Swedish Pizza Africana (Banana Curry Pizza)

You are about to witness a crime of the most heinous kind. A crime that epicureans the world over will faint at the very sight of. It's a pizza crime! But it's also a part of Swedish culture that I simply had to share with you. It's Pizza Africana or pizza with bananas, curry and peanuts. Shocked?

It might sound like the strangest and most bizarre combination of ingredients that would fit right in with student digs or those days when you can't be bothered to shop and you have to make something from the dregs of what is left in the cupboard. But this pizza is actually a part of modern Swedish culture and something that you see on the menu of most neighbourhood pizzerias in Sweden.

Pizza Africana or banana curry pizza is a normal everyday pizza base with it's topping of tomato sauce and cheese, but here is where the unusual meets the familiar. The toppings are sliced banana, a sprinkling of curry powder and roasted peanuts. Who knows when it was invented. Some say it's a combination of 80s and 90s culture when people were experimenting with sweet and savoury flavours together, but I can confidently report that it was well and truly a part of Swedish culture when I first tasted it in the late 90s. I have to say it was a bit of a surprise and definitely a memorable dish.

Are you ready to take a slice of Swedish culture with me and make Pizza Africana? Let's go then!

Pizza Africana (Swedish Banana Curry Pizza)

For the pizza base:

500g plain, all purpose flour. If you can get pizza flour of type 00 then use that.

20g fresh yeast or 10g dried yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

Approximately 350ml warm water

For the tomato topping: 1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and pepper

For the Africana topping:

225g grated cheese of your choice

100g shredded ham

1 banana, peeled and sliced

1 teaspoon curry powder

Handful roasted peanuts

Method

Starting with the pizza base, sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Crumble the yeast into a small bowl and blend it with about 200ml of the warm water. Add the yeast mix and oil to the flour and mix together. Add enough warm water to make a soft dough. Turn this out onto a floured surface and knead well for about 5 minutes. Cover with an upturned bowl or a damp cloth and let it rest for an hour.

Preheat oven to 220⁰C / 440⁰F

To make the tomato topping, liquidise the tomatoes with the oregano, taste and season with salt and pepper. You need good seasoning because there is just a thin layer of sauce on the pizza.

Roll out the dough to about 25cm in diameter and place it on a well-greased baking tray. I like to sprinkle a little semolina on the tray too. Spread over the tomato sauce not quite going to the edges. Sprinkle over the grated cheese and arrange the ham and sliced banana on top and sprinkle with the curry powder. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the pizza is starting to turn a golden brown and the edges are beginning to crisp up.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle the peanuts over the pizza. Serve hot!