Happy new pizza!
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
A wonderful crust with fennel, mozzarella and fontina
We started the year stumbling upon a great pizza… Peter wanted to try a new dough recipe and invited his buddy Chris over for a taste. As it often happens, Chris brought a garnish to experiment with and we had one of our own (which actually was the extra stuffing that was left over from the ravioli Peter had made earlier). Try them both and decide which one you like best.
The Dough
Is an easy variation of our Neapolitan Pizza Dough and it makes for a crispier pie that holds up nicely to heavier garnishes. The variation is this: Add 1 cup of flour to the recipe, so 5 1/2 cups of flour instead of just 4 1/2 cups.
Fennel, Mozzarella, and Fontina Garnish
We used the dish Chris brought and made this white pizza… loved it!
3 heads of fennel, quartered
1 clove of garlic, sliced thin
1 cup of vermouth or white wine
1/4 stick of butter
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 425 F. Put fennel, garlic, vermouth, and butter in a metal pan and place in the oven. Once the butter is melted, take the pan out to baste the fennel, then back in the oven to bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until fennel is tender. Let the dish cool.
Prepare the pizza pie and garnish with some of the baked fennel, sprinkling cut mozzarella and fontina cheeses on top. Slide pizza in the wood fired oven, bake for one and one half minute, rotate, and finish baking.
Slide pizza out of the oven and before serving, add some finely chopped parsley, grated parmesan cheese and optional, a little olive oil.
Potato, Gruyere, and Truffle Butter Garnish
Boil 3 medium potatoes in salted water.
Discard the water and pass the boiled potatoes through a ricer while still hot or mash them well. Add 1 tablespoon of truffle butter and 1/3 cup shredded gruyere cheese to the mashed potatoes and stir until melted.
Prepare the pizza pie and garnish with mozzarella cheese cut into cubes and then add a little bit of this potato mixture. Slide pizza in the wood fired oven that has been pre-heated to 650F bake for about one and a half minute, rotate pizza and finish baking. This is another “white” pizza (without tomato sauce) that we really, really loved. Great as an appetizer.
Buon appetito!
