6:16 / Sweet Sopresata

After a weekend out of the house, I return today with a late post. But all is well, because this pizza, while no-frills, is no filler. It is a beautiful marriage of sweet and savory red things, a good balance of saltiness, the sort of pie with no dud bites. The base of tomatoes is par for the course, and the salty sopresata pairs with sweet peppers like they were made for one another.

Sopresata, or sopresat, or whichever spelling you prefer, is one of the more favored cured meats on my cured meat radar. Growing up vegetarian, I was weaned on chicken around age 13 and probably did not even taste pork until my later teens [I honestly cannot pinpoint it]. There are swaths of meat culture and history of which I am either ignorant or under-informed. I made some bad assumptions, probably based on the media's portrayal of the stereotypically enthused carnivore's appreciation of the standalone flavor [see: the episode of Parks and Recreation where a slab of unaltered, economy beef on a white bun soundly defeated a from-scratch Asian fusion turkey burger in a taste test]. The first time I ate ground beef unseasoned, like the first time I tried steak, was kind of gross, and underwhelming after all that hype. Italian cured meats were something of a revelation; imagine, the concept of adding spices, herbs, and SALT to your meat! Like a lot of other things in life deserve, I gave animal protein another shot. If anyone is curious, I still eat beef so rarely that the amount can be rounded up to 0.01% of my diet, but at least now that is based on personal experience. And I am not judging anyone for liking meat that has not known the touch of a fennel seed or the caress of a peppercorn. I feel the same way about mangoes.

I am going to jump right into the recipe this week, because beyond what I have already said, I do not have much else to share about the ingredients. The crust is my typical one, and rather than try to make the same recipe sound fresh when it is literally the same one I have been using for weeks, I will just direct you to my post from two weeks ago [linked below].

Crust:

4½ cups all-purpose flour

2¼ tsp active yeast

½ cup warm water

1⅓ cup room temperature water

Extra flour for kneading

Toppings:

6 Roma tomatoes, seeded and roughly diced

6-8 oz sweet brined red peppers

6 oz sopresata

10 oz mozzarella cheese

Olive oil for brushing

Prepare the crust per the directions from my Cultivation Moon pizza [omitting the honey]: here. The toppings do not require much prep work, so you can leave them until the crust is done rising if you like. Give the oven plenty of time to heat to 500º F, and pre-heat your pizza stone if using one.

Seed the tomatoes and chop them into rough, semi-diced bits. The shapes do not have to be fancy unless you want them to. Dice the peppers likewise, but a bit smaller. Depending on the diameter of your sopresata, you may prefer to tear it into pieces, lay it out like traditional pepperoni, or, as I have done here, pull it apart and roll it into little cylinders.

When the crust is shaped and prepared, layer on the tomatoes, peppers, sopresata and mozzarella, cut into irregular chunks or round slices. Brush the crust with oil and season the top with a little extra salt and pepper to taste. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the crust reaches perfection. Makes two pizzas.