13:16 / Funghi e Tartufo e Melanzane

After a few weeks delinquent, 16P is returning for the home stretch. I hope these last few pizzas will live up to the standards I have set for myself - even though I am not finished, I have already come so far, and the experience has been priceless.

This pie is inspired by the funghi e tartufo pizza I tried last week at my favorite local bakery, but the seed was planted when my parents brought home a jar of funghi e tartufo paste from their travels in Italy. I have included this ingredient in the recipe, but as it is a specialty item, it is totally optional and the pizza definitely does not suffer without it.

I invented my own white sauce recipe, kept it simple as could be, and by all accounts it turned out very well. I didn't want to limit myself to a template, so I modified the standard funghi e tartufo pizza with white eggplant. Once cooked, you can't tell the skin was ever white, so purple can be substituted. The flavor does add another dimension, but stick to just white sauce and oyster mushrooms if you prefer.

After this week I will be trying a new approach to crust, so it may be the last week I reference the standard recipe I wrote up some weeks ago. While I like the dense texture of my personal dough recipe, it isn't as light and crispy as it could be. Look for a new take on dough starting next week, but for now, on to the recipe.

Crust: 

Recipe available here, or use whichever crust you prefer!

Toppings:

1 stick butter

2 cloves garlic

1½ cup light cream

16 oz parmesan

2 medium white eggplants

8 oz oyster mushrooms

1 tsp dried thyme or tarragon

Salt and pepper to taste

4 tbsp Funghi e tartufo paste [optional]

Prepare your pizza dough first. As the dough nears the end of its rising stage, cook the eggplant and mushrooms. Cut the eggplant into rounds, about 1/4 inch thick, and sprinkle them with salt to draw out the moisture. Once the rounds have begun to sweat, begin sautéing them in a saucepan with generous olive oil as needed. Cooking times vary depending on the thickness of the cut, but should be around 5-10 minutes. Flip the rounds a few times to brown on all sides. They are finished when tender - check with a fork.

Prep the mushrooms the same way, but add a little dried thyme or tarragon [or both]. They can be rough chopped into large or small pieces, there's no science to it. The mushrooms will only need a few minutes to cook, but be sure to stir them around a lot to heat evenly. If you're unsure, I would take them off the heat after five minutes.

Prepare the sauce last, ideally after you have rolled and shaped the dough. Heat the butter and garlic in a wide saucepan over medium heat, until butter melts and the garlic is fragrant. Pour in the cream. Begin adding the parmesan, a bit at a time, stirring in to combine and melt. Continue adding the cheese, maintaining a low heat, until smooth.

When the sauce is finished, assemble the pizzas.

Spread the sauce over the prepared crusts. Arrange the eggplant rounds and mushrooms over the pizzas, and if you have it, lay a few generous dollops of funghi e tartufo paste over any bare spots. Spread thinly, I was able to get a little bit on every piece of eggplant.

Bake briefly, just long enough for the toppings to coalesce and reheat if they have had a chance to cool. Since the crust is already mostly baked through, this only took me about 5-6 minutes. If you do not pre-bake the crust, aim for 15-20 minutes, depending on how well done you like everything. This is subjective; I baked these pizzas briefly because I had already prepared the toppings as I like them, and did not want them to break down further in extreme heat.

The recipe makes two 14-inch pizzas, which refrigerate well. Enjoy!

12:16 / Eve of Italia

I made this pizza about 24 hours before my parents departed for a 10-day Italian romp, so while I live vicariously through their photos of authentic Neapolitan pies, hopefully they will have my pizzas in mind, and bring back some ideas. I wanted to send them off with a preview, something really Italian but non-traditional, so there is no tomato or mozzarella.

I chose fennel, kalamata olives [so I guess it's only 80% Italian and 20% Greek], bresaola and pecorino as the focus, with a little garnish of chives. It felt somehow southern Italian, though being the least savvy of my family members on our Italian roots and geography in general, that is pulled out of thin air.

I am new to bresaola, and since picking it up at the store, I have become determined to try every cured meat on the display beside it. I have been making my way steadily through speck and prosciutto - it has been like a gift I gave myself by beginning the project, I have discovered a whole new world of salty flavor.

Fennel blipped on my radar when I was brainstorming meals for the week and had exhausted my other veggie ideas. The old me might have stopped after dreaming up some fennel citrus salad, but the me with pizza on the brain is an over-thinker. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This time, I think it did.

Since I haven't done olives yet, it seemed a good extra to round out the toppings. This pizza felt too simple with two toppings and cheese, especially without at sort of sauce. The olive add just enough left-field zing, and don't overcomplicate. In fact, they complement the flavor of the bresaola quite nicely.

Nothing else to say on this one, on to the recipe!

Toppings for two pizzas:

3 bulbs of fennel

8 oz bresaola

8 oz kalamata olives

6 oz pecorino cheese

Generous handful of chives, chopped or torn

1/4 cup olive oil

Prepare your favorite crust, or use my recipe.

Cut the fennel bulbs crossways, into quarter-inch slices. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Over media-high heat, cook the fennel, covered, until it is tender and buttery in texture. Add additional olive oil as needed and stir occasionally to prevent burning [a little is okay]. I had to do this in 4 batches, even using a wide saucepan.

Halve the kalamata olives and discard the pits. Tear the bresaola into small pieces. Mine were between the size of a quarter and a teabag so I could use the smaller pieces to fill in nooks and crannies.

On the prepared crust, spread the cooked fennel, bresaola and olives. Grate the pecorino over everything. Bake for 10 minutes and garnish with chives or greens from the fennel bulbs while the pizza cools. Enjoy!

11:16 / Mexican Redux

Since my first attempt at Mexican flavors in my salsa verde pizza, I have had a mental list of the ingredients I could have used and did not. Since I am in the autumn weeks of this project, I have been trying to make each pizza unique, and really count for something. I believe that spirit came out in this week's project, which may be my favorite of my savory recipes.

The recipe is based around a black bean and corn salad, which seems to get made once a week around here in summer. It's a snap to make, you just throw everything together and season to taste. This time, I built it more from the ground up, using fresh corn and basil from the garden. 

I needed a little extra flour, and at the shop I ran into chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. It was like the universe giving me a kind look and nodding, meant to be. I ended up using the sauce as a thin layer of tomato substitute, and cut up the peppers themselves as an extra topping. 

To step back from the intense heat of my last Mexican pizza, I went for pepper jack over the admittedly delicious habanero-laced cheddar. For depth of flavor, I added a little Manchego. Extra for dusting over the crust.

Toppings:

3 ears of corn

1 16 oz can black beans

1 red onion

10 oz cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

3 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

6 oz chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

8 oz pepper jack cheese

4 oz Manchego cheese

Prepare the crust, per my improved recipe here, or using your favorite crust recipe. Preheat the oven to 500º F.

Husk the corn, then cut the kernels from the cobs and rinse them along with the black beans. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half, and dice half the red onion. Toss everything together with the basil, salt, pepper and olive oil. This stands up on its own as a great salad, so if you are suddenly fatigued, grab a big spoon and go to town.

Otherwise, spread the adobo sauce thinly over the prepare crust, then distribute the bean and veggie mix on top. Slice the rest of the red onion and arrange the slices over the veggies [totally optional]. Cut the chipotle peppers into small bits [not sure how to describe the pieces, as the peppers are soaked with sauce and look a bit like slugs] and sprinkle them over everything. Grate the pepper jack and Manchego cheese over the whole pizza.

Slide into the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cheese is fully melted and bubbling. Makes two pizzas that will not last long!