Week 50: Umami – Mushroom Parmesan Pizza

December 11, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

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 46: Underused Equipment – Heirloom Cherry Tomato & Spiralized Zucchini Pizza

November 9, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

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

November 6, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

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

October 30, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

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

October 23, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

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!

Week 36: Famous Dishes – Ratatouille Pizza

September 4, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

This week’s challenge of “Famous Dishes” involved a full exploration of the term “famous.” To ensure true fulfillment of such a broad idea, I decided to take on the well-known French dish made famous by a Disney mouse: ratatouille.

Eggplant, squash and peppers provided all the colors and textures needed for the dish.s

On a super thin setting, rhe mandoline made fast work of the slicing.

Designing each layer so that each slice peeked out from behind the next took a small amount of patience.

Using a hearty tomato sauce as the base, this ratatouille had all the elements found in the classic dish.

As a pizza, all this baby was missing was cheese,

Where there was once no mozzarella, suddenly mozzarella.

After a bit of doctoring, the mozzarella slices snuggled up quite nicely in their new bed of vegetables.

Cooking was a tad risky considering the dense sheets of water-laden vegetables and abundance of sauce on such a thin crust.

The pizza still came out looking like a beast.

Fresh thyme and cracked black pepper supplied a kick of herbacous, savory notes.

No dish has wanted more for a rustic French red than this one, an instinct I didn’t trust until the first sip.

The pairing was outstanding. This Syrah-based red out of Languedoc had a funky fresh personality that was quite a sipper on its own. And despite a somewhat soggy crust and slightly undercooked vegetables, the ratatouille pizza was a treat by itself but it really hit a new height with the wine. The entire experience has been bookmarked for revisiting in the future.

Week 31: Drink Pairings – Classic Pepperoni Pizza with a Trio of Obscure Wine Pairings

July 31, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

Well this week’s challenge is quite the softball of a challenge considering my r/52weeksofcooking metatheme. Since this is the very theme I automatically take part in every week, I will spend my time this week reminiscing about some of my favorite less traditional wine pairings. One bonus in indulging in more obscure styles is the likelihood of finding wines of great value for not very much money.

During my early years of studying the hell out of wine, my then-boyfriend/now-husband worked the bar of a super delicious San Diego pizza joint, bringing home pizza after pizza to my endless delight. Pepperoni pizza was our base style that we would choose to build upon with various toppings or not and is the pizza I have the most wine pairing history with. Thus, I made a very clean, classic style of pepperoni pizza to trigger cherished pairings.

The first pizza pairing experience I ever latched onto was a pepperoni pizza and Dolcetto d’Alba. While Italian wines on the whole are really well built for rich and cheesy dishes considering their tendency towards higher acidity, Dolcetto keeps just the right level of juiciness and structure to bring something new each bite. While complexity is somewhat limited to more youthful dark berry and rustic earthy tones, the style hails from Piedmont where it is overshadowed by the internationally-revered Nebbiolo and even dark and brooding Barbara.

Blaufränkisch is an Austrian varietal I’ve found a range of success in pairing with pizza and beyond. The varietal tends to showcase a dark fruit fruit profile with leather and spice in a structured, medium-bodied format. It provides a platform for pepperoni pizza to dance around on.

One pairing that caught me by surprise was an unplanned glass of Zweigelt that showed up next to a freshly made pepperoni pizza some years back. The style may be the most obscure varietal of the three chosen here, even as a direct descendent of Blaufränkisch, This particular bottling hails from Lodi, California, displaying a magenta-tinged ruby color, fresh bubblegum raspberry notes and a lighter body that achieve a refreshing contrast to the savory pizza flavors.

There are so many other pairings to consider with a basic pepperoni pizza but considering the variance found in producer styles and personal preferences, there’s never any one right answer. It’s what pairing food with wine so much damn fun.

Week 29: Fat – Creamy Carbonara Pizza

July 17, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

I’m surprised to have pulled this week’s fat challenge off with almost zero preparation and the bad luck of having the oven light go out unexpectedly. Even still, the convenience of having bacon and eggs readily available for morning yums allowed for easy tinkering. Having already tackled a breakfast pizza this year, I decided to translate the ultimate pasta tummy pleaser of Spaghetti Carbonara into a pizza wonderscape and hope for the best.

Bacon, eggs, parmesan and herbs (in this case chives) are the very basis of carbonara.

After cooking down the bacon until soft, the fat is used to provide the base of the sauce, as it would be in the pasta dish.

Chives are chopped according to their roles. The coarser chop is cooked with the cream sauce and parmesan. The finer chop is meant for a fresher topping upon cooling.

The pizza was built in many layers with fat and a parmesan & black pepper cream gently layering the crust followed by chives, bacon and more parmesan.

When the pizza was all but a minute done, I pulled out the pie and gently poured over a cream-whipped egg as evenly as possible before placing the pizza back in for another minute. Timing was key in not over- or under-cooking the egg on top.

And somehow it pulled together and worked. And was surprisingly balanced and tasty. The pizza was aromatically rich with its range of chives and black pepper charging the palate upfront. Next the creamy egg notes interweaving the bacon smokiness held their own presence on the mid-palate while the sharp parmesan brightness saw through to the end with black pepper still mingling.

