White spelt flour is ideal for pastry and bread-making, and here it adds a lovely nutty flavour to Aldo Zilli's pizza. If you can’t find spelt flour you can use ‘00’ flour instead.
Ingredients
For the base:
- 335 ml11¾ fl oz warm water
- 7 g¼ oz dried yeast
- Pinch of sugar
- 540 g19 oz white spelt flour
- 7 g¼ oz salt
- 60 ml2 fl oz extra virgin olive oil
- 2 pinches of dried oregano
For the topping:
- 400 g14 oz can chopped tomatoes
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ½ tsp fried basil
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
- 6 asparagus spears, cut in half
- 2 mozzarella cheese balls, sliced
- 100 g3½ oz blue cheese, crumbled
- 50 g1¾ oz freshly grated parmesan cheese
- Fresh oregano sprigs
Method: How to make Spelt pizza with asparagus and blue cheese
To make the base, mix the water with the yeast and sugar and leave in a warm place for 15 minutes. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, add the yeast mixture, oil and oregano and mix well to make a dough.
. Divide the dough into 4 equal portions and form each into a 10 cm (4 inch) diameter ball. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.
To make the topping, combine the chopped tomatoes with the dried oregano, basil, salt and olive oil and mix well. Lightly blanch the asparagus in boiling water for 3 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 240C/fan oven 220C/Gas Mark 9, or as hot as possible. Knead and roll out the dough to make 4 thin bases. Spread over the tomato sauce and top with the mozzarella slices. Arrange the asparagus and crumbled blue cheese on top. Drizzle with extra olive oil and sprinkle over the Parmesan. Cook for 8–10 minutes, top with the oregano sprigs and serve straight away.
