MITCH IN THE KITCHEN

herbed mushroom and feta pizza

Have you ever had the mushroom and egg pizza at ABC Kitchen? It’s as wonderful as this video and this slideshow will have you believe. The mushroom pizza I made at home the other night was not nearly as spectacular but I will humbly say that it’s one of the better pizzas I’ve thought up in recent history.

1. Make the dough. I’ve been doing a half-whole-wheat mixture of flour using the reliable no-knead recipe. You could also go the whole shortcut route and buy a blob of dough from the supermarket or your local pizzeria.

2. Sauté the mushrooms. Add some olive oil to a pan over medium heat. Add sliced mushrooms (some flavorful interesting ones like shiitake, oyster, shimeji, trumpet, hen-of-the-woods, etc., maybe mixed with plain old cremini or white mushrooms) and let them sit until they brown. Toss around and add chopped green garlic (or leeks or garlic cloves), salt, and black pepper. When mushrooms are all cooked through and golden, add a squeeze of lemon juice and turn off the heat. Add lots of chopped fresh parsley, thyme, and oregano.

3. Top the pizza dough. Flatten and shape the dough (I do personal-sized because it’s easier to handle). Top it with torn pieces of fresh mozzarella, then the mushroom mixture. I added some thinly sliced asparagus but to be honest, I couldn’t really taste it.

4. Bake away! Put the pizza in the oven (preheated to 500 degrees F) for about 10-15 minutes or until it looks, you know, right. If you want an egg on it, make a little space in the middle of the pizza and add the egg about halfway through cooking.

5. Finish with feta. Add a drizzle of olive oil and crumbled feta cheese to the pizzas.

prosciutto and pineapple pizza

Pineapple as a pizza topping is kind of a divisive issue, right? I happen to love it, especially after embracing some of the touristy things about Hawaii on my honeymoon a little while ago. We stayed on the gorgeous island of Kauai, a block and a half from a never-crowded beach and a 10-minute walk from Tahiti Nui, a famous little spot with mai tais, live music, takeout pizza, and an important scene in the movie The Descendants. One night we ordered the spicy Hawaiian pizza (ham, pineapple, sliced jalapenos) and one night we ordered an even better version that replaced the usual ham with kalua pork.

Nothing will ever taste like the fruit we had there, but I’ve noticed all the big pineapples at the supermarket lately and went ahead and bought one (side note: I will never forget the creepy ananas from high school French class who always looks kind of stoned). Fresh pineapple tastes a hell of a lot better than the frozen or canned variety and is worth the fruit-butchering process. And as the ever-likable Mark Bittman reminds us, homemade pizza is cheaper and can be better than what you’d get away from home. Our spin on Hawaiian pizza was made with mozzarella, prosciutto, fresh pineapple, fresh jalapenos, and torn basil leaves. A little under-browned (I got impatient) but still delicious.

breakfast pizza

Eggs on pizza can be a very good thing, as I learned at ABC Kitchen a few months ago while devouring brunch (mushroom and oregano pizza with a runny egg plopped in the center). I had also seen this and this. I let egg yolks run all over so many of my meals on a regular basis, so why not pizza too? I finally did one lazy and hazy weekday morning sometime during the lull between the end of my summer class and the beginning of a trip to the West coast. It may also become a de facto dinner pizza.

Adding the egg(s) is basically the very last step before you shut the over door if you’re gonna do this. It helps to make some kind of nest out of cheese or vegetables to hold the egg in (as you can see in the photo above, I should’ve formed some kind of tomato barricade). It also helps to crack the egg into a small ramekin or juice glass or something, then carefully dump it on top of the pizza. Bake the pizza as you normally would. The egg yolk should stay runny.

radicchio, pancetta, and mushroom pizza

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when the weather gets hot, I want to eat. And cook. A lot. I spent most of this last (very brutal) heat wave hiding indoors, soaking up other people’s air conditioning. While the streets of New York felt like an even dirtier sauna than usual, I was quietly slurping down iced coffee and eating chocolate cake, chocolate croissants, and squishy cheeseburgers within walking distance of my apartment. At home, I made big ass healthy salads (of the raw vegetable, whole grain, potato, and pasta varieties) while hoping that my responsible 80-degree thermostat setting would prevent any blackouts (I stocked flashlights, candles, and ice-cold tequila, just in case).

