Quick and easy dinner: Nettle and ricotta pizza

At Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, Alice Waters incorporates local wild foods into her menu — Darina Allen enjoys this delicious pizza straight from the oven.

Ingredients

• 75g (3ozs) pizza dough
• fresh young nettles about 200g (7ozs)
• 1 clove garlic slivered or finely chopped
• 35g (1½ oz) fresh Mozzarella
• Maldon sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• 25g (1oz) Ricotta or Ardsallagh goat cheese

Method

Preheat the oven to 475F/250C/gas 9. Preheat a heavy baking sheet in the oven.

Stretch or roll the dough into a thin round. Sprinkle a little cornmeal onto a paddle. Lay the pizza on top. Brush with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with chopped garlic and roughly grated mozzarella. 

Top with a mound of young nettles. Mist generously with water, season with salt and freshly ground pepper and top with a few blobs of ricotta or Ardsallagh goat cheese.

Cook for 7-8 minutes depending on the intensity of the heat.

Remove from the oven, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and serve immediately with a few flakes of Maldon sea salt sprinkled over the top.