Italian cooking: Italian chicken pizza
Every Christmas, I make a few kinds of
pizza from scratch for family. It takes a few hours from start to
finish, and it is never be a quick cooking category but, I always enjoy
planning creative flavors on homemade pizza for the big night.
Best part of being part of holiday tradition is that not only I get to have fun being creative with "flavor of the year", but also I get to see smiles on their face eating my pizza.
Our family, including our stumpy little Corgi, loves my home-made pizza, and we tend to have pizza night now and then.When I make pizza from scratch, it makes our house smell like bakery shop. I really like that. Freshly baked bread/pizza right out from the oven is really tasty.
Considering our furry friends have strong sense of smell, hours of yummy smell of bread poofing/pizza baking would be torturing their nose. On pizza night, our dog "Palette" gets tiny bit of taste of our pizza,and she goes banana for the tiny morsel. She is such a big fan of my cooking
I think that pizza is probably the most versatile and popular food in the states, and many of you would enjoy my pizzas too. Therefore, I thought I would share the recipe with you one flavor at a time every time I make a new one.
This time, it is Italian chicken pizza. It got sun dried tomato, shredded chicken,red onion, mozzarella cheese,Parmesan cheese and fresh basil on top.
I was inspired by the stuffed chicken Marsala I get from one of the restaurants that I go to.
The restaurant stuff the chicken breast with mixture of cheese and chopped sun dried tomato and, I thought it was great combination. Then, I thought "why not for pizza". It came out tasty and,you may like them too.
So, how do you make Italian chicken pizza? Here is how.
Italian chicken pizza ..
** To make pizza, if you were pressed with time, you can buy fresh pizza dough or use flat bread instead.
<Pizza dough>
0. Preheat the oven at 200F and when it reached to 200F,turn the oven off
1. To a microwave safe bowl, pour 1-1/4 C water, microwave about 30-45 seconds or so
2. Take a temperature of the water and if the temperature was at 110F-115F, add 2 1/4tsp of dry yeast (one package of dry yeast if you use packaged dry yeast), 1.5tsp sugar, and mix well and let it sit a while (about 5-10 minutes)
** If you use jar of dry yeast, make sure the yeast is at room temperature. Cold yeast would not make your dough rise properly.
** Water temperature to rise the dough (proof the dough) should be at 110F-115F. Lower temperature water would not proof the dough properly, and higher temperature water would kill the yeast and would not proof the dough properly.
You should see the frothy stuff on top like this..
3. To a big bowl, add 1- 1/2C Unbleached All purpose flour, 1- 1/2C Unbleached bread flour, 1.5tsp salt, 1-1/2 tbs Extra virgin olive oil and mix well
** For EVOO, first-cold press extra virgin olive oil is the best and tasty. My favorite brand is "Colavita brand". It is product of Italy,and you can get them at local grocery store.
I have tried some other extra virgin olive oil too, but Colavita brand was the most flavorful,fruity and tasty olive oil of the bunch,and I use this oil for everyday cooking as well.
4. Pour the frothy yeast-sugar- lukewarm water mix to flour-salt mixture a little at a time and stir and when dough became to form a ball, toss them onto lightly floured surface, and start kneading the dough
** Using silpat mat is easy to work with
5. Knead the dough until it is not sticky, but smooth surface and elastic. I usually knead for about 8 minutes.
You can test your dough to see if you knead it more. Do the Windowpane test.
What is windowpane test??
Windowpane test is the test the gluten development in the dough.
What you do is to cut off small piece of dough,and gently stretch out/pulling to see if it will hold a paper-thin membrane.If it tore apart,you would knead a bit more and do the test again.
6. When dough became smooth surface and elastic and not sticky, drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto empty bowl and smear it around side and inside bottom to make easy for you to take the dough out later to roll out
7. Place the dough into the bowl,drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the dough and smear the oil all around the dough
8. Cover the bowl with saran, and place the dough in the oven,set the timer for 90 minutes
** Using the preheated/turned off oven to rise the dough (proof the dough) is perfect weather proof method.
9. 90 minutes later, dough should be double in volume
Dough should be double in volume..
