OPOS Pizza Sauce Recipe

After preparing chilli flakes for the pizza, I quickly made this flavory pizza sauce with zero additives. Making homemade pizza sauce isn’t difficult and it doesn’t have to be time-consuming either. Pizza Sauce is a tomato based sauce, cooked along with garlic and some herbs which is used as a spread on Pizza Bread. The regular method would do blanch the tomatoes, take the pulp and cook them along with some garlic, onion, red capsicum and the herbs until it thickens. It's super easy with the OPOS method. With the below measure we can get pizza sauce which can be used for 4 pizzas, depending upon your sauce preference.

Ingredients

Oil - 2 or 3 tsp 
Garlic cloves - 3 nos (I used the bigger variety), minced
Onion - 1, medium sized, chopped
Tomato -  3, medium sized, deseeded and chopped 
Red Bell Pepper- half, chopped
Salt - as per taste
Sugar - 1 tsp
Red Chilli powder - as per taste or spice level
Tomato Ketchup - 1 tbsp
Fresh basil leaves - 1 tbsp, chopped
Fresh Oregano or dry oregano - 1 tsp
Chilli Flakes - 1/4 tsp

Method

1. Add the ingredients in the same order as mentioned below

Layer 1 - 2 tbsp water
Layer 2 - Oil
Layer 3 - Minced Garlic
Layer 4 - Chopped Onion
Layer 5 - Chopped and deseeded Tomatoes
Layer 6 - Chopped red bell pepper
Layer 7 - Herbs, salt, sugar, chilli powder, chilli flakes and tomato ketchup

1. Turn on the flame, cook on high for 2 whistles.
2. Release pressure manually.
3. Allow to cool off and grind to a coarse texture.
4. Pizza Sauce is ready to be used with Pizza Bread or with Pastas. Can be stored in refrigerator and used

Note : 

Pizza sauce has to be in thicker consistency. If you find yours to be a bit watery, heat a pan and add the ground sauce and allow it to thicken for a while

How to make chilli flakes at home for Pizza

When I wanted to prepare pizza at home I was running out of all the necessary store brought ingredients. As a first step I had to prepare this chilli flakes. I used 10 red chillies (cayenne pepper)

Steps

1. Heat a pan or kadai, add the chillies and dry roast them until they turn crisp. You should be able to break it when you try pressing them with your fingers. Before roasting they would bend, that's how you can find if it's well roasted.
2. Allow them to cool down completely
3. In a dry mixer jar, add the roasted chillies and grind them coarsely. If you are doing this with more number of chillies, make sure to use the pulse option, else it might turn out to a chilli powder.
4. Store in an airtight jar or container

How to standardise a Pressure Cooker for One Pot One Shot (OPOS) Cooking

Before you start OPOS method of cooking, it is  mandatory to standardize your Pressure Cooker(PC)

Things needed

2L Pressure cooker
Measuring cup
Water
Timer

In a 2L pressure cooker, add 60 ml or 1/4 cup of water. Cover the lid, put the weight and turn on the flame to high. Note the time taken for the first whistle. If your whistle comes between 1 and 2 minutes, your PC is good to use for the OPOS recipes. Follow the lessons and understand the technique before trying advanced recipes.

What is HIGH?

• In a gas stove, the flame should cover the bottom of the cooker, without coming up the sides.

• In an induction, its around 1200W

Standardizing Timing is Less or More?

• If less than a minute, try increasing the flame

• If more than 2 minutes, try decreasing the flame