Also, I was nuts enough to bake pizza in a 500-degree oven, albeit very quickly. Feel free to try this in other weather.

To make it: Saute sliced mushrooms and chopped raddichio in a little bit of oil (tip: if your radicchio is really, really bitter, you can soak chopped pieces in ice water for at least 30 minutes to leach out some of whatever bitter-tasting compounds). Shape dough (I’m still doing no-knead) and top with mozzarella (torn into pieces), shallots (thinly sliced), mushroom and radicchio mixture, thinly sliced pancetta (torn into pieces), and pieces of aged gouda, in this order. Bake til crust is golden and cheese starts getting bubbly.

Previously: radicchio, apple, and gorgonzola pizza

white pizza with garlic scape pesto

Homemade pizzas are never as perfect as the stuff you get at all the well-known pizza places here in New York (I recently spent 15 minutes describing Di Fara pizza to someone… there was a lot of chest-clutching on my part), but hot damn are they fun to make! You can make them whatever size you want, pile on a bunch of vegetables, and make ridiculous/inappropriate-in-restaurant designs and shapes with the toppings. Hell, you can even make your own cheese. Here’s a run-down of this latest pizza of mine.

The dough:
I finally gave no-knead dough a shot because lazy-made baked goods? Yes please. This is my new favorite way to make pizza dough because all you have to do is mix 4 ingredients in a bowl, then let it hang out for at least half a day.

The pesto:
Garlic scapes are the curly stems that shoot out of garlic bulbs in the early summer. They are trimmed off so that the garlic can devote all of its energy to the underground bulb. Scapes are less pungent than regular garlic cloves, and you can eat them raw or lightly cooked. I combined them with toasted pine nuts and olive oil in the food processor to make a bright green pesto. Perfect for tossing with pasta or vegetables, mixing into salad dressings and marinades, or spreading on sandwiches or pizza dough.

The cheese:
I spread big dots of homemade ricotta (more on that later) all over the dough, along with pieces of mozzarella. Shaved Parmigiano Reggiano (or some other aged, hard cheese) would’ve also been a good finishing touch.

I’ve gotten into the habit of cooking pizzas on an upside-down baking sheet that has been sitting in my oven while it preheats on the highest temperature setting. The crusts get a little more crusty this way. Since I don’t have a pizza peel, I assemble the pizzas on a piece of parchment paper, then slide it onto the hot baking sheet. The better way, according to people who are far more experienced than I am (read ‘em here and here), is to put the dough directly on an overturned pan under the broiler.

For more basic homemade pizza tips, check out the New York Times’ short slide show.

sausage and potato pizza

More pizza! An article in the newest Cook’s Illustrated nudged me to make this. (Side note: this issue also has a bunch of tips for perfect cookies, which I will hopefully be baking later tonight.) Recently, my pizzas have been more puffy and focaccia-like than intended. The article tells you how to get thin, flavorful pizza dough: let it rise/ferment in the refrigerator for 24 to 72 hours. This slows down carbon dioxide production but keeps all the flavorful sugars, acids, and alcohols forming.