10. Once the dough gets double, punch down the dough to let the gas out from the dough and make the inner/outer dough temperature equal
11. Toss the dough onto lightly floured surface, and roll out the dough to the shape you like, and preheat the oven at 425F to 450F
** There are many kinds of rolling pin but I like the French rolling pin
** If you were to make a crispy pizza, roll out thin and bake at higher temperature
12. If you have pizza stone, use the pizza stone to bake it,but if you do not have one,use the cookie sheet or half sheet pan
13. To the half sheet pan/cookie sheet,place non stick foil,sprinkle yellow corn meal
** Sprinkling yellow corn meal before placing the dough onto the foiled half sheet pan is my little secret to make a nice crusty bottom
14. Place the dough onto foiled half sheet pan/cookie sheet, make a little wedge around at about 1" away from the edge using side of your hand
15. Blush the dough with extra virgin olive oil
16. Place the toppings/sauce and let it rest for 5 - 10 minutes or so on the counter, covering the pizza with saran loosely for the dough to rest and poof a little
17. Bake the pizza at 425F-450F till the edge become brown.
** Usually for my oven, it is about 15-18 minutes.
<Italian chicken pizza topping preparation>
1. Pour enough cold water into a sauce pan to cover boneless,skinless chicken breast, add splash of sherry,and some McCormick's steak seasoning and bring it to boil
2. When chicken is cooked through, let it come to room temperature in the water in the sauce pan,and shred them and keep them in a Tupperware
OR..
Buy a whole roasted chicken,shred them and keep them in the tupperware
You would want 4 oz of shredded chicken per pizza
3. To a new sauce pan, add 28 oz crushed tomato, about 3 tbs table sugar, and sprinkle dry oregano and mix well and taste it and,adjust the taste if needed and set the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes with occasional stir and turn it off.
** You would use some of this marinara sauce for pizza and, for rest of the sauce, you can use it for meatball sub, spaghetti or anything else you would want to use the marinara sauce for. You can also freeze them for later use.
** If you prefer the spicy marinara sauce, add pinch of crushed red pepper to the sauce
4. Chop 4 small sun dried tomato and set it aside
5. Slice 1/4 red onion thin,and set it aside in the fridge.
** Put the sliced red onion in a Tupperware,and fill it with water, stir and drain, and pour some water in and lid on,and keep them in the fridge. If you keep the onion this way, chilled water and, by slicing the onion thin get the very bold big zing out from the onion.
** If you did not use all onion you have sliced for pizza, you can use them in salad, sandwich and so forth.
6. Cut the fresh Mozzarella. You would want 9 of 1/2" dice
** You cannot use fresh mozzarella cheese 100% because it hold lots of moisture and it makes puddle of water pool on top of pizza,so it is best to mix with low moisture shredded cheese with low ratio for fresh mozzarella cheese
<Italian chicken pizza assembling the topping>
1. Once the dough gets double, punch down the dough to let the gas out from the dough and make the inner/outer dough temperature equal
2. Toss the dough onto lightly floured surface, and roll out the dough to the shape you like, and preheat the oven at 425F to 450F
** There are many kinds of rolling pin but I like the French rolling pin
** If you were to make a crispy pizza, roll out thin and bake at higher temperature
3. If you have pizza stone, use the pizza stone to bake it,but if you do not have one,use the cookie sheet or half sheet pan
4. To the half sheet pan/cookie sheet,place non stick foil,sprinkle yellow corn meal
** Sprinkling yellow corn meal before placing the dough onto the foiled half sheet pan is my little secret to make a nice crusty bottom
5. Place the dough onto foiled half sheet pan/cookie sheet, make a little wedge around at about 1" away from the edge using side of your hand
6. Blush the dough with extra virgin olive oil
7. Pour some of the marinara sauce on the dough
8. Put chopped sun dried tomato over the sauce,
9. Put shredded chicken over the pizza
10, Put thinly sliced red onion over the pizza
11. Pour 1/8C of grated Parmesan cheese
12. Place 9 of 1/2" dice of fresh mozzarella cheese
13. Sprinkle generous amount of low moisture shredded mozzarella cheese over the pizza
14. Let the pizza rest for 5 - 10 minutes or so on the counter, covering the pizza with saran loosely for the dough to rest and poof a little
15. Bake the pizza at 425F-450F till the edge become brown.
** Usually for my oven, it is about 15-18 minutes.
16. When edge turn brown, and pizza is baked perfectly, take it out from the oven and sprinkle ciffonade fresh basil over
** To make chiffonade herb, you would wash the fresh herb,roll it up,and chop very thin.
17. Enjoy!
A slice of Italian chicken pizza..
This pizza dough recipe makes 17"x11" rectangle pizza.
Depending on how you cut it, you can serve crust-free pizza.
If you had leftover pizza, you can wrap them with foil and bag them up in the freezer bag for later quick lunch/dinner.
To reheat the pizza, if you use oven, you want to preheat the oven at about 425F and heat the pizza up wrapped in foil for about 20 minutes or so.
