Nasturtium pizza – 30 August 2014

I decided to make up a new pizza, to use up at least something in the fridge. But what would it be? I decided to play off the nasturtium pasta recipe I make from The Pasta Bible, since I had Fontina Valle d’Aosta and some gorgonzola dolce. Had to check to see if there were any nasturtiums, but of course, it doesn’t take a lot! Nasturtiums volunteer generously in our yard in the spring, but they are almost gone now, and what leaves there are are small. So, have to use more of them 🙂

For pre-prep, I picked and washed multiple small nasturtium leaves, and 7 flowers.

I cut a chord of red onion (original recipe has shallot but we didn’t have any) perhaps 3/4″ deep and 2 1/2″ wide, and sliced it extremely thin, then cut crosswise so the pieces were 1/3 of an inch in maximum length. I minced a medium sized clove of garlic. I took a dried red pepper from the hanging bunch given to me by my friend V, seeded and deveined it, and then minced the skin (wearing a lab glove on my pepper hand). I measured out 2 Tbsp olive oil and cooked the shallots on high briefly, then on medium when the cast-iron pan got hot, for a few minutes. I added the garlic and cooked 30 sec or so, then added the red pepper, stirred, and turned off the heat, and let it sit till needed. I washed and dried a lot of small nasturtium leaves, pinched off their stems (leaving little holes in the middle of most of the leaves) stacked them up, and sliced them into perhaps 1/8″ wide ribbons. If I had been using larger leaves, I should at this point have cut the ribbons in half for easy eating, but these were short enough not to be an issue. I also washed up the 7 nasturtium flowers and pinched off the petals.

D says this looks like a flag – perhaps a Foodie Flag?

I made a new batch of pizza dough and froze 2/3 of it in two containers for future pizzas. The third third I left for a second rise, and then pressed it out, let it sit for 20 or more minutes, and finished stretching it to final shape after it had rested. I cooked it on my stone for about 1.5 minutes at 500. I used my pastry brush (which is actually a full-time pizza brush) to brush the garlic/onion/pepper oil mixture onto the pizza. I topped this with grated mozzarella – at least 2/3 of the 4 oz of so that I had grated – and then sprinkled on the slightly less than 2 oz grated Fontina Valle d/Aosta. I cut 4 very small tomatoes – Dirty Girl Produce dry-farmed early girls – into vertical slices, perhaps 4 – 6 slices per tomato, and laid them over the pizza, and salted and peppered them. I scattered the rest of the mozzarella over the tomatoes, and dotted on a 3/4″ by 3/4″ by 3″ prism of Galbani gorgonzola dolce. This I cooked another 4 minutes at 500. On D’s suggestion, I took the pizza out before it was done and added the nasturtium leaves, then returned to the oven for another minute to let them cook slightly. This was a great suggestion. After this final cooking, I distributed the nasturtium leaves over the pizza. I thought they didn’t make much difference, but D really liked the added color, and I have to admit that was entirely pleasing to the eye.

It was really good. We both thought the tomatoes were a great addition to the pizza, even though they are not in the pasta.

D chose an Acorn wine, which meant either that he expected the pizza to be great, or I’d better make sure it was 😉 The wine was terrific with the meal, and of course, simply terrific in the first place. It was a 2008 Axiom Syrah, from Alegria Vineyards in the Russian River Valley.

We had a handful of large red seedless grapes for dessert, but I forgot to shoot them. They were lovely.

 

 

 

Lunch:

I bought a half-baked half-pizza at The Cheese Board, since D was out for lunch. I overcooked it (again) but there is more for tomorrow. I had the leftover Madiran with this, which was in the fridge to keep it fresh. Still pretty good.

 

 

Here is the recipe: