Lancashire Pizza is a traditional English recipe (from Lancashire) for a classic pizza-like dish for cream cheese thickened with eggs on an oatmeal base that's topped with tomatoes and Lancashire cheese. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic English version of: Lancashire Pizza.
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Ingredients:
For the Filling:
200g tub of soft cheese
3 medium eggs
2 tsp English mustard
250g Lancashire cheese, grated
1/2 tbsp caster sugar
5 large, ripe, tomatoes
1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
olive oil to drizzle
For the Oatmeal Flour Base:
300g plain white flour
50g fine oatmeal
50g lard
50g butter
pinch of salt
Method:
Begin with the pastry. Combine the flour, oatmeal and salt in a bowl. Dice the lard and butter, add to the bowl and rub into the flour mix with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add cold water 1 tbsp at a time and continue mixing until the mixture comes together as a dough. Turn onto a lightly-floured work surface and roll out until large enough to cover the base and sides of a flan dish (about 25cm in diameter). Transfer to the refrigerator and chill for 15 minutes.
Cover the pastry with baking beads or scrunched-up foil then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 200°C and bake blind for 10 minutes. Remove the foil and/or baking beads then bake for a further 5 minutes before removing from the oven and setting aside to cool.
In the meantime, blanch and peel the tomatoes. To do this, cut a shallow cross at the top end of the tomatoes, ensuring that you do not cut too deeply then plunge into a pan of boiling water. Blanch until the skins start to peel then drain and immediately plunge into ice-cold water. Peel the skins off the tomatoes then cut into thick slices and drain on kitchen roll.
Add the soft cheese to a bowl then mix in the eggs and mustard. Add the Lancashire cheese and blend until thoroughly combined. Season with salt and black pepper to taste then turn the mixture into the prepared pastry shell.
Arrange half the tomato slices over the top of the cheese mix then sprinkle over half the chopped thyme. Season with black pepper and caster sugar then cover with the remaining tomatoes, season to taste then sprinkle over the remainder of the thyme.
Return to the oven and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the cheese mixture is set and golden brown. Cool slightly before serving. Cut into wedges, and if desired drizzle over a little extra-virgin olive oil. Accompany with a crisp salad.
