Meatzza Random Recipe Challenge

For this months Random Recipe Challenge Dom at Belleau Kitchen is celebrating his 3rd year of Random Recipe blog challenge. We're to choose a recipe book and open to a random page and create the dish from that page. My cookbook for this challenge is Nigellissima. I have been wating for this book for several months now since it had just been released a week ago in America. My random page happens to be a recipe called Meatzza and here it is..

 I made two pans..

My pans are 8 inches, about 3 inches smaller than what was suggested which was 11 inches so the meat was a lot thicker. I doubled up the recipe which made it even thicker.

After I've sliced it into portions the Meatzza resembled a Meatloaf because of its thickness had I used the correct size pan it would've been thinner for the meat to resemble as the crust. The way Nigella intended it to be. I did have the correct pan size I don't know why I didn't use it, just forgot about it. The ingredients are quite similar of a meatloaf. It tasted like it as well. The dish had mixed reviews from my judges and myself. There was a no, two yes, and one confused. I'll be making this again with the correct pan size, it should make a thinner minced meat crust to see if my "no and confused one" will change their mind and my yes's prefer it. : )

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef

3 tablespoons grated parmesan

3 tablespoons bread crumbs

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

2 eggs lightly beaten

1 clove garlic peeled

salt and pepper to taste

butter for greasing

1 x 14 ounce diced tomatoes/drained

1 teaspoon garlic flavoured olive oil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

4 ounces fresh mozzarella  (not buffalo) halved then sliced

few leaves fresh basil

Method

Preheat oven to 425F

In a large bowl using your hands, combine beef, Parmesan, bread crumbs parsley, and eggs. Grate in the garlic and add some salt and pepper. Do not over work it , just lightly mix together, or the meat will become compacted and dense.

Butter a shallow round baking pan of about 11 inches diameter and turn the meat into it, pressing the mixture lightly with your fingers to cover the bottom as if the seasoned ground meat were your pizza crust.

Make sure you've drained as much runny liquid as possible out of your can of diced tomatoes, then mix the tomato with the garlic flavoured oil, oregano, and some salt and pepper, and spread using a rubber spatula, lightly on top of the meat base. Arrange the mozzarella slices on top and then put in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes, then adorn with some basil leaves and bring it to the table before cutting into wedges, like pizza.