Tikka Masala Pizza

This isn't a very typical pizza. There's a pizza place near us called Can-Am Pizza. While it technically sells normal Italian pizzas, gyros and calzones, I feel fairly confident in saying they never really make those. I know that because the place sells incredible South Indian-style pizzas. Saag Paneer, Butter Paneer, Tandori Chicken: all these things you'd never expect to find on a pizza. But if you enjoy Indian food, you probably also enjoy having naan with it. Placing these meals on a pizza means you're just serving it on a big, round piece of naan. We love the "Butter Paneer" pizza from Can-Am, so we wanted to try to reproduce it at home.

This pizza was made around a tikka masala sauce. For simplicity, we went with a pre-made sauce from the store. For the paneer, I opted to make it from scratch at hom. I also, for the first time, made the dough myself from scratch.

Making paneer is fairly easy. You bring whole milk to the scalding point (just below boiling) and when it's reached that temperature, you add the juice of about half a lemon. This causes the milk to curdle and separate out into curds, which you then pour into a sieve lined with cheese cloth. You bind the cloth up into a ball and then press it down to form a firm cheese. You can fry this (which I've done for this pizza).

After forming the dough, I spooned out the pre-made tikka masala sauce on to the dough just like you would the tomato sauce on a more traditional pizza. I thinly sliced young red onions on a mandoline and sprinkled them over the top of that, then added the paneer. This was baked in a 500 degrees Fahrenheit oven until the crust was good to go.

Ginger and coriander would have been welcome additions to the toppings, as would tomato. Next time I might try adding a normal tomato base to the pizza as well.