Pizza Bomba

A good friend from New Zealand got me a Jamie Oliver cookbook, Jamie At Home, for my birthday recently. I was more than happy because anyone who knows me knows that I love Jamie Oliver. And, I have been a big fan of his since he was the Naked Chef. Needless to say, I had to try out some of the recipes in this cookbook and one of them is called Pizza Bomba, which mean “little bombs”. Actually, it’s pizza shaped into a ball, oozing with tomato sauce, cheese and basil leaves. The recipe is simple enough, if you have made pizza before this recipe would be a breeze. All you need to do is now shape your pizza into a careful ball making sure there are no holes so that when you deep fry them, they won’t leak.

Pizza bomba ingredients:
200g pizza dough
10 cherry tomatoes, cut into halves
a bunch of basil leaves
a handful of mini bocconcini (or cubes of mozzarella)
1 cup of marinara sauce + 1 cup for later
Enough oil for deep frying

Method:
1. Heat up oil in a pan until it reaches 350F on your candy thermometer.

2. Divide your pizza dough into 12 parts or 8 parts, depending on how big your want your Bomba to be.

3. Take a piece of the pizza dough and flatten it with your hand until it is shape into a flat disc of about 3-4 inches in diameter.

4. Put the flat dough on your palm and fill it with some marinara sauce, two pieces of mini bocconcini, 1 leaf of basil and half a cherry tomato.

5. Cup your palm and pinch the dough shut, carefully, making sure there are no small holes for any sauce to escape. It is very similar to making Shanghai Soup Dumplings. 🙂 Once that’s done, drop it into the oil for a deep fry until your Bomba turns into a nice golden brown in color.

Repeat until you use up all the dough and sprinkle some kosher salt/sea salt onto the Bombas before putting it in a plate filled with some warmed marinara sauce and serve.

I am an advocate of making your own pizza dough because it’s easy to make at home. But if you do not want to mess up your kitchen, you can go to your nearest pizza deli and buy a pound home – it should not cost you very much. The rest of the recipe calls for a simple task of assembling some cheese, basil leaves, cherry tomatoes and some marinara sauce (which, I have advocated making at home as well).

The Pizza Bomba was absolutely delightful. It tastes so simple and yet extraordinarily good – simplicity at its best. I thought the recipe was genius and the Italian mama who created this dish for her son showed such ingenuity and creativity to make food for her beloved. If it had not been for her, Jamie would not have gotten the opportunity to taste a Bomba and shared the recipe with us! 🙂

I served the pizza bomba as suggested by the cookbook, which is to put it on a bed of warm marinara sauce for dipping and coating the crispy balls.

This recipe will be a hit with the kids, I know it was a hit with us, being kids at heart and all 😉 I think Pizza Bomba is a nice twist to the old-fashion pizza.
On the side, I served the Pizza Bombas with a nice French Onion soup. I’ve made a classic French Onion soup before but here’s another picture of it – a better looking one too.