Ingredients
| 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds | |
| 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds | |
| 500g pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed and discarded | |
| 350g white bread flour, preferably ‘00’ | |
| 150g wholemeal flour | |
| 1 sachet (8g) instant yeast | |
| 1 teaspoon salt | |
| 3 tablespoons olive oil | |
| ¼ cup sage leaves | |
| 250g mushrooms, sliced | |
| 300g spinach, washed | |
| 1 x quantity porcini pesto | |
| ½ cup pitted black olives | |
| PORCINI PESTO | |
| 25g porcini | |
| 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast | |
| 3 tablespoons pinenuts | |
| 1 tablespoon capers | |
| 1 tablespoon lemon juice | |
| 2 cloves garlic, crushed | |
| ¼ teaspoon salt | |
| 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil |
This cheese-free pizza is in the Sicilian style: rectangular and with a thicker crust. I like to soak the seeds overnight, which helps with the texture and with incorporating them into the dough. The porcini pesto, made with nutritional yeast instead of cheese, adds lots of flavour and is also great tossed through pasta or risotto.
Instructions
| 1. | Put the pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in a bowl with 300ml water and leave to soak overnight. |
| 2. | Cut 300g pumpkin into cubes and steam or boil until soft, then drain, mash well and leave to cool. Measure out 1 cup. |
| 3. | Drain and rinse the seeds. |
| 4. | Put the flours in a bowl with the yeast and salt. |
| 5. | Add the mashed pumpkin and soaked seeds with 200ml water and mix until you have a soft ball of dough, adding more water as necessary (the dough should be a little sticky, but still come together as a ball). |
| 6. | The dough can be mixed in an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, mixing for about 6 minutes or kneaded by hand for 10 minutes. |
| 7. | Tip out onto a floured surface and gently knead together into a ball, then put into a lightly oiled bowl and roll the dough around in the bowl until it is coated with oil. |
| 8. | Cover lightly with plastic wrap, a tea towel or a plastic bag and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 1½ hours. |
| 9. | Heat the oven to 220°C. |
| 10. | Cut the remaining pumpkin into very thin slices and then set aside. |
| 11. | Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the sage for 20 seconds until crisp, then scoop out and drain on a paper towel. |
| 12. | Add the mushrooms to the oil with a sprinkle of salt and fry for 3 minutes then set aside. |
| 13. | Add the spinach to the pan and fry for about 2 minutes until wilted, then drain in a colander, squeeze out any excess liquid then roughly chop and set aside. |
| 14. | After the dough has proved, divide it in two and stretch each portion out into a 30cm x 20cm rectangle, placing each on a well-floured baking tray. |
| 15. | Spread over the porcini pesto then top with the sliced pumpkin, mushrooms and spinach then dot around the olives. |
| 16. | Season with salt and pepper. |
| 17. | Drizzle or spray over a little olive oil and bake for 12-15 minutes. |
| 18. | Serve scattered with the fried sage. |
| 19. | PORCINI PESTO |
| 20. | Rinse the porcini then put in a bowl, cover with warm water and leave to soak for 15 minutes. |
| 21. | Drain, reserving the liquid. |
| 22. | Put the drained porcini into a small food processor with the yeast, pinenuts, capers, lemon juice and garlic, salt, olive oil and 3-4 tablespoons of the reserved porcini liquid (any extra is great in risotto), and process to a paste. |
| 23. | Store in the fridge. |
Recipes and food styling Fiona Smith / Photography Aaron McLean / Styling Fiona Lascelles
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