CJ’s Special Rice – serves 4/6

Ingredients

• 250g Long Grain Rice
• 250g Brown Mushrooms (Any mushroom will do but none of the magic variety)
• 250g Pomodorino Tomatoes
• ½ cup of petit pois
• 1 Medium red onion
• 1 small tin sweetcorn
• 3 Cloves garlic
• 2 Vegetable stock cube
• 1 Level tablespoon Schwartz Classic Barbecue Mixed Spice
• Garlic Salt (optional) to taste
• 1 small knob butter
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• A good pinch of sea salt and cracked black pepper
• Sunglasses optional!

Cooking instructions

1. Finely chop the onion, garlic and mushrooms
2. Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan and heat gently. Add the garlic and onion and fry for a couple of minutes – stir occasionally and make sure it doesn’t burn.
3. Add a small knob of butter, mushrooms, salt & pepper and add a pinch of garlic salt (optional but really tasty – be careful as G salt is very potent and not for the faint of heart). Also add a dash of soy sauce and cook all ingredients until soft and brown and remember to stir occasionally. Put the mixture aside for later.
4. Before cooking the rice it’s important to wash it to get all of the starch out. Put the rice in a sieve and into a bowl of water and wash until the water is clear – you need to do this approximately three times.
5. At this point prepare your water for cooking the rice. There are many ways to cook rice and I use the boil and drain method, to be honest it’s the best method for this dish. I prefer to use Basmati rice, hey I am Indian. Before adding the rice to the water you must add the veg stock cubes and salt and pepper. Once the stock has dissolved taste the water – you want your rice to absorb the flavour of the stock so if the water tastes good then your rice will have a nice flavour to it. Add the rice to the aromatic water, bring back to the boil and simmer for approximately 8-10 minutes. When cooking the rice you need to keep tasting it in the final minutes as it’s so easy to overcook. This rice dish only work if the rice isn’t overcooked and soggy. When the rice is ready, drain and put aside until you need it again – there’s no need to rinse the cooked rice and you have already done this before cooking. If you want more details about how to cook the perfect rice, follow this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl1PfTy3C0E



6. Add the cooked onions, mushrooms and garlic and rice to a large bowl. Dice the tomatoes and add them with the sweet corn, petit pois and the Schwartz Classic BBQ spice and mix well.
7. You want your dish to have a nice flavour so feel free to add more spice (Salt, pepper, BBQ spice etc) if needed… and that’s it. You can serve it immediately at room temperature. I sometimes heat up the leftovers the next day, which is also delicious as by heating it again you release all those flavours again.

Here’s the link: Jamie Oliver’s Pizza Dough

I must stress that you should add semolina flour and try and find a good Italian Tipo ‘00′ flour, although strong white bread flour will do and you can use normal caster sugar, it does not have to be golden. Make sure you follow Jamie’s recipe to the T and you will have perfect pizza dough.

Right the sauce… OK, some of you out there will know I’m not Italian and I do not follow recipes when it comes to making most of my dishes. My sauce recipe has been worked on for a long time now and I will show you how to make a basic sauce – but I add different ingredients all the time. Try adding different spices and tweak it until it tastes right for you. I love chilli on everything so I add this to the sauce to make it extra spicy… experiment; you’ll be surprised at what you can come up with.

CJ’s Basic Pizza Sauce (enough sauce for two medium/large pizzas)
1 Tin chopped tomatoes – 400g
3 Cloves garlic
1 Medium red onion
1 Vegetable stock cube
2 Bay leaves
1 teaspoon Italian herb seasoning
1 tablespoon butter
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
A good pinch of sea salt
Garlic salt to taste (be careful, it’s very strong)
1/2 teaspoon black cracked pepper
A dash of balsamic vinegar

Cooking instructions
1. Roughly chop the onion and garlic, and blend in a food processor to a paste.
2. Put 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan and heat gently. Add the garlic and onion paste and fry gently for a couple of minutes – stir occasionally and make sure it doesn’t burn. Make sure the garlic and onion paste is almost cooked before adding other ingredients.
3. Add a large knob of butter and the vegetable stock cube to the pan and stir well.
4. Blitz half the can of tomatoes in a food processor and add this, plus the rest of the can, to the pan and heat gently (save the empty can for the next steps).
5. Add the bay leaves, pepper, salt, garlic salt and Italian herb seasoning to the pan.
6. Using the empty tomato can – fill with water, and add to the pan. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar at this point too. **you may also want to add red chilli or BBQ spice**
7. Taste the sauce, but remember you will need to simmer it for 10 to 15 minutes – until the sauce is of a thick consistency and the flavours are intensified. Add extra seasoning if required.
8. Remember the sauce must be of a thick consistency and must have a strong flavor, you want your pizza to taste good, and as I said before it’s all about the sauce.
9. Remove bay leaves and leave sauce to cool to room temperature.
OK… So you have your dough and you have your sauce …now the fun bit.

Pizza Toppings (for one medium/large pizza)
2 Portobello mushrooms
One ball of mozzarella – approx 125grams
Mature cheddar – as much as you want, but don’t overdo it!
Parmesan
Italian herbs or oregano
Cracked Black pepper, or chilli flakes

Right, there are many ways to cook pizza and I’m cooking mine in a normal home oven. Pizza joints have ovens that heat up to a much higher temperature than your standard domestic oven but that doesn’t mean you can’t cook great pizza at home. I cook my pizza on a rectangle oven chip tray with holes. You can get these at any supermarket for around a fiver. You must cook the pizza on this type of tray with holes or you’ll end up with raw dough in the middle of your pizza. You could use a pizza stone but they are expensive I always end up with perfect pizza using my chip tray.

Turn your oven on full and heat up your tray (or trays if you are cooking more than one pizza) on the top shelf of your oven. I heat my oven for about 30 minutes – do not be alarmed if you tray buckles a bit, remember you have to get maximum heat from your oven.

I don’t make my pizzas round; I flatten out my dough by hand and then finish off with a rolling pin. Make sure you dust whatever surface you are rolling your dough on with plenty of semolina flour. Every pizza I make has a different shape and they look very rustic, which I think adds to the flavor as the first bite is always with the eye. You do not want to have the base too thick, so keep it thin and even, and make sure that it will fit in your tray. Coat the pizza dough with semolina flour to add a little crunch.

Once the oven is hot enough take out your pre-heated tray and be careful not to burn yourself. Put the rolled out dough onto the hot tray. Spread on a thick coating of pizza sauce, don’t be shy here, lots of sauce means lots of flavor, and work quickly as you do not want the tray to get too cool. Break up the mozzarella and place on top of the sauce making sure it’s an even covering. Then add sliced portobella mushrooms, be generous and then grate mature cheddar over the whole pizza and finish off with a good sprinkling of Italian spice or oregano, and cracked black pepper.

Place pizza on to the top shelf of the oven and cook for about 10 minutes. If you are cooking more than one pizza swap them around after 5 minutes. The pizza should not need longer than 10 minutes. The cheese should be melted and have some colour – be careful not to burn the cheese. Gently slide the pizza onto a chopping board. Grate a little or a lot of parmesan and add black cracked pepper or chilli flakes to taste. And that’s it! Enjoy either on your own or with friends and family.

Please let me know how your pizza comes out… All the best and good luck, CJ.