As for the toppings, I’ve been kind of infatuated with potatoes on pizza ever since Little Luzzo’s started serving potato and gorgonzola slices. I have no problem with starch-on-starch combinations and pairing something salty with low-intensity potatoes seems like a good fit. Here’s a rough guide:

Crank your oven all the way up (not to broil); mine goes up to 500 degrees. If you don’t have a pizza stone (like I don’t), keep an overturned baking sheet in there. If you don’t have a pizza peel (like I also don’t), flatten and shape the dough on another baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Top pizza dough with mozzarella, then sliced cooked potatoes (boil them whole in salted water, then cool and slice. If you want crispier potatoes, pan fry them a little bit first). Brush potatoes with garlic-rosemary oil (olive oil gently heated with sliced garlic and a few sprigs’ worth of rosemary leaves). Sprinkle a bit of salt on the potatoes. Add sliced sweet Italian sausage to the pizza. Transfer pizza, with parchment paper, to overturned baking sheet in the oven (just slide it off carefully). Bake in oven for about 15 minutes, or until crust is golden and cheese is bubbly. Top with grated hard cheese (Parmigiano, pecorino Romano, and the like) and black pepper.

brussels sprout and pancetta pizza

It’s time for another cured-pork-and-greens pizza (previously: kale and bacon pizza). Slice has a guide for how to make the highly praised brussels sprout and pancetta pizza from Motorino. A New York Times review likened it to “a dog speaking BBC English” (this is a good thing). The restaurant version is delicious as hell, but the homemade version is pretty straightforward to make (though the crust won’t be all 900-degree-oven quality and the cheese may not be totally right). After all, you can’t go wrong combining brussels sprouts with salty pig things.

radicchio, apple, and gorgonzola pizza

Radicchio is bitter. SO bitter. And John and I do ok with bitter (black coffee, the hoppiest IPAs imaginable, bitter melon when it’s drowned in some kind of spicy garlicky sauce).  But this Treviso radicchio from our CSA was too much. I tried marinating and broiling it with vinegar and garlic, which smelled fantastic but was un-swallowable.

I consulted Chowhound (one of the best resources out there for my cooking woes) and found out that soaking the leaves in ice water for at least 30 minutes subdues much of the bitterness. Someone also suggested “throwing other strong flavors at it: blue cheese, apples, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette.” A lovely idea for a pizza. Next time, I’m thinkin’ smoked mozzarella or olives. But I’ll probably just make this pizza again.

Order of layers: pizza dough, mozzarella, thinly sliced apples, ribbons of radicchio (I used a very conservative amount, but next time there will be more), gorgonzola cheese. Bake at 500 degrees for around 20 minutes, or until it looks done (because we all know what pizza is supposed to look like). Top with toasted walnuts (or just add un-toasted walnuts during the last couple minutes of baking).

kale and bacon pizza

Between November and—oh, I dunno—April, I eat a lot of kale. It’s a fall/winter vegetable that is readily available, that isn’t a potato. I put kale in fried rice, in soups, tossed with pasta, mixed into mashed potatoes, and I’ve even tried my hand at making kale chips. But the pizza, my friends, was a first. As much as I love bacon, this thick-cut kind I picked up rendered a LOT of fat, which became a little overwhelming for me and John. You can’t really tell by looking at the photo above (or even the actual pizza), but I turned what was meant to be a healthy dinner into a sneaky lard bomb. If I could do it all over again (and I probably will), I would either use less bacon, thinner sliced bacon, a less fatty cured pork product (ham? prosciutto?), or something salty that isn’t made from pigs (anchovies? olives?).

pizza dough

5 or 6 medium kale leaves, stems removed, then chopped
6 oz provolone cheese, sliced 1/8-inch thick or shredded
little bit of thinly sliced red onion
4 or 5 sundried tomato halves, cut into thin strips
3 slices bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch wide pieces
a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a half sheet pan (about 18 by 13 inches) with parchment paper.

Sprinkle some corn meal on the baking sheet. Place the dough on the baking sheet and drizzle a little olive oil on top. Shape dough to fit pan. If it won’t stretch, let it rest a bit before handling it.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add kale (in batches if necessary) and saute until it begins to soften and turn bright green. Season with salt and pepper, and a little bit of crushed red pepper if you’re into that sort of thing. Add a splash of water and cook until kale is completely softened. Set aside.

Spread provolone evenly over pizza dough. Top with sauteed kale, then onions, sundried tomatoes, and uncooked bacon pieces. Top with additional Parmesan cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until crust is golden and bacon is slightly crisp, rotating halfway through.