If you use microwave to reheat the pizza, take the foil off,place the pizza in microwave safe plate,wrap the pizza with paper towel,microwave about 40 seconds or so.
Best part of being part of holiday tradition is that not only I get to have fun being creative with "flavor of the year", but also I get to see smiles on their face eating my pizza.
Our family, including our stumpy little Corgi, loves my home-made pizza, and we tend to have pizza night now and then.When I make pizza from scratch, it makes our house smell like bakery shop. I really like that. Freshly baked bread/pizza right out from the oven is really tasty.
Considering our furry friends have strong sense of smell, hours of yummy smell of bread poofing/pizza baking would be torturing their nose. On pizza night, our dog "Palette" gets tiny bit of taste of our pizza,and she goes banana for the tiny morsel. She is such a big fan of my cooking
I think that pizza is probably the most versatile and popular food in the states, and many of you would enjoy my pizzas too. Therefore, I thought I would share the recipe with you one flavor at a time every time I make a new one.
This time, it is Italian chicken pizza. It got sun dried tomato, shredded chicken,red onion, mozzarella cheese,Parmesan cheese and fresh basil on top.
I was inspired by the stuffed chicken Marsala I get from one of the restaurants that I go to.
The restaurant stuff the chicken breast with mixture of cheese and chopped sun dried tomato and, I thought it was great combination. Then, I thought "why not for pizza". It came out tasty and,you may like them too.
So, how do you make Italian chicken pizza? Here is how.
Italian chicken pizza ..
** To make pizza, if you were pressed with time, you can buy fresh pizza dough or use flat bread instead.
<Pizza dough>
0. Preheat the oven at 200F and when it reached to 200F,turn the oven off
1. To a microwave safe bowl, pour 1-1/4 C water, microwave about 30-45 seconds or so
2. Take a temperature of the water and if the temperature was at 110F-115F, add 2 1/4tsp of dry yeast (one package of dry yeast if you use packaged dry yeast), 1.5tsp sugar, and mix well and let it sit a while (about 5-10 minutes)
** If you use jar of dry yeast, make sure the yeast is at room temperature. Cold yeast would not make your dough rise properly.
** Water temperature to rise the dough (proof the dough) should be at 110F-115F. Lower temperature water would not proof the dough properly, and higher temperature water would kill the yeast and would not proof the dough properly.
You should see the frothy stuff on top like this..
3. To a big bowl, add 1- 1/2C Unbleached All purpose flour, 1- 1/2C Unbleached bread flour, 1.5tsp salt, 1-1/2 tbs Extra virgin olive oil and mix well
** For EVOO, first-cold press extra virgin olive oil is the best and tasty. My favorite brand is "Colavita brand". It is product of Italy,and you can get them at local grocery store.
I have tried some other extra virgin olive oil too, but Colavita brand was the most flavorful,fruity and tasty olive oil of the bunch,and I use this oil for everyday cooking as well.
4. Pour the frothy yeast-sugar- lukewarm water mix to flour-salt mixture a little at a time and stir and when dough became to form a ball, toss them onto lightly floured surface, and start kneading the dough
** Using silpat mat is easy to work with
5. Knead the dough until it is not sticky, but smooth surface and elastic. I usually knead for about 8 minutes.
You can test your dough to see if you knead it more. Do the Windowpane test.
What is windowpane test??
Windowpane test is the test the gluten development in the dough.
What you do is to cut off small piece of dough,and gently stretch out/pulling to see if it will hold a paper-thin membrane.If it tore apart,you would knead a bit more and do the test again.
6. When dough became smooth surface and elastic and not sticky, drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto empty bowl and smear it around side and inside bottom to make easy for you to take the dough out later to roll out
7. Place the dough into the bowl,drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the dough and smear the oil all around the dough
8. Cover the bowl with saran, and place the dough in the oven,set the timer for 90 minutes
** Using the preheated/turned off oven to rise the dough (proof the dough) is perfect weather proof method.
9. 90 minutes later, dough should be double in volume
Dough should be double in volume..
