I had a basket of figs. I wanted melted cheese. So for dinner last night: a sweet and savory pizza, plus a salad.
Using my mixer with the dough hook, I cranked out a batch of pizza dough. Go for the rapid-rise yeast, it’s fantastic for the procrastinating baker….although I don’t recommend it for breads or rolls. [A pizza dough recipe that’s become a standby is from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, but any one that calls for olive oil should work fine.]
Covered the bowl with a clean towel…and then walked down the street to the grocery for fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, and salad greens. Ran into my old kitchen buddies on the way, who speak only Polish but somehow always manage to express both their love for me and their disappointment that I’m not pregnant.
When I got home with the goods, the figs were delivered to a bath of balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and chopped basil. Cranked the oven to 450F. Rolled out half of the dough, which had ballooned during my short excursion. [The other half went into the freezer.] Brushed the crust with olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, put into oven. [Use a pizza stone if you have one, and get it plenty hot beforehand. Or put a heavy baking sheet in the oven to hotten up. Which ever you use, sprinkle the surface with a little cornmeal…makes for a crisp crust bottom.] After the crust puffed a bit, I sprinkled on a handful of grated asiago to prevent the ingredients from sogging things up. When the crust had just begun to show signs of browning, it was time lay on the fresh mozzarella and the macerated figs. [I used the soaking liquid as the basis for our salad’s vinaigrette.]
After about 10 minutes of baking, the broiler took care of browning the bubbly cheese. A sprinkling of chopped parsley, a scattering of prosciutto, and we had a dyn-o-mite pizza to munch on while the Cubs lost to the Brewers.