Chicken tikka pizza

I love Indian food and I love pizza so let's put them together to create an Indian-Italian fusion meal! For today's lunch I'm preparing a chicken tikka pizza with what I believe is the best pizza dough I have made up to date.

Chicken tikka pizza

Recipe from novicehousewife.com

Cooking time: 2 hours 30 minutes plus one day for pizza dough

Yield: 3 personal pizzas

Ingredients

Pizza dough:

2 1/4 cups unbleached high-gluten bread flour or all-purpose flour, chilled

.8tsp salt

1/2 tsp instant yeast

2 tbsp olive oil

7 ounces water, ice cold

semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

Chicken Marinade:

8 ounces chicken 

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup plain yogurt

2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

1 tbsp roasted ground cumin

1/2 tsp garam masala

1 1/2 tsp red chili powder ie cayenne

salt to taste

1 tsp mustard or vegetable oil

1 tbsp gram flour (besan)

1 1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp onion powder

Pizza sauce:

1 tbsp butter

1 inch stick cinnamon

2 green cardamoms, crushed slightly

1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds

3/4 tbsp ginger garlic paste

salt, to taste

1 tsp red chili powder

1/4 cup tomato paste

2-3 green chilies, finely copped

1/2 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves

1/2 tbsp roasted ground cumin

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp butter or olive oil

cornmeal or semolina flour for dusting

1/2 tbsp slivered garlic (optional)

fresh coriander or mint, chopped

freshly grated Mozzarella

Directions

1. Prepare the pizza dough one day ahead. To make the dough, activate instant dry yeast by mixing it with 1/2 of the water, 3.5 ounces. The water should be lukewarm, between 110-115 degrees F. Let stand for 10 minutes or until the yeast is bubbly.
2. Combine the flour, salt, and yeast mixture in a large bowl. Add the oil and remaining water, which should be ice cold. Stir together with the paddle attachment on your mixer. When the ingredients are incorporated, switch to the dough hook and knead for 5-7 minutes or until the dough has come together. It should be sticky but be able to clear the sides of the bowl. 
3. Lightly dust your work surface with flour. Transfer the pizza dough to the counter. Portion the dough into 3 equal pieces, shaping each into a ball. Dust more flour onto your hands and dough while you are shaping it to prevent it from sticking to your hands. Transfer the dough balls onto a lined baking sheet. Spray with oil and cover with plastic. Chill the dough overnight or for up to 3 days. You can also freeze the dough for next time, wrapping each portion separately. 
4. To marinade the chicken, cut the chicken into bite size portions. Combine the remaining ingredients from the lemon juice to the onion powder in a bowl and mix together. Add the chicken and marinade for at least 4 hours. 
5. On the day you are ready to make the pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator at least 2 hours before baking. Dust your work counter with flour, followed by a spray of oil. Remove the dough from the plastic and place on the dusted counter. Gently press into flat disks and shape into a 5 inch circle, 1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle the tops with flour, mist with more oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Rest for 2 hours. 
6. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cinnamon stick, green cardamom and fenugreek seeds and let sizzle for about 30 seconds, releasing the aromatics. Add the ginger garlic paste and chili powder and stir. Add the green chilies, tomato paste, and salt and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring well. Add in the water and cumin and cook until well heated, about 5-7 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.
7. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator. Cook by either grilling or broiling on high for about 4 minutes or until cooked. Remove from heat and set aside.
8. Preheat the oven to the highest temperature. If using a pizza stone, preheat the stone while the oven is preheating. Otherwise, use the back of a sheet pan (this does not have to preheated.)
9. Dust the sheet pan with cornmeal or semolina. Roll out the pizza dough and lay on the back of the sheet pan. Brush the melted butter or olive oil on top followed by the slivered garlic, if using. Brush 2-3 tbsp of the pizza sauce on top. Spread a generous portion of the chicken on top and sprinkle mozzarella cheese. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the crust is golden brown. Garnish with chopped coriander or mint. Serve. 

Nutritional Analysis:
per pizza: 634 calories, 19.9g fat (3.4g saturated, 4.9g polyunsaturated, 9.8g monounsaturated),  86.4g carbohydrates, 5.8g fiber, 28.2g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

The great thing about this pizza dough is that you can prepare a large batch ahead of time and just freeze them until next time. They keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.

The dough is very elastic and will easily stretch to the desired shape. When spraying oil, I simply used cooking spray. 

Now for the chicken marinade and sauce, I had to make quite a few substitutions because I couldn't find the ingredients. For the chicken marinade, I used fresh garlic and ginger instead of the ginger garlic paste, and created my own paste. Mince the two ingredients and using the side of your knife, press down on the ginger and garlic several times until the mixture resembles a paste.

For the gram flour aka besan, I used all-purpose flour. Gram flour is made from chickpeas and thus has a distinctive taste, texture, and consistency that all-purpose flour does not; however, since it was only 1 tbsp worth I decided to just go with AP.

For the sauce, I added in 1/4 cup fresh chopped onion, 1/2 fresh minced ginger, and 1/2 fresh minced garlic instead of the ginger and garlic paste. Saute these first in the butter, followed by the spices, tomato paste and chili, then water and cumin. 

I also couldn't find fenugreek seeds so fennel was used instead and fenugreek leaves were substituted with celery leaves. 

When laying the pizza dough on the baking sheet, it was difficult to peel it off the counter perfectly, even though it was dusted with flour. I ended up having to reshape it and roll it out on the baking sheet itself.

Time to assemble!

I went heavier on the mozzarella cheese to make it a real pizza!

Eight minutes later at 500 degrees F the pizzas were ready!

All the spices really shined in this pizza. Instead of just a regular pizza topped with chicken tikka, the entire pizza smelled and tasted of Indian cuisine. The best part, in my opinion, was the dough (much better than the recipe from allrecipes.com that I've made in another post). The bottom was soft but the crust was nice and crispy. Overall a success!