📋Artichoke Pizza with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Scamorza Cheese
This artichokes pizza combines the earthy taste of artichokes with gooey strong cheese and the sweetness of sundried tomatoes. The artichokes are fresh, cooked beforehand then roasted over the pizza.
Pour the ingredients into the machine and set the program for fresh dough, number 13 on the Kenwood.NB: when using the bread machine the ingredients should be placed in the exact order as listed above, liquids first.
3 cup Caputo flour 00, 1 cup fresh water, 0.5 teaspoon caster sugar, 1.5 teaspoon salt, 1 package yeast
The dough will be ready in 1.5 hours
For the best result, let the dough rest in the fridge overnight, well-floured and wrapped in a plastic bag, otherwise it will crawl all over the fridge.
Cleaning the Artichokes
Remove the hard external leaves
5 medium artichokes
Cut the top spikes of the artichoke
Peel the green part of the stem
Immediately immerse them in water and lemon otherwise they will get dark
1 lemon juice
Shorten the stem and even the bottom
Cut the artichokes in quarters
Remove the choke inside the artichoke
Cut in slices
Boil the artichokes in blanc water for 20 minutes
Otherwise, you can cook them in the pressure cooker with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of water for 5 minutes
Preparing the toppings
Blend in a mixer the sundried tomatoes with the extra virgin olive oil to make a paste
6 slices sun dried tomatoes, 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Cut the scamorza into cubes
1 natural scamorza
Making the pizza
Heat up the oven at 450 F - 220C with the pizza stone inside
Lay the pizza dough, you can make 4 thin or 3 regulars and let it rise while the oven warms up
Once the oven has reached the desired temperature, lay the pizza dough on the pizza stone
Top first with the cheese, then the artichokes and the sundried tomato paste
Cook in the hot oven for 10 minutes
Video
Notes
I always use fresh artichokes, they are not difficult to clean, their flavour is so much better and you can find the instructions in the article.
I use sundried tomatoes which are not preserved in oil. If I can, I never used preserved vegetables as I don't trust the quality of the oil used
Boil the sundried tomatoes for few minutes to sterilize them and remove any salty residual
If you cannot find scamorza cheese you can replace with provola, provolone or a firm mozzarella. You can also try with a matured cheddar, but the gooeyness is not the same.
If you don't know how to clean fresh artichokes follow the instructions below.
Before you clean fresh artichokes wear a pair of gloves as artichokes stain
Immediately immerse the artichokes in water and lemon otherwise they will turn black