Mailing in my final post for 2016 in the name of Christmas and family.
Happy new year everyone and happy cooking.
Week 51: 30 Minutes or Less – Quickie Midnight Pizza from Scratch
The trick to making a quick pizza from scratch is not caring if the dough rises fully. The pizza below, dough and sauce included, was created from scratch in exactly 30 minutes. I have a time-lapse video that I didn’t realize wouldn’t upload so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
It admittedly took a bit of behind the scenes prep.
The wine played a supporting role during the mad dash around the kitchen to meet that 30 minute mark, but I made it. And celebrated with more wine and an entire midnight pizza to myself.
Week 50: Umami – Mushroom Parmesan Pizza
I’ve been hoping for a pizza assignment like this since I first began this challenge. Umami is an attractive force in my food world with tomatoes ruling the majority of my cravings. While tomato finds its way into the sauce here, mushrooms are the focal point of this pizza.
Shiitake and crimini mushrooms, while making up the whole of the toppings, remain just a portion of the umami bomb that was dropped.
Tomato snuck in with a hearty rendition of my usual sauce. Parmesan was shaved over top.
Oh and then a quick spritz of black truffle salt, a drizzle of white truffle oil and then a dash of MSG just for kicks.
Fearing another salt overload as seen in last week’s pizza, I added a moderate amount of salt and chose to apply truffle salt to each individual slice.
Then I ate the whole pizza.
With a good burgundy nearby, this is not a difficult feat.
Week 49: Spanish Tapas – Boquerones Pizza
Anchovies were once so repellant to my sensibilities that I ate caesar salads sans dressing for many dumb years. Servers would repeat my order back to me in disbelief and only now do I understand why: caesar dressing is fucking delicious.
Shockingly, I came around to anchovies some time in my adulthood for seemingly no reason at all, and not just in their invisible form as salad seasoning. Like soon turned into love and I found myself slamming strips of anchovies with an accompaniment crispy sage or parmesan.
Staring down this week’s tapas challenge, I couldn’t resist but to do as ninja turtles do and put some damn anchovies on some damn pizza. And it began with some flash marinating.
Parsley and garlic were chopped up for some classic accompaniment.
White anchovies were marinated in champagne vinegar and olive oil for an hour.
The marinade was sufficient enough to provide a base for the pizza. Parmesan finished the pizza before the super hot oven hugs ensued.
The oblong shape was designed to provide tapas-sized pizza bites in the final presentation.
More parmesan and parsley helped spruce up the pizza tapas before they met with their hot sherry date for the evening.
Lustau’s “Papirusa” Manzanilla was a dry and saline style of sherry that tamed the inherent saltiness of this pizza. Even with its presence, it was hard to ignore what a nightmare this pizza was to eat despite no additional salt. Please think twice before trying this style at home because I’m certainly never making this again.
Week 48: Leftovers – Pizza Bread Pudding
Having to work every Thanksgiving evening and rarely getting a chance to indulge in a hot turkey meal, let alone leftovers, I’ve opted to take this challenge in a different direction and offered leftover pizza a chance at metamorphosis.
First it begins with a pizza.
And a metric fuck-ton of willpower.
After some lonely time cooling down, that tasty-looking pizza got packed away to become way less sexy leftovers.
Even without that fresh oven glow, this pizza still looked so tasty. Working quickly to fight off taking even a nibble, I cut each piece into small pieces.
I whipped together a big bowl of eggs, cream and parmesan.
After stuffing muffin tins with pizza cubes, I poured the cream over until each was just full and applied a quick hit of parmesan over top before placing these confused beauties in the oven.
So foreign and alluring at the same time.
A bottle of Taurasi made for a killer pairing with all the leathery, meaty, dark fruit characteristic of Aglianico complementing the heartiness of each marinara-coated morsel. The wine is rich and structured but really comes alive in front of flavors that can match its intensity.
Judge me if you must but I found much joy in these little pizza desecrations. They’re definitely worth a revisit.
Week 47: Czech – Kulajda white pizza with potato, dill & mushroom
For this week’s Czech-inspired pizza, I opted to turn a classic Kulajda soup into a tasty potato and mushroom pizza pie.
Potato, mushrooms, caraway and dill provide the majority of the flavor and texture, making up the base of the pizza. The egg comes later.
The potato was peeled and diced into small cubes.
After boiling the potatoes with caraway seeds and bay leaves, cream and flour are added to create the white cream base that would normally make the base of the soup.
Sour cream was there too.
The creamy potato base was topped with mushrooms and a sprinkle of mozzarella before getting a big 550 degree smooch from the oven.
Meanwhile, an egg was poached stovetop and then placed in the center of the pizza after being pulled from the oven.
To pair, 2013 Ottoventi Bianco, a Sicilian white wine featuring a refreshing blend of Catarratto, Grillo and Zibibbo. With the pizza, this wine provided a delightful backdrop of tangerine and yellow apples. This wine had a zingy little personality without being too much of a thinker.
The pizza was pretty alright, to0. With the wine, it was the tits.
