Pizza night
On Friday night I tweeted about my dinner:
This tweet proved extremely popular, and I realized I’d better come on over here and write it up, because the pizza, in particular, was sort of an improvisation but an extremely easy one.
To begin! I actually made this pizza dough in my (brand spankin’ new) Vitamix using this recipe, which came in the cookbook they ship with the machine, and was incredibly simple, and required a grand total of 10 minutes’ rising time, all things I love. (Yes, I work from home most of the time now, but recipes that require work at multiple times throughout the day are not compatible with my work schedule at all.)
Pre-Vitamix, I used Mark Bittman’s recipe, which suggests the use of a food processor. Same idea.
When I make pizza dough, I make enough for two pies, of the size that two people could eat for dinner in one night. We are just two people, so that works fine. And it also means that after I divide the dough, I wrap one ball in plastic wrap and put it into the freezer for later. This was one of those “later” days, so I grabbed the dough out on Friday morning and let it rest on the counter till lunchtime. Then I unwrapped it, oiled a bowl, and left it on the counter with a towel over the bowl until 6pm or so.
What actually goes on top of the pizza is always a total game of “what’s in the fridge,” and what I had was:
a container of ricotta, picked up last weekend and certainly nearing its time
some leftover shredded parmesan
a pear
a big onion
I have other stuff in my refrigerator! But this all looked like a pizza to me.
I kind of used this recipe as a way to understand how the ricotta would work on the pizza. But here are the steps I followed.
First, I sliced up the onion with my trusty mandoline, which someone gave us for our wedding so long ago that I can’t remember who it was. You have to be very careful with these things, but they’re great, as long as you don’t slice your finger.
Then I heated a glug of olive oil over medium-high heat in my new pan. Oh! Let me rhapsodize about this pan. After Instagram ads stalked me mercilessly for about a year and a half, I finally caved and got the Always Pan from a company called Our Place, and I regret to announce that it’s as good as the ads suggested. It is truly nonstick (owing to the ceramic coating), you can just throw it in the dishwasher, it’s deep enough that you can make a modest amount of soup or boil some eggs or pasta in it, it comes with a perfect insert basket for steaming or to make the draining of the aforementioned noodles easier, it has a silicone handle, it’s pretty, it comes with a spoon rest built into the handle. I’m pleased as punch and I use it every day. (The only quibble I have is it’s not oven-safe, but I can live with that.)
(I, like all of their customers, have a referral link that will give you $20 off if you want to give it a shot, but otherwise they have not solicited my hawking, I just love this pan. They also have very cute dishes.)
Back to the olive oil heating in the pan. After a minute, I dumped in the onions and let them cook for ten minutes, and they were starting to get brown. Then I put in 2 minced garlic cloves. Well, actually, I use minced garlic from a jar, and I refuse to be ashamed about it, so about a heaping teaspoon. Moved the heat down to low and then just left them for about 20 minutes, while I stirred occasionally. This is the longest part of the job. They’re just caramelizing — this is the easiest thing in the world.
My oven preheats really slowly, so at that point I turned it on to 500 degrees.
While the onions were getting soft and sweet in the pan, I thinly sliced the pear (basically you want pieces that you would be able to fit in your mouth).
Then I turned to the ricotta, using that recipe linked above as a basic guideline. About 6 oz of ricotta (roughly 3/4 cup), about 1/2 c parmesan (mine was shredded, not grated, and not at all tightly packed), one egg yolk. Mixed those together.
I realized I wanted honey in the mix, so I just added some to the cheese mixture. I have no idea how much, but probably 2 TB or so?
Then I stretched the pizza dough onto the pizza stone. I know you’re supposed to heat the pizza stone with the preheating oven, but here is the thing: despite owning a pizza peel (this one, in fact), I am not super handy with it yet, and I knew all the toppings on this one would make it heavy, and I didn’t want to risk it. So I just made the pizza right on the stone.
Dough stretched in a kind of oblong fashion, onions done, I spread the cheese onto it, leaving a small border around the edges. Then spread the onions on top. Then placed the pears. Sprinkled some pepper and salt. Had I been able to find the thyme in my mess of spice jars, I would have, but I could not find it so I did not add it. I think red pepper flakes would be good on this too.
Baked for 13 minutes. And we’re done. It was so delicious.
The vermouth, by the way, is Antica Formula sweet vermouth, which is pretty nice stuff. Vermouth is fortified wine, and in Spain in particular they love to drink it on the rocks. We ordered a 750 ml bottle of it from our “wine guy” across the street, and he accidentally sent over a 375 ml bottle. When I went to return it, he said, “Oh, would you guys use a liter? I have a liter.” So now we have a liter of it, and I have been drinking it over ice, and it is extremely, extremely good.