Indian Pizza

A spongy inside and crisp outside pizza, this is my go to southern recipe anytime my pantry is empty. I modified my mother’s original recipe to sauté the onions in the same griddle thus adding some more depth. It serves beautifully at breakfast or even a complete meal when you really aren’t in the mood to cook elaborate. All it needs is a little brown sugar for company!

Ingredients ¾ cup cream of wheat ¼ cup yoghurt Salt to taste Spice mix 6 curry leaves 2 dry red chillies ¼ tsp urad seeds ¼ 1 small red onion ¼ tsp mustard seeds ¾ tsp fresh ginger root 2 tsp sesame oil(or your choice of oil)

Preparation Time 20 minutes Serves 2 Pots n pans Griddle for cooking the pancake Pan for mixing batter

Method

1. Heat griddle.
2. Mix cream of wheat, salt with yoghurt to make a thick batter and set aside. SOS if batter gets too thick, simply add some water to thin it down.
3. Chop onion, ginger and set aside.
4. Pour 1 tsp oil onto heated griddle. Add mustard seeds and urad seeds. When they splutter, add red chillies broken into 2, ginger, curry leaves and finally onion. Saute till onion is lightly browned.
5. Pour batter onto griddle and stir the spice mix into the batter on the griddle itself. Once batter is evenly mixed with spice mix, spread out till it is even on the griddle. Lightly drizzle ½ tsp oil around the outer edges of batter.
6. Cover griddle with lid and let cook, a few minutes on medium heat(SOS dear reader since I don;t know the intensity of your stove, please monitor your stove. What I’m trying to do is mimic an oven with the lid on top).
7. When bottom side is lightly browned and crisp, flip pancake to other side, and let cook. Drizzle remaining ½ tsp oil around outer edges of pancake. Remove from griddle when other side is also cooked.

Health benefits
Too often I’ve seen curry leaves go to waste when people carefully pick out them out from their meal. Lots of health benefits from this generous spice. Curry leaves are great for hair growth. I wonder if that’s why Indian women have such lustrous hair. And its known to improve eyesight. So I hope you’ll reconsider next time you are contemplating tossing the curry leaf.

Fun facts
Curry leaves have nothing to do with the generic curry powder that is sold in grocery stories. This distinctive leaf is used in Himalayan and southern Indian cooking extensively.

Suggested Pairing
Don’t you just love this quick, crispy pizza that needs no rising agent. Try it with clove ginger tea for a delicious ending.

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