pizza

All posts tagged pizza

Smoked Anchovy and Salmon Pizza

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on February 20, 2013
Posted in: Alaskan cooking, Food. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 11 Comments

Smoked Anchovy & Sage-Seared Salmon Pizza_n

Salmon seasoned with sage and briefly seared, smoked anchovies, shitake mushrooms and mozzarella cheese top a whole wheat crust brushed with garlic-infused olive oil.

The base for this elegant, satisfying pizza is a baked crust brushed with olive oil. This year, we’ve been experimenting with whole wheat crusts, and in this particular recipe it is perfect. Baked on a pizza stone, the whole wheat comes out light and crisp. The sage adds a wonderful aroma and flavor to this dish. This would be a great pizza to cook on a charcoal grill or in a cast iron frying pan with a lid in camp.

Ingredients:

  • 1 pizza crust, pre-baked
  • 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1/2 pound salmon fillet, skin on or off, cook’s choice. We prefer skin on.
  • 1 tin (2 oz) smoked anchovy fillets, oil drained and fillets separated
  • 2 tbsp tbsp pine nuts
  • garlic cloves. Small cloves can be left whole, large cloves cut into smaller pieces to make about 20 pieces of garlic.
  • two or three shitake mushrooms, sliced thin
  • 1 tsp dried sage
  • 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
  • ground pepper
  • 3 very thin onion slices, cut in half
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, preferably infused with garlic, but plain olive oil is fine
  • 1/2 tsp powdered garlic
  • additional Italian seasoning, to taste

Directions:

  1. Place a pizza stone on oven’s center rack and preheat to 400 degrees F.
  2. Ensure all bones are removed from salmon fillet. Rub sage into skinless side of fillet and set aside.
  3. In a medium-sized frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, shitake slices, 1/2 tsp of Italian seasoning and ground pepper and briefly sauté. Onions should still be slightly crisp. Remove mixture to a plate to stop cooking.
  4. Return pan to medium heat and add garlic cloves and pine nuts. Sauté until garlic just turns soft and edges are light brown. Remove mixture to a plate to cool.
  5. Return pan to medium heat. Place salmon fillet sage side down and sear for 30 seconds. Use your hand or a spatula to apply light pressure to the fillet to ensure that it is evenly seared. Turn fillet over and sear the other side for 30 seconds. Remove to a cutting board to cool.
  6. Place 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 1/2 tsp powdered garlic in a small bowl and mix together. Using a pastry brush, brush olive oil onto the pizza crust.
  7. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese on the crust.
  8. Evenly sprinkle the mushrooms and onions atop the cheese.
  9. Arrange the anchovy fillets in a pinwheel on the pizza.
  10. Use very sharp knife to cut/separate the salmon along the grain of the fillet. Pieces should be 1 or 2 inches long. Arrange these pieces on the pizza.
  11. Add the pine nuts and garlic, and finish with a sprinkle of Italian seasoning.
  12. Bake for 10 minutes. Crust should be browned and the bottom should be crisp. Rest pizza for a few minutes before slicing to allow toppings to set.

Enjoy this pizza with a lightly-chilled Chardonnay or a cold Amber Ale.

Deep Dish Garlic Margherita Pizza

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on October 4, 2012
Posted in: Alaska bush, Culinary feats, Food. Tagged: , , , , , , . 6 Comments

Uptown Chicago on the Chukchi Sea: Pan-fried garlic chips and lots of parmesan create a tasty topping for this Margherita-stye deep dish pizza. 

Barbra’s formative food experiences were considerably more worldly than mine. For her, deep dish pizzas were part of growing up. But I still vividly remember my first encounter with deep dish pizza. It occurred during my senior year of high school when one of my track teammates qualified for nationals in the javelin. The meet was in Chicago. When he got back, he raved about a strange and wondrous food called “Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.” The way he told it, a single lare slice of this thick, crusty, meat-and-cheese-stuffed pie would constitute a meal for a regular person.

After that, I kept my eyes open, hoping to find such a pizza on a local menu or in our supermarket’s frozen food section. But back then, in my small town in western Pennsylvania, there were no Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizzas. (I felt like an epicurean adding a little extra cheese and a sprinkle of Italian Seasoning on my frozen Red Barrons.) Many years later, when I finally did get the opportunity to try a deep dish pizza, it was at a well-known pizza chain where, not surprisingly, the experience was entirely anticlimactic.

I’m happy to say that I have finally experienced the gustatory joy of digging into an authentic, perfectly baked, zesty, cheesy satisfying deep dish pizza. Barbra kept the ingredients fairly simple, starting with a Margherita-style filling featuring diced tomatoes, slices of mozzarella, olive oil and a blend of Italian herbs. She topped this with shredded parmesan and pan-fried garlic slices. In our view, pizzas ultimately stand or fall on their crusts. This one was perfect.

Deep Dish Garlic Margherita Pizza

Ingredients

Crust

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tbsp yellow cornmeal
  • 2 3/4 tsp yeast
  • 1 3/4 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 tbsp butter, melted
  • 1 1/4 cup water

Filling and Toppings

  • 3/4 lb. mozzarella cheese, sliced
  • 28 ounces (two 14 ounce cans) of diced tomatoes, drained thoroughly
  • 3 tsp dried Italian seasonings
  • 1 tsp dried garlic powder
  • 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • garlic chips (see recipe below)

Directions for Crust

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Place the crust ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer.
  3. Turn on dough setting.
  4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl.
  5. Oil a pizza pan or two 9-inch pie pans by pouring a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in pan and tilting it to cover bottom(s).
  6. Stretch the dough to make a large circle. Do this with your hands or with a rolling pin on a lightly oiled surface.
  7. Lay the dough in the pan and stretch the dough up the sides of the pan. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes.
  8. Bake crust for 10 minutes until set and very lightly browned

Directions for Filling and Toppings

  1. Combine tomatoes with herbs, garlic, salt and pepper.
  2. Cover the bottom of baked crust with mozzarella slices.
  3. Add tomato mixture.
  4. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on the top.
  5. Top with garlic chips (See below).
  6. Bake pizza for about 25 minutes. If edges begin to brown too much, cover edges with foil during baking. When finished, pizza filling should be bubbly and top should be golden brown.
  7. Allow pizza to cool for about 10 – 15 minutes before serving.

Garlic Chips

  1. Slice 6 large cloves of garlic into thin slivers.
  2. Heat olive oil over medium-low heat in a medium frying pan. Add garlic slivers and sauté until just browned and edges are crisp.
  3. Remove chips from heat and drain on paper towel.