10. Once the dough gets double, punch down the dough to let the gas out from the dough and make the inner/outer dough temperature equal
11. Toss the dough onto lightly floured surface, and roll out the dough to the shape you like, and preheat the oven at 425F to 450F
** There are many kinds of rolling pin but I like the French rolling pin
** If you were to make a crispy pizza, roll out thin and bake at higher temperature
12. If you have pizza stone, use the pizza stone to bake it,but if you do not have one,use the cookie sheet or half sheet pan
13. To the half sheet pan/cookie sheet,place non stick foil,sprinkle yellow corn meal
** Sprinkling yellow corn meal before placing the dough onto the foiled half sheet pan is my little secret to make a nice crusty bottom
14. Place the dough onto foiled half sheet pan/cookie sheet, make a little wedge around at about 1" away from the edge using side of your hand
15. Blush the dough with extra virgin olive oil
16. Place the toppings/sauce and let it rest for 5 - 10 minutes or so on the counter, covering the pizza with saran loosely for the dough to rest and poof a little
17. Bake the pizza at 425F-450F till the edge become brown.
** Usually for my oven, it is about 15-18 minutes.
<Italian chicken pizza topping preparation>
1. Pour enough cold water into a sauce pan to cover boneless,skinless chicken breast, add splash of sherry,and some McCormick's steak seasoning and bring it to boil
2. When chicken is cooked through, let it come to room temperature in the water in the sauce pan,and shred them and keep them in a Tupperware
OR..
Buy a whole roasted chicken,shred them and keep them in the tupperware
You would want 4 oz of shredded chicken per pizza
3. To a new sauce pan, add 28 oz crushed tomato, about 3 tbs table sugar, and sprinkle dry oregano and mix well and taste it and,adjust the taste if needed and set the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes with occasional stir and turn it off.
** You would use some of this marinara sauce for pizza and, for rest of the sauce, you can use it for meatball sub, spaghetti or anything else you would want to use the marinara sauce for. You can also freeze them for later use.
** If you prefer the spicy marinara sauce, add pinch of crushed red pepper to the sauce
4. Chop 4 small sun dried tomato and set it aside
5. Slice 1/4 red onion thin,and set it aside in the fridge.
** Put the sliced red onion in a Tupperware,and fill it with water, stir and drain, and pour some water in and lid on,and keep them in the fridge. If you keep the onion this way, chilled water and, by slicing the onion thin get the very bold big zing out from the onion.
** If you did not use all onion you have sliced for pizza, you can use them in salad, sandwich and so forth.
6. Cut the fresh Mozzarella. You would want 9 of 1/2" dice
** You cannot use fresh mozzarella cheese 100% because it hold lots of moisture and it makes puddle of water pool on top of pizza,so it is best to mix with low moisture shredded cheese with low ratio for fresh mozzarella cheese
<Italian chicken pizza assembling the topping>
1. Once the dough gets double, punch down the dough to let the gas out from the dough and make the inner/outer dough temperature equal
2. Toss the dough onto lightly floured surface, and roll out the dough to the shape you like, and preheat the oven at 425F to 450F
** There are many kinds of rolling pin but I like the French rolling pin
** If you were to make a crispy pizza, roll out thin and bake at higher temperature
3. If you have pizza stone, use the pizza stone to bake it,but if you do not have one,use the cookie sheet or half sheet pan
4. To the half sheet pan/cookie sheet,place non stick foil,sprinkle yellow corn meal
** Sprinkling yellow corn meal before placing the dough onto the foiled half sheet pan is my little secret to make a nice crusty bottom
5. Place the dough onto foiled half sheet pan/cookie sheet, make a little wedge around at about 1" away from the edge using side of your hand
6. Blush the dough with extra virgin olive oil
7. Pour some of the marinara sauce on the dough
8. Put chopped sun dried tomato over the sauce,
9. Put shredded chicken over the pizza
10, Put thinly sliced red onion over the pizza
11. Pour 1/8C of grated Parmesan cheese
12. Place 9 of 1/2" dice of fresh mozzarella cheese
13. Sprinkle generous amount of low moisture shredded mozzarella cheese over the pizza
14. Let the pizza rest for 5 - 10 minutes or so on the counter, covering the pizza with saran loosely for the dough to rest and poof a little
15. Bake the pizza at 425F-450F till the edge become brown.
** Usually for my oven, it is about 15-18 minutes.
16. When edge turn brown, and pizza is baked perfectly, take it out from the oven and sprinkle ciffonade fresh basil over
** To make chiffonade herb, you would wash the fresh herb,roll it up,and chop very thin.
17. Enjoy!
A slice of Italian chicken pizza..
This pizza dough recipe makes 17"x11" rectangle pizza.
Depending on how you cut it, you can serve crust-free pizza.
If you had leftover pizza, you can wrap them with foil and bag them up in the freezer bag for later quick lunch/dinner.
To reheat the pizza, if you use oven, you want to preheat the oven at about 425F and heat the pizza up wrapped in foil for about 20 minutes or so.
If you use microwave to reheat the pizza, take the foil off,place the pizza in microwave safe plate,wrap the pizza with paper towel,microwave about 40 seconds or so.
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