Fresh Rocket, Parmesan and Goat’s Cheese Pizza

My introduction to Australian food happens through television. It has to as I can barely afford to eat out. When I first got here, the first season of Masterchef just ended and everyone who had a TV raved about it especially after finding out I was doing a thesis on the sociology of food. I watched My Kitchen Rules religiously and was somehow disappointed with the aggrandizement of French cooking techniques as the show seemed to ingrain the idea that to be of a culinary pedigree, one has to cook in terms of the rhetoric and flourishes of French food. In the end, they gave the title to a couple with Lebanese roots whose traditional Lebanese dessert had to be deconstructed French-style so as to appear beautiful on a plate. The second season of Masterchef Australia has begun and for the life of me I cannot get over how all the crying is ruining the cooking moments. It’s a cooking competition and every elimination and win is met by some form of crying that the show just has to milk out just so they can fill in the quota of having to churn out six episodes a week. If you can muster all the crying, you can sit through a lot of creativity and Masterchef, more than My Kitchen Rules, is a bit more instructive. So far, they gave good tips for almost everything from the Aussie/Kiwi/British (everyone in the Commonwealth seems to claim ownership of it) Pavlova to the Vietnamese Nuoc Nam sauce. My favorite idea though didn’t come from these so-called masterclasses (they love the word here), but from a freak opportunity that stemmed from a misprint in a menu.

The Masterchefs were divided into two teams and they were to run two Italian restaurants separately with the one earning the most cash winning thus forcing someone from the losing team to get eliminated. The team that would eventually win misprinted their menu and wrote down a fresh rocket in their pizza section. Instead of allowing the servers the awkward task of having to tell customers that it was a misprint, Marion, in charge of the pizzas, made a fresh rocket and parmesan pizza and it looked so yummy that I had to try it myself. And here’s what it looked like:


It’s the perfect summer pizza only winter has dawned where I am.

I cheated a lot on this pizza. I have no time to make the dough myself so I just buy Indian roti or Lebanese flat bread and use them as pizza bases. Maybe you can use store-bought pizza crusts but they all taste like cardboard to me. Besides, making use of these flat breads give the pizza a crunchy and flakey texture that just adds a rustic touch to it.

Preheat the oven to a 160 degrees Celsius. On a baking sheet, place the crust and rub crushed garlic to it, drizzle with about a tablespoon of olive oil, a pinch of salt and pepper, a pinch of chili flakes if you like it spicy like I do and about a tablespoon of finely grated parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven for about ten minutes. If you want meat, it would be nice to top this with prosciutto. If you do, bake it for about 12-15 minutes at 150 degrees. If you have pine nuts, consider putting a small handful on the side of the baking sheet to use as toppings for the pizza after.

After ten minutes, take it out and immediately top with fresh rocket leaves, shaved parmesan cheese and the pine nuts. Parmesan would do, but since I had some leftover goat’s cheese whose flavor I love with rocket, I put it in anyway. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Make big slices. This rocket leaves are a bit messy and needs to be folded within the crust as you take a big bite. Enjoy!