Smoked Chicken Pizza with Basil and Mozzarella

Make the dough. The recipe is simple and accessible, we took it as our standard and recommend it to everyone. So far nobody has complained, except out of spite. Read “Pizza dough”. It is all very simple there. Roll out the finished dough and place it on a pan greased with olive oil. Be sure to prick the dough with a fork.

Prepare the tomato sauce in advance. You do not need much. One ripe tomato or a third of a can of canned tomatoes (120-130 g) is enough. In the worst case, a scant cup of good tomato juice (200 ml), preferably homemade. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan, add the chosen tomato (juice, peeled tomato or canned tomato pulp), a pinch of pepper, salt and nutmeg. Add 1-1.5 tsp of sugar (5–7 g) and simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens. That is the simple version. You can use the “complex version” instead: salsa di pomodoro tomato sauce. We make it in autumn in small jars, and it lasts a long time.

Spread the tomato sauce over the dough. Preferably not too much sauce, otherwise the toppings will “float”. A thin layer is enough, as they say.

Wash the basil and pat it dry with a paper towel. If the basil is a little limp, soak it in cold water for a few hours first. Pick off all the leaves. Keep 6-8 small leaves to decorate the finished pizza, and arrange the rest over the sauced dough.

We usually grate mozzarella for pizza on a coarse grater. This time we broke our own rule and cut the mozzarella into thin slices. Arrange the sliced mozzarella. It is even better when the cheese lies in “islands”. This time we cut all the toppings quite large.

Cut a large ripe tomato crosswise into thin rounds, without peeling or removing the seeds. Arrange the tomato rounds. Sprinkle the whole pizza with 1-2 pinches of dried oregano and add the capers. Smoked chicken pizza should have a hint of smoke.

Slice the smoked chicken breast very thinly. As thin as possible. Stores can often slice any meat decently.

Arrange the sliced chicken breast and pitted black olives, whole or halved.

Sprinkle the whole pizza with finely grated Parmesan. I recommend putting almost all the Parmesan along the rim, the edge, and leaving just a little for the center. Sprinkle the pizza with olive oil.

All that is left is to bake the pizza. Our smoked chicken pizza bakes very well in the oven at 200°C for 20 minutes. Still, keep an eye on it, since no two ovens are alike. Nobody can guarantee that 200 degrees is really 200. After 15-16 minutes, lift the edge of the dough with a knife and check how done it is underneath. As soon as the dough starts to brown, that is enough; it is more important not to overdry it. Otherwise you end up with the dreaded “chip”. Our oven at home is well calibrated. We know exactly how it bakes, so there are no surprises.

When the baking is done, take the smoked chicken pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a wooden pizza board. A very handy thing! Arrange the remaining green basil leaves on top of the finished pizza.

Cut the smoked chicken pizza into 6-8 slices with a pizza wheel. Serve it on the same wooden board.

Pizza should be eaten before it gets cold, and reheated smoked chicken pizza is a crime. Better to make another one.