I refer to this dish as "pizza rustica" because it was kind of thrown together using pretty basic ingredients. None of it is refined; in fact I think it's the opposite of refined. And what is the opposite of refined? Well today, it's "rustic!"
I toyed with the idea of using pesto instead of tomato sauce (which I love!), but I wanted to try something a little different. In place of the sauce I used squished grape tomatoes. And for the cheese, I made sure to use some finely shredded mozzarella. This turned out great because it ended up forming a light crust over the top of the pizza, which added extra texture and crunch.
When I'm cooking for myself, obviously all of my recipes are going to be vegetarian. But if you want to add meat to this pizza, I think ground Italian sausage would be a nice compliment to this dish. Just sauté it up separately and add it to the pizza after you top it with the onions and mushrooms, before the basil and cheese.
Lastly, if you'd rather use a pre-made, store-bought pizza crust, feel free to do that. If you decide to do that, follow the instructions on the package for cooking temperature and time instead of following my directions.
Let's get cookin'!
VoraceRachel's Rustic Pizza
Servings: However many people can share one pizza - could be two, three, four, or maybe just ONE!
Prep. time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Ingredients:
1 ball pizza dough
1 8 ounce container cherry or grape tomatoes
1 small sweet onion, sliced into rings
1 portobello mushroom cap, diced
1/2 cup whole kalamata olives, pitted
2 cloves garlic
5 basil leaves, julienned
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, finely shredded
3 tablespoons corn meal
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon frech cracked black pepper
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place a pan with high sides on the stove over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons extra virgin oilve oil and all of the tomatoes. Roll the tomatoes around in the pan to coat them in the olive oil. Now add 1/4 teaspoon salt & 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Place a lid on the pan and cook for about twenty minutes. Make sure to jostle the pan every few minutes so that the tomatoes roll around and don't burn from sitting in one place for too long.
At the ten minute mark, remove the lid from the tomatoes and use the end of a spatula to gently press on each tomato, breaking it open slightly so that some of the juice can spill out.
When you've done that to all of the tomatoes, stir them around. Replace the lid and let cook for the last ten minutes, jostling them every couple of minutes.
While the tomatoes are cooking, prepare the onions. Add 1 tablespoon EVOO and 1 tablespoon butter to a non-stick skillet. Place the skillet on the stove over medium heat. Once the butter has melted into the oil, add your onion ring slices.
These are going to cook for about twenty minutes as well, until they become translucent and slightly golden. Stir them around occasionally as they cook to make sure they don't burn. At the ten minute mark add 1/4 teaspoon salt & 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
When the tomatoes have finished cooking, remove them from the stove and place them on a flat surface that can stand the heat, like a wooden cutting board. Take off the lid and gently squish the tomatoes using a potato masher or the back of a fork. Be careful when doing this because the liquid inside the tomatoes will be very hot and will squirt out at you. Learned that lesson the hard way! Ouch!
Once the tomatoes are all squished, set them aside to cool until you're ready to assemble your pizza.
By now the onions should be done. Place a couple paper towels over a dinner plate and then scoop the onions out of your pan and onto the paper towels to soak up some of the fat.
Use that same pan to cook the mushrooms. Place it back on the stove over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon EVOO to the pan. Next, add the mushroom bits and drizzle one more tablespoon EVOO over top of them. Stir.
The mushrooms will need to cook for about ten minutes until they have softened. Stir occasionally.
While the mushrooms cook, roll out your pizza dough. Sprinkle the corn mean onto your clean countertop. Knead the dough to open it up and use a rolling pin to roll it out. It should end up in either a rectangle if you're going to cook the pizza on a baking sheet, or a circle if you're going to cook it on a pizza stone. (Notice mine is kind of an in-between shape! But I did manage to mold it into a circle once I got it onto the pizza stone.)
The mushrooms should be about finished by the time you've rolled out the pizza dough. Line another dinner plate with paper towels and then scoop the mushrooms on top of them to drain off some of the oil.
Last, make the olive tapenade. Place all of the olives and the garlic in a food processor.
Pulse to chop and combine the olives and garlic until it's all very fine, almost like a paste.
Time to assemble the pizza! Woohoo!
Place the crust on either your baking sheet or pizza stone. Spoon the tomatoes onto the crust and spread them around in an even layer over the entire crust, leaving about a half an inch around the edge.
Next, use a spatula to spoon out the olive tapenade over the tomatoes. Spread out in an even layer.
Then, sprinkle the onions over the tapenade. Make sure they're evenly distributed across the whole pizza. Do the same with the mushrooms.
Sprinkle the julienned basil over the top of all the other ingredients.
Finally, top the pizza with the cheese. Here's a little tip my boyfriend, Travis, taught me: put more cheese around the outter edge of the pizza and less in the center since it will all merge to the center during the cooking process. Doing it this way guarantees that you'll have an even amount of cheese around the entire pizza.
Place the pizza in the oven to cook for twenty minutes.
When the pizza is done cooking, remove it from the oven and slide it off of your cooking aparatus onto a large cutting board.
Cut the pizza into squares.
Serve hot. Salute!
No comments:
Post a Comment