

Add onion rings, capsicum rings, tomato slices, mushroom , paneer, olives or even chicken if you like.

Sprinkle pizza cheese on top, cover and cook for 10 minutes on low flame. Cut the pizza into portions and serve. Enjoy……..!!!!!

This pizza is relatively low fat and can be made more healthy with the addition of veggies in it. The amount of cheese is a lot less that the commercial ones. Cheese although is a good source of calcium and protein, it also contains saturated fat and cholesterol and that’s why not advisable in large amounts.

Turn to the homemade version and snack on it.