Month: April 2016

Week 17: Medieval – Spiced Almond & Pomegranate Cornish Hen Pizza

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To kick off Season 6 of Game of Thrones, Reddit’s r/52weeksofcooking has called for a medieval style dish to sustain us through the first episode airing tonight. The pizza constructed to fulfill this requirement began with a 16th century sauce recipe designed to go with partridge or hen. The spice-heavy sauce calls for flavors of cinnamon, ginger, pomegranate and white almonds.

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The ingredients are pummeled into a mildly gritty texture to recall the days without blenders.

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A cornish hen takes the leading role of this pizza. Before roasting, a savory mixture of spices featuring cumin, allspice, paprika and cinnamon is rubbed over the skin for extra flavor. During the cooking and resting period, the crust is prepared.

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While the sauce does not win any pretty awards, it tastes like wintertime. A flurry of ricotta and mozzarella, both fair game cheeses according to White Oak Historical Society, are added for a bit of extra heartiness.

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When the hen is done resting, the thighs are sliced and added to the pizza with their crispy skin accompanying. With the meat cooked, the crust is crisped up in an oven of 550°F.

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The legs are set aside for presentation purposes. This pizza is ready to be spanked on the bottom and sent out to the hungry masses for devouring.

 

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To step these slices up from peasant food to slices fit for noblemen, a quick sprinkle of sliced almonds and pomegranate seeds really jazzes up the presentation.

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There is no better way to wash down a medieval experience, especially one gushing with cinnamon and spice, than a dainty chalice of cider (Eric Bordelet, Normandy, France), which also happens to make a great drinking game accompaniment at 4% abv.

And since nobody ever seems to find the gifs tucked away in each post:

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Week 16: Root to Stem – Shaved Asparagus & Ricotta Pizza with Stem-Infused Whole Wheat Crust

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This week is a challenge that speaks directly to the most wasteful aspects of my cooking. While I do my best to make stocks out of bones and stems to feed my soup-making habits, my creativity stops there. The asparagus used to top this week’s pizza will find their cheesy ricotta home built above a crust interlaced with nutrients leached from their usually-discarded stems.

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The process was as simple as using a stock created from the stems to substitute for the water used in the crust.

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From here, regular pizza-making resumed. The yeast frolicked in the warm asparagus water that made up their new home and went about business as usual.

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With extra nutrients fortifying the dough, I decided to make a whole wheat flour to create as healthy a pizza package as I could stand without stripping away the essentials.

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Shaving the asparagus was both equal parts time-consuming and oddly-satisfying. There are core portions that could not be shaved down due to mechanics, thus they were chopped up for additional texture.

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The cheese was a simple mixture of ricotta, lemon olive oil, lemon zest and lemon juice.

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The lemon olive oil can really help make any citrus flavors pop. I used it as the base sauce for the rest of the flavors to play off of.

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At 550F, pizza doesn’t take much longer than 8-10 minutes in the oven.

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The crust was perfectly chewy with a light crisp to the bottom. To keep the texture more appealing, the shavings of asparagus were each swirled into a gusty little toppings, which were admittedly rather time-consuming to stage as well.

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The effect was worth the effort.

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With a dab of coarsely-ground black pepper on top and wine nearby, these puppies were ready for quick consumption.

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The wine was a Gruner Veltiner, chosen for the qualities it would mirror in the pizza, such as the waxy vegetal notes, peppery aromas and the overall clean style. Neither of the two survived the night.

Week 15: Brazilian – Cast Iron Chicken, Requeijão & Heart of Palm pizza

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To knock out a killer Brazilian-themed dish the week of my wedding, I decided to make a quickie cast-iron pizza using ingredients sourced from a gem of a shop selling all things Brazilian cuisine. Using shredded roasted chicken, requeijão and heart of palm, I constructed a delicious tortilla pizza, which was then paired with Provençal rosé that was to be served at my wedding two days later. The picture parade to follow will have just a brief overview the details of each step involved.

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Requeijāo cheese is a gooey, mild cheese adored in Brazil with many uses. Heart of Palm seem to have a fanciness to them I don’t yet quite understand. Working with both is a treat since I really don’t know what I’m doing even a little bit.

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The heart of palm seems to break apart in a rather satisfying way. The goal here is to blend it alongside the pulled chicken for a streamless sense of texture.

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With chicken and heart of palm combined, a little cheese is added and the whole is mixed for consistency.

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The tortilla is placed over a well-warmed skillet and topped immediately: first with a coating of requeijāo cheese, then the bulk of the payload, then a sprinkle of cheddar.

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Once dressed, the skillet is taken off the heat and placed in a pre-warmed toaster oven of 400 degrees F.

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For funsies (and tasty green notes), fresh chives are chopped for the final plating.

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Meanwhile, rosé is popped to accompany such a quick, light meal.

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Mmmm.

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There’s no other way to be.

Week 14: Food in Disguise – Strawberry Jam & Whipped Mascarpone “Margherita Pizza” crepe

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To contribute to the pile of tricks compiled for April Fool’s this week, I created a strawberry jam & mascarpone crepe, which is designed to break hearts by looking like a savory pizza pie.

Working from a basic Alton Brown recipe for crepe batter, I started by creating the batter so it had the minimal few hours of rest to ensure a delicate texture.

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While the batter rested in the refrigerator, I went to work on making a fresh strawberry jam.

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The strawberries were admittedly not fresh but their ultimate demise as a quickie jam experiment was a far better fate becoming engulfed in mold and trashed unceremoniously, IMO.

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For a pristine, pure-fruit style, the jam was made with a modest addition of sugar and a couple ounces of fresh lemon juice to amp up the vibrancy.

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Next, a simple mascarpone cream was whipped up for layering the crepes.

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Again, I reduced the sweetness here to make sure the wine pairing would not be knocked out of balance. More on that later.

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Crepes were made and layered once cooled with a hefty spread of whipped mascarpone between each sheet.

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The final layer was then topped with strawberry jam, dollops of mascarpone and fresh mint leaves for effect.

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When cut, the thin tiers of creme and crepe took on the personality of a delicate cake that could be managed with a fork and knife or manhandled like a slice of pizza. The latter seemed appropriate.

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To pair with such fruit, cream and gentle sweetness, I tapped the 2002 Domaine Huet Moelleux Vouvray, “Le Mont,” 1ère Trie of France’s Loire Valley. The intense minerality and brilliance to the aromatics balanced the sweetness so well within the wine that it was remarkably undetectable to the overall experience. Alongside the crepe, it was perfectly matched as any more sweetness from the crepe may threaten to overwhelm the Chenin Blanc. With a sweeter style crepe, a sweeter wine would be needed.

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And now, back to my honeymoon.