Spicy Hawaiian Pizza

What I like making homemade pizzas is the unique toppings that I can create. I can add any of my favourite ingredients on top, and as many as I like. This spicy Hawaiian pizza was baked on the same day when I made the BBQ chicken pizza. One dough, two variations. I just topped the pizza with a few slices of salami, my daughter’s favourite, then turned the traditional Hawaiian pizza into a spicy one, adding a kick in flavour and going really well with pineapples.

Spicy Hawaiian Pizza (Printable recipe)

Ingredients of pizza sauce:

• 1 can (400 gm) Italian peeled tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 25 gm unsalted butter
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• black pepper, to taste
• preserved olive, to taste

Method of making sauce:

1. Heat butter in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, cook until soft and fragrant. Be sure not to burn the ingredients. It tastes bitter otherwise.
2. Add tomatoes and increase heat to high. Bring it to a boil. Add tomato paste, sugar, salt, pepper, oregano, basil. Mix well and continue to cook until it boils again. Reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens. Let cool a bit and ready for use.

Ingredients of assembling pizza (makes one 25.5cm/10inches pizza):

• 1 to 2 slices pineapple (canned or fresh, wiped dry)
• 6 slices hot or mild hot salami
• 1 to 2 slices ham, diced
• Mozzarella cheese, to taste
• olive oil, for drizzling

Method of assembling pizza:

1. Preheat oven to 200C (395F).
2. Prepare pizza dough (Please refer to this recipe for making dough.) Roll out the dough out into a round disc, about 0.5cm in thickness. Transfer onto a slightly larger greased pizza pan (sheet pan). Drizzle a bit of olive oil on the dough surface and spread evenly to avoid your dough from being soggy. Spoon couples of tablespoons of homemade tomato sauce and spread evenly on the dough. Add some cheese, then ham, pineapple, salami. Sprinkle the rest of cheese on top.
3. Bake in preheated oven for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until the base is golden brown, cheese melts, and toppings are bubbly. Serve hot.

Notes:

• Oregano is commonly used in making pizza sauce. It’s also known as “pizza herb”. I find the dried ones are good enough to make pizzas. Keep a bottle of this pizza herb in my pantry, always ready for use at any time.
• Brown sugar is a good partner with tomatoes. You can use white sugar instead.
• I used the canned, peeled and deseeded tomatoes for connivance. If you like to use fresh tomatoes, just put 500 grams of tomatoes in hot water. Then you can easily peel off their skins. Deseed and cut into dices. Follow above steps to cook the sauce. You have to adjust the amount of seasoning and cooking time as fresh tomatoes contain more liquid.