I'll let you in on a little secret - I'm terrible at making dough. I've tried kneading pizza dough a few times, and yes I got the right texture (it came out soft and moist) but I could never flatten it out equally on the pan (some parts were always thick, some thin). But I love pizza. I love making my own pizza too. So how am I able to make pizza when I can't make proper dough? I substitute! Here are some of the tricks I've pulled off, using three kinds of bread!
1)This is Lebanese bread (you find them everywhere in Nigeria. I haven't found anything exactly like it here in the Philippines - closest is the Greek pita bread). What I do is was spread some ketchup on the bread, drop some slices of hotdog, tomatoes, mushrooms, then some mozzarella cheeze and into the oven. I take it out when I see the cheese has melted. This is insanely delicious! When it comes to pizza, I always prefer thin crust, and that's exactly what I get here because this bread is thin - so the edges are a bit crispy and the middle really soft.
The only challenge is there's no way to slice this! You either have to tear the bread in half (tricky) or just hold the whole thing and enjoy! You can also roll the bread like a shawarma ;)
2) Your regular square bread!
I've done this multiple times, especially when I was in England, but the only picture I have is the one time when I folded the pizza into a sandwich. So same steps as above - spread ketchup, add the hotdog and cheese and put in the oven. I don't keep this in the oven too long because this bread toasts easily - I still want it to be soft, and not crispy all over (I don't want it tasting like biscuit pizza lol).
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| I apologize for this poor photo! but you get the point :) |
3) This next one is a trick my Dad and I did in Iran this year. My mom is the dough queen, but she wasn't around. SO my Dad went to a bread shop (Iran has their own kind of bread; they're not into square bread or baguettes. Their typical bread is almost similar to the Indian's naan). The bread shop my Dad went to was one where they made noon sangak (go to google here). The bread is cooked on top of hot stones, inside a brick dome. The bread is usually turned twice inside before taken out. My Dad requested them to give him a half-cooked bread, meaning, to give him the bread after being turned in the dome only once. In the picture below, you'll see the bread flat on the baking pan, with tomato sauce on top. We overloaded our pizza with toppings because Iran has amazzzinnnnggg fresh vegetables -mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, olives, onions, green pepper (and really cheap too, compared to Nigeria or the Philippines) and mozzarella is also really cheap there! the chicken salami too.
I put this on my instagram some time ago - pizza competition with my mom. Of course she did better because no substitution comes close to reeaaallll dough!!
