Sicilian-style pizza with thicker, airy base and topping of caramelised onions and tomato sauce. That was the first pizza that came to North America with Sicilian immigrants and gave rise to ‘deep pan’ pizzas.
A new pizza recipe! How much better does it get? Except – what can be new about pizza?
Pizza is a flat crust of bread dough topped with toppings, baked in a very hot oven. To be fair, there are different specimens all over the world featuring the crust swollen to resemble a cushion, or – horrors – folded edges stuffed with whatnots, more cheese, mainly.
The toppings vary and can get controversial: personally, my answer to the Hawaiian variety is a NO. There are only a few Italian classics but the world seems dead set on throwing everything and his wife onto poor pizza: from full English breakfast pizza, avocado (of course) to banana curry. Where is the authenticity? There’s not much to speak of as far as pizza outside Italy is concerned.
Since I’m a freak for caramelised onions, I was pleased to see the Great British Chefs' Sicilian pizza recipe – note however, BRITISH chefs. Thus I don’t take any responsibility for authenticity, but decide to trust Helen Graves’ recipe. At the end of the day, once you’re a ‘great chef’, no matter where from, you can play a bit faster with ethnic foods without being accused of imposition. Unless you’re really unlucky #JollofWars.
I ditched the salami from the recipe, which apparently has no place on pizza in Palermo, I emphasised the onions as that was the starting point for my pizza, instead of just cooking them into the tomato sauce, and cooked it in a round dish. Sicilian or not, thicker or thinner, you still (well, I do) want your pizza crust to be lovely and crisp underneath, and at home conditions a preheated cast iron skillet carrying the pizza into red-hot oven or grill does the trick of the wood burning oven.
It is so good that Naples might have a reason to worry. The onions, the bit of spiciness, cheese perversely sat underneath the sauce, a whiff of oregano from the dough base, all makes it supremely satisfactory. You might think the topping is scant but the universal truth is that with pizza, less is more. Unless you’re a Hawaiian.