For this recipe I used a good pre-made dough, I find most good gourmet groceries sell excellent pizza dough these days frozen in a packet of 2 or 4 which makes for easy and quick prep.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 x balls pre-made pizza dough or base
- Olive oil
- 12-14 baby vine tomatoes
- 500g Italian pork sausage
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 300g free-range (organic if poss.) lean bacon, very finely diced
- 2 standard balls fresh mozzarella cheese
- 2 eggs
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Extra fresh basil leaves
For the pizza sauce
- 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
- half cup water
- Small handful (10-12 leaves) fresh basil
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
METHOD
- Preheat oven to 180C fan-forced.
- Place tomatoes on a small baking sheet, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast in the pre-heated oven for 20-30 minutes until soft.
- Whilst tomatoes are roasting, to make the pizza sauce, add all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes until reduced by half. Remove from heat and set aside until required.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan, squeeze the inner sausage meat out of the casings and discard the latter. Break up the sausage meat in the frying pan using the edge of a wooden spatula.
- In a separate, smaller frying pan, dry-fry the fennel seeds over low-medium heat until they start to release their aromas then transfer to a mortar and pestle and grind to a powder, add to the sausage meat and combine thoroughly. Add the bacon and cook everything for 12-15 minutes of until bacon and sausage meat are golden brown. Remove from heat and spread out on kitchen paper.
- To assemble the pizzas, roll out dough to your desired thickness and place on pizza stone or pizza maker paddles. Divide tomato sauce evenly over both pizza bases and spread out leaving a 2cm border around the edge. Top pizzas with half the sausage and bacon crumble each then tear mozzarella into strips and dot over meat. Add the roasted tomatoes then finally crack an egg into the centre of the pizza. Scatter pizza with a few fresh basil leaves and season generously with freshly ground black pepper. Cook pizza in oven or in pizza maker for 10-15 minutes or until base is cooked through. If you are using a regular oven and pizza stone, turn oven temperature up to 200C to cook pizza.
Makes 2 pizzas
Hey!
Was sitting looking out at the rain in Dublin and feeling very nostalgic for Sydney as the Facebook posts of the amazing weather over there came pouring in. Was browsing taste.com.au and found your blog. The photos really are incredible. Made this pizza for one of the girls who came out to Sydney with me and went down a treat with a nice warming glass of Valpolicella. So I guess I owe you a thank you for brightening up a very dreary Irish day.
Karen