The red burgundy selected kept an abundance of raspberries and pomegranate, which saw the savory elements of this pizza as a springboard for their bright fruit flavors. Burgundies have a tendency to transform with food, the way Italian wine often does too, finding a whole new expression alongside a range of flavors. It’s just one of the many reasons why I’m such a francophile in my wine preferences. Deal with it.

Week 23: Deep Fried – Fried Eggplant, Basil & Pepperoni Pizza

June 5, 2016pizzasomm Leave a comment

Having less and less time to adequately prepare for these weekly endeavors, a quick peek in the fridge was all the inspiration needed for this week’s deep fried challenge. In the O’Bryan household, we have a tendency to pick up a plump eggplant with ambitions of transforming the shiny beast into an Ottolenghi masterpiece. More often, we find ourselves dumping a blotched and festering limp vegetable corpse into the trash. This is all to say that we have yet to find the way to embrace their presence in our fridge. And we may have found the way.

Fried eggplant on pizza is no genius idea of mine. Its true origin story remains a mystery to this blogger as she hasn’t the time nor the inclination to seek out any backstory, no matter how grateful I should be for the abundance of information available at my fingertips.

My first personal encounter, one that I remember quite fondly due to timing (I had just landed a job, albeit a shitty one, that would secure the path of my now career) and the tasty, tasty combination of toppings, was one that came recommended by the Bar Basic staff: fried eggplant, pepperoni, basil and garlic atop a large red pie. I went gaga for this shit. So here goes my attempt at recreating a super built-up cherished moment of my recent past. What could go wrong?

After slicing up an eggplant to a consistenly moderate thickness, the slices were breaded in a panko and Italian crumb mix, the blend of the two resulting from a petty bout of indecision.

Using a combination of high-heat oils, as I hadn’t the foresight to buy enough of any one kind, the breaded eggplant slices took turns crisping up in the pot.

A rather sizable batch was produced, enough to feed three large pizzas as each pizza could barely take on more than 7 or 8. Any leftovers stayed rather well. If they never make it onto crust, they were reheated in the oven with tomato sauce and cheese on top for a quickie eggplant parmesana.

While the original inclusion of garlic was mostly ignored (aside from the generous heap of garlic found in the tomato sauce), a few dollops of ricotta here and there made up for its absence with creamy, textured bites.

After some fussing around with pairings, Barolo stepped up as the winner of the bunch. This 2006 Marchesi di Barolo from Piedmonte, Italy had just the right structure of tannin and acidity to tackle the richness here, but then the deeply-resonant tart fruits provided a great backdrop for all the savory notes to play off of.

I loved this pairing. I loved this wine and the pizza and the whole experience of making it and eating it. This was so fantastic I wanted to die. Instead, I snapped some photos and obsessed over new angles and lighting. The work didn’t really pay off but the pizza itself was worth all the effort.

It was so good, I actually made two.

As for things that could go wrong? Nothing did. This was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever made. It will be one I continue to make for as long as I have eggplant in my refrigerator, which turns out to be more often than needed. It’s time to embrace their ever-presence.

Blind Lady Ale House & Aglianico

April 26, 2015pizzasomm Leave a comment

On the northern end of the 30th Street beer crawl lineup sits Blind Lady Ale House where pizza and brews are served in an indoor beer garden fashion with small jovial crowds lining long tables. Beer is the ultimate fail-safe pizza pairing, making this environment perfect for fostering a pizza eating culture. With Kimmy Schmidt waiting to entertain my pizza-eating face, I opt out of beer and slink back to my Netflix cave, a Spicy Salami pie in hand, to find a wine to pair.

The pizza is a simple but aromatic wonderland topped with Balistreri salami, fontina and pecorino romano cheeses, and a light tomato sauce. Leading the topping parade, the salami is crafted by San Diego native Pete Balistreri, a Sicilian-American quick to gain a following for his recent venture in artisanal charcuterie. Dense with savory elements, the salami contributes the bulk of the seasoning with classic flavors of chili flakes and fennel.

The main source of spice comes from the side of calabrese chili oil, which allows for adjustment according to personal preference. The chili oil offers mild peppery heat and a satisfyingly slick texture, finding a comfortable home amongst the salty toppings and juicy tomato sauce. If hotter, the spice would threaten to zap a wine’s more delicate fruit aromas, making a sweeter or less alcoholic pairing more appropriate. Bold, inky and certainly no pushover, wine made from the thick-skinned Aglianico are weighty and capable handling a livelier set of flavors. The red Italian varietal makes the whole of this pizza’s pairing, 2008 Terredora di Paolo, Taurasi DOCG, Fatica Contadina.

Smooth, finely-grained tannins enrich the wine’s already full body, allowing the wine to match each bite in personality and gumption. The moderately high acidity keeps the oil and cheese from overpowering the palate while aromas of blackberry, plum skin, fresh leather and tar provide a layer of contrasting flavors and complexity. Overshadowed by more northern Italian players of Nebbiolo and Sangiovese, southern Italy’s Aglianico remains under-appreciated despite its ability to thrive in warmer climates while maintaining a robust yet balanced wine. It is a feisty selection to keep around home, well-suited to pair with rich Italian dishes and hilarious Tina Fey productions.

references:

Guild of Sommeliers Compendium

Daring Pairings by Evan Goldstein

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pairing wine with pizza and then meowing about it.

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