Gluten Free Vegan Pizza

This pizza is light and easy on the stomach. It goes well with a selection of salads

It's been a long time since we last had a "Pizza Friday" in our house, as my husband avoids yeast and dairy, I avoid dairy and my stepson avoids gluten and dairy. It's not exactly conducive to cooking a dish which is based on wheat, yeast and cheese, is it? But I wanted to make pizza so badly, and in the kitchen we had flour, potatoes, passata, buckwheat grains and fine cornmeal, plus some milk and soya milk. Hmmmm... a good start... I planned a soda bread-based paneer pizza for the two younger ones, while the rest of us had this gluten-free vegan pizza. I have to admit that the whole dinner took about 3 hours from start to finish, including making the tofu and the paneer, cooking and mashing the potatoes for the base and even grinding the buckwheat into flour and frying a few chips for the kids- but it was fun experimenting and the outcome was worth posting. There are some gluten and yeast-free pizza recipes online, but most either contain egg and/ or  a ready-made mix or flour and I don't like relying on expensive mixes- I like to know I can make it myself, from ingredients I have in the cupboard.

No doubt we will modify the recipe for this gluten-free pizza base; we could try less potato and adding millet (bajri) flour and/ or gram (chickpea) flour as well, but the result from this first time was fine. In fact, the cornmeal makes it taste rather like polenta, so the Italian theme stayed strong in the mix. Despite pre-cooking the base, however, it does seem to absorb the tomato sauce topping very readily so next time I shall use more sauce and not put it on until the last minute. The base also unexpectedly rose a fair bit, so I would make it a little thinner and pile the toppings on even more for the perfect bite. But for now, here's exactly how I did it this time:




(Makes a large pizza- feeds about 5 perhaps)

700g potato, diced but not peeled
100g buckwheat flour
200g fine yellow cornmeal
3 tsps gluten-free baking powder (Such as Allergycare, Barkat or Dove's Farm brands)

1tsp seasalt
50ml extra-virgin olive oil
about 75ml water

• Steam and mash the potato- don't add any liquid. Let it sit to dry out as much as possible.
• Mix the cornmeal and buckwheat with the potato, and add the salt and baking powder.
• Rub in the oil.
• Mix to a cookie dough-like consistency with the water. Add just enough so that it holds together.
• Press onto an oiled baking sheet, about 1cm thick, or just under. I used a spatula to press it down evenly.
• Bake in an oven preheated to 200C before adding the toppings and heating up. This ensures the dough is cooked through and a little brown on the top, just to seal it and prevent sogginess.
• Add your toppings- I used sauce made from 250ml passata, squares of grilled marinated tofu,sweetcorn,  thin slices of roasted pumpkin and some small broccoli florets. You could also use yeast flakes, tahini, olives, yellow or red cherry tomatoes, roasted aubergine strips, peppers or courgettes. I like to add generous sprinklings of dried oregano and coarse black pepper too.
• Replace in the oven until heated through.