HYLIAN TOMATO PIZZA

 

With Hylian tomatoes and other new ingredients flourishing across the kingdom, a number of new recipes are being introduced. Additionally, the creation of Hateno cheese in the village of Hateno has brought even more culinary possibilities. The bakers of the kingdom creatively found a way to combine the Hylian tomatoes, the Hateno cheese, and other vegetables with their bread dough made from Tabantha wheat to create something new and delicious, Hylian Tomato Pizza!

“A pizza made with fresh Hylian tomato. Slices of melty Hateno cheese make it irresistible."

So this was quite the interesting challenge. I didn’t want to just try and make a New York or Neapolitan style pizza. I wanted to try to make something different, something Hyrulean. I was trying to give Hyrulean pizza its own identity. So, I decided to use the wheat bread dough recipe and tweak it slightly to suit a pizza dough. The dough yields a pizza crust similar to the bread in other Hyrulean recipes, but hand stretching it at the end provides a bit more airiness. Also, I decided that the Hylians roast their vegetables separately and add them into the pizza at the end. This also makes sure they are cooked properly and can maintain the shapes in the in game photo.

The description states slices of Hateno cheese, but I opted for shredded. I know, I know… but I wanted to work some gruyere into the mozzarella to flip the flavor profile of the cheese a bit. I tend to use gruyere or Swiss flavors for Hateno cheese, so this blending allowed me to maintain that flavor consistency a bit.

In the end, a very tasty, but slightly different pizza was created. My take on Hyrulean pizza is different from ‘traditional’ pizza, but still delicious. I would love to be able to spend a day exploring Hateno Village and eating one of these pizzas!

The recipe below will make two 14-16 inch pizzas.

Ingredients 

Pizza Dough

1 ½ cups warm water 

2 packet instant yeast

4 - 4 ½ cups bread flour

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp salt

Semolina flour

2 tbsp melted butter (optional)

Pizza Sauce

1 14 oz can whole, peeled tomatoes

1 clove garlic

¼ cup basil leaves, chopped

½ tsp salt

Toppings 

1 ½ cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 ½ cups Gruyere cheese, shredded

2 small red tomatoes, sliced in eight wedges each

1 small yellow tomato, sliced in eight wedges

1 green bell pepper, sliced in rounds

¼ cup black olives

Salt and black pepper 

Olive oil

First we need to make the dough for the pizza crust. Add two packets of yeast to 1 ½ cups of warm water and whisk together. Allow the yeast 5-10 minutes to bloom (you should see bubbles forming on top of the water). Once the yeast has bloomed, add the olive oil to the water and whisk.

In a standing mixture with a dough paddle attachment, add four cups of bread flour, salt, and sugar and mix and a low speed for approximately one minute to combine. Turn the mixer off and then add the water mixture, and mix again at a low speed until the ingredients fully incorporate and a dough is formed. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed to make sure everything mixes and combines. This should take about a minute it or two. If the dough is too sticky or wet, add another ¼ cup of bread flour and mix again. Add an additional ¼ cup of bread flour again if needed. The dough should not require more than 4 ½ cups of flour.

Prepare a cutting board or appropriate surface to need the pizza dough. Sprinkle the surface with some bread flour. Scrape off any dough stuck to the paddle and add it to the rest of the dough. 

Coat your hands with some bread flour and remove the dough from the mixer bowl. Form it onto a large ball and drop it onto the floured surface. Knead the pizza dough by hand until it comes to the proper texture. Use Fold the dough over on itself and use the base of your palms to press firmly into the dough. Repeat the process over and over. It may take as much as 6-8 minutes for the dough to fully come together. The dough is done when it is smooth, holds its shape, and fills back in when you poke a hole in the dough. Once you are done kneading the dough, form it into a ball and time for it to rest.

Grease a large bowl with cooking spray. Place the dough in the bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for about an hour(or until it doubles in size).

At this point, once it has doubled, you can remove it from the bowl and split it evenly into two portions with a knife. Roll them back into two balls and you have two portions of dough for making two pizza crusts.

Place the two dough balls on a large metal sheet pan, spaced apart, allow them to rise again for 30 minutes to an hour. This will make two large pizzas. 

While the dough it rising a second time, make the pizza sauce. Combine the canned tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, and salt together in a good processor. Puree the ingredients until they form a smooth sauce. Pour the contents into as all bowl and reserve for making the pizzas.

Combine the mozzarella and gruyere cheese together in another small bowl. Mix the cheeses together by hand to fully blend them together.
The sauce and cheese will be divided equally across both pizzas.

Now for the toppings! Place the tomato wedges and green pepper rings in a bowl, season with salt and black pepper, coat with a little olive oil and gently toss to coat. Arrange them on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil. Set them aside for now.

Place a pizza stone on a rack in the middle of an oven and preheat the oven to 500°F.

Once the dough is ready, we must stretch it by hand to form the crust. Using a rolling pin to stretch out the dough will press all of the air out of it. 

Place the dough ball on a large cutting board or other appropriate surface sprinkled generously with bread flour. Place the dough ball on the floured surface and generously sprinkle some more four on top of the dough ball. 

Use your finger tips to press in about an inch from the bottom of the dough ball and keep pressing in a dot pattern with your finger tips up to about one inch in from the top of the other side of the ball. Repeat this process across and diagonally up until you have flattened the dough ball and created a one inch raised crust around the circumference. Refer to the diagram below. Repeat this process until you have “flattened” the inside a bit, stretching the dough out a few inches.Now for the final stretching. We want to stretch the pizza to a round 14-16 inch diameter. 

Place your hands flat inside of the dough circle, thumbs overlapping. Pressing your hands against the edge of the inside of the one inch crust (but not over it), gently press down and push your hands out and turn the dough one quarter turn. See the diagram below. Lift your hands, recenter them, and repeat this movement. Repeat over and over until the dough is stretched out to a 14-16 inch diameter circle. Remove any excess flour from the dough.

Sprinkle a pizza paddle or a pliable cutting board with semolina flour. This will prevent the dough from sticking while allowing it to slide. Place the stretched pizza dough on the paddle/cutting board and arrange it as needed. Use a ladle to add a ladle or two of the sauce in the center of the pizza and spread it out evenly across the pizza dough using gentle circular motions with the bottom of the ladle. Ensure the inside of the pizza dough is evenly covered with sauce. 

Sprinkle shredded cheese evenly over the pizza sauce. You can also brush a little melted butter around the outside crust to help get a golden color. 

Slide the pizza onto the pizza stone in the preheated oven. Allow the pizza to bake for 10-12 minutes, until the crust is cooked through, puffed up, and golden, and the cheese is fully melted. Remove the pizza from the oven when finished.

Now stretch out the second dough ball and repeat the process again. When you place this one on the pizza stone to bake, also place the baking sheet of vegetables on another rack in the oven below the pizza. When the second pizza is done remove both the pizza and the vegetables from the oven.

To top the pizzas, arrange 8 tomato slices around the edge of each pizza, 6 red and 2 yellow, as shown in the in game photo. Arrange four green pepper rings on each pizza and sprinkle the black olives on top as well. 

You have two complete Hylian Tomato Pizzas! Slice them up and enjoy!

Learn more about the Hylian Tomato Pizza dish from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at Zelda Dungeon.