Week 46: Underused Equipment – Heirloom Cherry Tomato & Spiralized Zucchini Pizza
No amount of salt on my keychain can make up for the shame I bring to Alton Brown fandom when I admit to having a spiralizer tucked neatly into my kitchen drawers. This week’s challenge has forced me to dust it off and transform the clunky contraption into a useful pizza-making tool. Here we go.
Of all things worth spiralizing, zucchini seems a choice decision, if only for their general neutrality in both taste and texture. They’re also rarely found on the pizzasomm pizzas of 2016, which has deemed their spiralization a worthy task.
For once, janky week-old zucchinis were able to escape refrigerator death by means of a glorious pizza bath.
Not only did they escape eventual rot, but they looked good doing so. Just feast your eyes on those curls.
Likewise, the sauce was concocted from dying fridge items, such as chive cream cheese, cottage cheese & homemade whipped garlic. A bit of basil and goat cheese were added for funsies. Cream, champagne vinegar and lemon olive oil brought in some pizzazz while also turning the goop into a more sauce-like consistency.
The construction was simple and satisfying. More could be added for complexity if desired but the flavors were clean and fresh expressions of themselves.
What a beaut. A scrumptious one, too.
White Bordeaux offers the grassy, herbaceous quality needed to match that in the pizza while also letting the flavors of the pie speak for themselves.
While the use of the spiralizer in my kitchen will likely not advance beyond the occasional vegetable massacre, the stage presence of the product is undeniable. Don’t be surprised to see more spirals appearing on future pizzas of mine, Alton Brown be damned.
Week 45: Pacific Islands – Kalua Pork Hawaiian Pizza
This week’s Pacific Island challenge spanned so many countries, it was surprisingly hard to stray from the enticing flavors that Hawaii offers. While Hawaiian pizza may be all too fitting for a pizza metatheme, the style actually originated in Canada, thus Kalua pork was slapped on for extra credit.
Entrusting a slow cooker with three pounds of pork shoulder led to hours of tasty aromatics roaming around the house.
In lieu of liquid smoke, I smothered the pork shoulder with a heap of smoked salt from Scotland.
Canadian bacon was substituted with actual bacon because I do what I want.
Pineapple meanwhile remained pineapple.
After a 12 hour cooking session, just a small portion of meat was pulled for topping purposes. The pork leftovers were later transformed into a week-long diet of carnitas tacos.
The pizza base was a red pie with mozzarella, as per the standard Hawaiian pizza build.
For wine, I opted to follow the “pork and pinot” pairing mantra and selected a New Zealand Pinot Noir not only for its punchy red fruit characteristic but also for the additional love tap on the Pacific Island theme, albeit sourced from the opposite end of the geographic zone.
Spy Valley was a refreshing sipper of a wine that played nicely with the pineapple sweetness but also contrasted the heaps of savory notes brought on by the pork and bacon. It also went well with carnitas tacos.
Week 44: Dehydrating – Oven-Dried Basil & Tomato Margherita Pizza
This week’s dehydrating challenge was tough to work up the courage for considering how convinced the internet is in needing to purchase a dehydrator. I said nay to this advice, opting to find a more convenient solution: the oven. While I was tempted to sun-dry tomatoes, I’ve had bad luck in recent years with bugs invading what’s mine, thus I didn’t tempt the outside world with a yummy display of sunbathing treats.
While the drying portion of the preparation was a success, I did not account for what dehydration means in the face of intense heat.
My first attempt was unfortunately a dud. An edible dud, but not a pretty one.
I took another swing at this pizza, this time with the additional challenge of dehydrating basil to complete the flavors of a classic margherita.
This time I topped my tediously watched over oven goods after the pizza had completed baking. And for a bonus dehydrating affect, all tomato sauce areas not covered by cheese experienced a level of dehydration that concentrated the flavors even further.
The spooky designs that came with desiccation seemed all too conveniently timed for the trick-or-treating season. Luckily, this pizza was more than just a halloween gimmick, it actually tasted pretty incredible for something so simple.
To draw out the juicy flavors of this pie, a 2009 Rioja accompanied each bite.
Having drawn the attention of my dearest babby, this pizza may have been devoured quicker than any other before it, making this second pie a definite win.
Week 43: French – Escargot à la Bourguignonne Pizza
As a Francophile, I too this week’s challenge was a chance to explore dishes I hadn’t yet had the courage to tackle on my own. Escargot is such a treat to find on a menu because I don’t have the means at home so I took the time to figure out just where the hell to source snails from. The answer was, as at almost always is, the internet.
The preparation I most enjoy is a classic Burgundian style featuring parsley, garlic, shallots and a ton of butter. Pernod and vermouth added extra aromatics.
The preparation is pretty simple. Lots of chopping and dicing.
A butter sauce was mixed together with plenty of parsley and salt.
The snails were so petite but there were many in one small can. I decided to load them up.
A parmesan and olive oil base was set before the traditional escargot preparation was spread over.
Voilà!
Another hit of parmesan to finish off the pizza and slices were ready to facilitate one of my favorite classic pairings.
Red burgundy and escargot is a top-tier pairing in my book. And it certainly didn’t fail now.
C’est bon!
pizzasomm 