Swedish kebabpizza (or a clusterfuck of a pizza?)

In Sweden we put bananas on pizza. And we eat "kebabpizza" literarily meaning kebab pizza but it's more of a Döner pizza if you ask people who know kebabs. That's what we call it in Sweden, we call Döner kebab. Anyway, every region in Sweden claims their kebab pizza is the best. And what puts them apart is the sauce. I'll show you how to make Swedish kebab pizza with Skåne-sauce (from south of Sweden).

Everything here is made from scratch, even the kebab, so it takes two days: on day one you make the kebab meat, the dough and the kebab sauce, and on day two you build and bake the pizzas. This yields 2 big pizzas. Or one, if you're a hungry Swede on a Friday night.

Ingredients

Kebab meat:

• 500 g minced beef
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp paprika powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp plain white flour

Pizza dough:

• 250 ml lukewarm water
• 15 g fresh yeast (or a sachet of dry yeast, straight into the flour)
• 6 dl plain white flour (about 390 g)
• A generous pinch of salt (more than you think)
• 2 tbsp oil (olive oil tastes best, but a real cheap Swedish pizzeria uses rapeseed oil)

Skåne kebab sauce:

• 2 dl Turkish yoghurt (full fat, not the zero-fat one)
• 1 dl mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp ketchup
• 1 clove of garlic, pressed
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika powder
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander seeds
• A pinch of cayenne pepper, for heat
• A pinch of salt and fresh black pepper
• 70-100 ml orange Fanta (yes, really)

Tomato sauce:

• 1 can whole peeled tomatoes (400 g; only the tomatoes, not the juice)
• About 1 tbsp each of garlic powder, onion powder and dried oregano
• 1 fresh clove of garlic
• A little salt and a pinch of sugar

Toppings (for 2 pizzas):

• Cheap pre-grated pizza cheese (no fancy mozzarella, see below)
• 1/4 head of iceberg lettuce (or white cabbage)
• 1 red onion
• 1 tomato
• 4-6 feferoni (Swedish pepperoncini, the pickled peppers on the foreign food shelf)

This is how you do it!

Day 1: The Kebab Meat

1. Put the minced beef in a big bowl and dump in the salt, the oregano, the paprika, the garlic and onion powder, the cumin, the black pepper and the flour. The flour holds it all together, so the roll slices clean later.
2. Mix it really well with your hands until it's even and compact. It should feel like a sausage. Or like a hard ass after the gym.

   

3. Put it in a plastic bag and shape it into a thick, even roll. Squeeze it hard for about a minute so all the air bubbles get out, and tie it really tight. If you don't, the kebab will be a pain to slice.

   

4. Into the fridge for at least 1 hour, better overnight. Meanwhile, make the dough and the sauce.

Day 1: The Dough

1. Crumble the fresh yeast into the lukewarm water. No need to dissolve it first. Then add the flour and a generous pinch of salt. People always salt their doughs too little. Put it in there.
2. Knead it for 15-20 minutes by hand, or let the machine do it in 5-6 minutes. When it's a nice ball that doesn't stick to the sides, add the oil and knead it in.

   

3. Let it stand under cling film for about half an hour. Then cut it in two, shape two balls, oil them a little and put them in the fridge until tomorrow. A slow rise in the cold makes a better dough.

   

Day 1: The Skåne Kebab Sauce

1. Spoon the yoghurt, the mayo and the ketchup into a bowl, then the onion powder, the paprika, the coriander and the cayenne. Mix until it's smooth, creamy and a little pink.

   

2. Press in the garlic, grind in some fresh black pepper, add a little salt, mix and taste. Fantastic already. But it's missing something: sweetness, acidity, and it should be a little more runny.
3. And here comes the secret ingredient of Skåne: orange Fanta. Somewhere around 70, maybe 100 ml. No water, no sugar, no kefir, nothing else. The Fanta does all of it.

   

4. Pour the sauce into a squeeze bottle and into the fridge for at least an hour. Made on day one it's even better: the garlic and everything get to work overnight.

   

Day 1: Baking the Kebab

1. Take the meat out of the fridge and out of the plastic, and wrap it in a double layer of aluminium foil. Poke some holes in the bottom, so the juices and the fat can drip out.

   

2. Put it on a rack over a dish, and pour a little water into the dish so the dripping fat doesn't burn and stink. Bake it at 100°C for 3 hours. It should come out dry and kind of boring, just like the real kebab at the pizzeria.

   

3. Let it cool for half an hour, then into the fridge overnight. Cold, it gets firm, and you can slice it really thin tomorrow.

Day 2: The Tomato Sauce

1. Take the dough balls out of the fridge and let them rest under a towel for an hour or two, they're cold. When they've risen a bit, they're ready. Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce (you can make it on day one too). It's like the New York style one, and you don't cook it: it cooks on the pizza in the oven.
2. Take only the whole tomatoes out of the can and leave the juice. Make a Bloody Mary out of it, or a Virgin Mary, whatever you like. Add the garlic powder, the onion powder, the oregano and the fresh garlic clove.

   

3. Blend it all smooth, then a little salt and a pinch of sugar. I know you don't like sugar. We use sugar here, and it's a bomb.

Day 2: The Kebab Pizza

1. Crank the oven up to 275°C, or as hot as it goes, with top and bottom heat. Put a pizza stone or a pizza steel in there and let it heat up properly. No stone? An upside-down baking tray works too.

   

2. Prepare the toppings. Shred the lettuce finely and throw it in ice water, so it gets crunchy as hell. Slice the red onion thinly. Slice the tomato and salt it lightly so it lets out some juice.

   

3. Slice the cold kebab as thin as you can: a mandoline, a potato peeler, a cheese slicer or a sharp knife. Whatever you like, but thin! The thinner it is, the crispier it gets.

   

4. Flour the counter, take a dough ball and push it out with your fingertips. Then roll it out into a big, very thin, round pizza. This is not a Neapolitan pizza. It's supposed to be thin and dry and crispy, the edges too.

   

5. Put it on baking paper, or put a lot of flour under it, so it slides straight into the oven without you wrecking it. Spread the tomato sauce on it and leave the edge free.

   

6. Sprinkle on the cheese. No fancy mozzarella. Just some cheap, pre-grated pizza cheese from the cheapest shop you can find. This has to taste like a real cheap kebab pizza, not some Neapolitan bullshit.

   

7. Lay the kebab slices on top and shove it into the hot oven for 8-12 minutes, until the edge has a good colour, the cheese has melted and the kebab is crispy. If you don't want a crispy kebab, put it on towards the end.

   

8. Take the pizza out and top it with the lettuce, the red onion and the tomato.

   

9. Squeeze that fantastic Skåne kebab sauce all over it. And don't be stingy. Lots of sauce. A lot of people have some extra on the side to dip the crust in.

   

10. And finally the feferoni. Don't forget the feferoni.

Final Step: Eat!

A real Swedish kebab pizza, completely from scratch. It's so good that even the Italians who get mad about it take a bite and say: "Okay, maybe it's not a pizza. But fuck, it's good."