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Sweet Red Onion And Hazelnut Pizzette

By Anna Jones

These little pizzette are somewhere in the territory of a pizza but they are made with spelt four, which gives them a deeper, nuttier tone.

Photography by John Dale

These little pizzette are somewhere in the territory of a pizza but they are made with spelt four, which gives them a deeper, nuttier tone. Hazelnuts are folded through the base too, and toast as they bake to add an amazingly sweet, nutty backnote. The depth of the spelt and hazelnut base stands up to the clean fresh goat’s cheese and caramel onion topping and the nourishing green from the wilted spinach. I serve these for a crowd, or with a simple salad for an offbeat supper.

  • Serves: Makes 8 pizzette

Ingredients

For the dough

  • 550g light spelt flour (regular bread flour would work too)
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt (10g)
  • 1 teaspoon dry yeast or a 15g sachet
  • a good handful of toasted and smashed hazelnuts
  • 260ml warm water
  • 50ml rapeseed oil, plus more for proving

For the topping

  • 3 red onions, peeled and sliced
  • olive oil
  • 400g spinach
  • a good grating of nutmeg
  • 1 clove of garlic, peeled
  • a bunch of fresh marjoram or oregano, leaves picked
  • 6 tablespoons rapeseed oil
  • 250g soft goat’s cheese or
  • ricotta cheese
  • a good pinch of salt

Method

  1. Weigh all the dry dough ingredients into a mixing bowl. Add the warm water bit by bit, mixing as you go. Then add the oil in the same way. Mix until the whole lot comes together as a dough. This can be done in a stand mixer (like a KitchenAid – using the dough hook) or a food processor.
  2. Knead the dough until it’s elastic and super-stretchy. This will take 15 minutes by hand or 10 minutes if done in a mixer. Don’t skip on the kneading, as this is what will give a great dough.
  3. Once it is a smooth, even, springy ball, put the dough back into the mixing bowl, cover and leave in a warm place to rest for 1 hour or so – it should double in size. Once it has risen, tip the dough on to a clean work surface and divide it into 8 equal pieces. Mould each piece of dough into a tight round roll.
  4. Slosh a good glug of rapeseed oil into a big roasting tin and roll the dough balls around, coating each one with oil. This’ll stop them proving into each other and give the pizza base a lush crust. Leave the tin of pizza bases covered in a warm place to rise for another 30 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, fre your oven up as hot as it’ll go – anything above 240°C/ fan 220°C/gas 9 is good. Place a pizza stone or a heavy baking sheet in the middle of the oven to heat up.
  6. Now on to the toppings. Fry the onions slow and low for about 15 minutes in a little olive oil, until soft and sweet – then add the spinach and nutmeg. Set aside. Chop the garlic with the marjoram until fine and mix with the oil.
  7. Once the dough balls have had their fnal 30 minutes’ rise, carefully roll each one into a rough circle, patching up little holes that the crushed hazelnuts might make. Top with the marjoram oil, spoon on the spinach mixture and dot with the goat’s cheese or ricotta. Bake on the pizza stone or baking sheet in the super-hot oven for 8–10 minutes. Eat the pizzette as soon as they are cool enough.
Anna Jones

Anna Jones is a cook, stylist and writer.

One grey, late-for-work day, she decided to quit her office job after reading an article about following your passion by which bit of the newspaper you read first.

Within days, she had a place on the training programme at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen in London. After earning her stripes there, she went to chef at Le Caprice in London and also cooked in Spain and the Chianti fields of Tuscany. She then returned to the Jamie Oliver family to work as his food stylist, writer and food creative on books, TV shows and food campaigns. During that time, she cooked in all sorts of places, from East End school kitchens and Sydney beaches to American Indian reservations. She helped shape up the fattest town in America, led cooking classes at the TED talks and cooked for rock stars, royalty and the G20 at Downing Street.

After seven incredible years at Jamie Oliver, Anna now works independently as a stylist and food writer in London. She has worked with some of the best-loved cooks and chefs of our time, from Antonio Carluccio to Yotam Ottolenghi, Sophie Dahl to the Fabulous Baker Brothers. She has also worked with some of the country’s biggest food brands, including Daylesford, Leon and innocent drinks, for whom she wrote the book Hungry?

Anna believes that vegetables should be put at the centre of every table, and is devoted to helping people make a long-term commitment to eating well and feeling amazing. She is led by the joy of food – the spritz of freshness when you peel an orange or the crackle and waft of deep savoury spice when you add curry leaves to a pan of hot oil – and thinks that healthy eating is as much about pleasure as anything else.

Anna writes regular columns for The Guardian Cook and The Pool. She lives, writes and cooks in Hackney, East London. For examples of her styling work, please click here.