Tandoori Paneer Pizza
In the last three weeks, I’ve made 4 pizzas from scratch, eaten countless frozen Trader Joe’s pizzas, been to Oggi’s twice for pizza and beer, had Round Table at my in-law’s and had Little Caesars for a lazy dinner. Wow! I’m a little shocked at my pizza consumption after seeing it all together in one sentence. This is what happens when I try to avoid cheese for a while!
The reason why I’ve made so many pizzas from scratch is that I am obsessed with Jim Lahey’s no-knead pizza dough. Steve and I got his book, My Bread The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method as a wedding present last year and I’ve been making the breads and pizza’s from it all year. A couple weeks ago, we had tons of CSA produce that we weren’t really eating. It was starting to rot and I really needed to use it up. So I ended up whipping up a batch of this pizza dough and throwing everything from our CSA box onto it. Steve wasn’t so sure about a pizza with green beans on it. But it turned out fantastic!
That success inspired me to come up with more pizza toppings. My first instinct was tandoori. We were having a friend over for dinner, and since he’s a vegetarian, I decided to create a pizza around tandoori paneer pizza.
Bell peppers and onions were the obvious choice and I decided to add a thinly sliced potato for a smooth texture too. I have to say, my mandolin is my new best friend!
Ingredients
For the Pizza Dough
- 3 cups All Purpose Flour
- ¾ cups Whole Wheat Flour
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- ¾ tsp salt
- ¾ tsp sugar
- 1 cups water
For the Marinade
- ¼ cup yogurt
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves (powdered (optional))
- 2 tsp ginger (finely grated or paste)
- 2 tsp garlic (finely grated or paste)
- ½ tsp turmeric
- ½ tsp chili powder (or less if you don’t like spicy food)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp cilantro leaves
- 2 drops red food coloring (optional)
- ½ cup paneer cheese (cubed)
For the Pizza
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tbsp chili sauce (I used Malaysian Sambal)
- 1 onion (thinly sliced)
- 3 bell peppers (thinly sliced (a combination of colors looks beautiful but anything works))
- 1 medium potato (thinly sliced)
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ cup shredded mozzarella
- 2 tbsp cilantro leaves (for garnish)
Instructions
For the Dough
- In a medium sized bowl, toss in all the dry ingredients and mix.
- Add water, and mix it in (I use my hands but a wooded spoon works too) until a soft dough forms. Mix for at least 30 seconds.
- Cover the bowl and set aside at room temperature for at least 2 hours. The dough should be more than double in volume.
For the Marinade
- Mix all the ingredients together. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the marinade.
- To the remaining marinade, add the paneer cubes.
- Mix and let marinade for 15 to 30 minutes.
For the Pizza
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Slice the potatoes, onions, and peppers, I use a mandolin. Keep the potatoes separate from the onions and peppers.
- When you’re ready to start the pizza: Pull out half the dough and spread onto a well oiled 13×18 inch rimmed baking sheet. (You can either freeze the other half of the dough or make 2 pizzas) I like to tear the dough into 4 pieces and put on all four corners of the sheet. Then I press it out and have them meet in the middle. The dough should make a thin layer covering the entire sheet tray.
- Spread out the dough on a sheet pan or round pizza pan.
- Mix the tomato paste, honey and chili sauce. Spread onto the pizza dough in a thin layer.
- Slice the potato. In a bowl, mix the slices of potato with 1 tbsp of the paneer marinade and coat evenly. Spread the slices onto the pizza.
- Spread the onion and pepper mixture on top of the potatoes.
- Pick out the paneer cubes from the marinade, place evenly over the pizza.
- Place the pizza in the oven for 20 minutes.
- Pull out and sprinkle the mozzarella over the pizza.
- Put back in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Until the edges are golden brown and crisp.
- Garnish with cilantro leaves and serve.
