Margherita pizza and my tomato sauce

With the Aussie weather finally warming up and resembling something of a summer, we have been using the bbq quite a lot lately. One of the things we enjoy using is the Weber kettle bbq (a moving in gift from a lovely cousin). It's a little more work than the standard gas bbq but the flavour is always worth the time and effort. And with the hot summers we can get here, it's quite useful to be able to cook a roast outside and avoid the house from heating up too.

The bbq comes with a Weber cook book and one of the recipes Mr Shady Pine was keen to try was a recipe for a tray pizza. The original recipe resembles something closer to a supreme pizza but we both love the simplicity of a margherita pizza so thought we would do our own version.

The base is a standard pizza dough recipe and the only part of the recipe that I followed. Any pizza base would work though. The dough was rolled out to about 1/2cm in thickness to fit a rectangle baking tray approx 20x30cm.


I made my tomato/napolitana sauce (see below for recipe) which was spread across the base, followed by a generous topping of bocconcini, grated tasty cheese and fresh basil leaves. This was cooked in the Weber for 25 minutes. When the lid was lifted, we could not have been happier with the results; melted golden topping with thin and crispy base. We ate the pizza with a fresh garden salad and it was just delicious!


This pizza can easily feed 4 or more people. We are already thinking of different variations and plan on making it for family when they visit later this month.

Napolitana tomato sauce
This sauce is extremely versatile. Use it as a base for pizzas or pasta sauces.

Ingredients:
400gm can of chopped Italian tomatoes
1 large garlic clove, crushed
1Tbs olive oil
1tsp dried Italian herbs or small handful of fresh herbs such as basil, parsley, oregano
1tsp raw sugar
S&P to taste

1. In a small saucepan add olive oil and garlic (add dried herbs at this stage if using but do not add the fresh herbs at this point). Saute for about 30 seconds ensuring the garlic doesn’t turn brown.
2. Add the tomatoes, sugar, S&P to the saucepan and stir well.
3. Allow to simmer on a low gentle heat for about 30 minutes or until the tomatoes have broken down.
4. If using fresh herbs, add these at the end of the cooking time and stir through the sauce.