You Heard Me. Strawberry Pizza.
Late season strawberries, I has them! In truth, they are mind-bogglingly late season but they are ripe picked and have never known the chill embrace of a refrigerator unit, so I can only assume that someone around here is working minor miracles in the berry patch to give me ZOMG FRESH STRAWBERRIES IN AUGUST. Whoever you are, I am deeply indebted.
Now these berries are so ripe they are almost past ripe, nearly black with juice and sugars starting to break down. I didn't jump the gun and immediately set to making strawberry jam when I got home from the farmers market yesterday, so the color deepened even more, intensifying the flavor. This brought to mind the blurb on Not Martha earlier this week about strawberry pizza, which is as tantalizing a proposition as I have ever heard. Obviously due to my chili allergies, an ingredient change-up was necessary, though I did not stint on the peppercorns. It's possible that my version is even better, though I leave it up to you to make the comparison since it would kill me to do it myself. Literally, kill me.
(Dear readers, if you only ever get your pizza from a pizza chain, the following is likely to sound incredibly foreign and wrong. Bear with me, please. Let us begin with the concept of pizza at its most basic - pizza margherita, which is a bare-bones tomato sauce, could be sweet, could be salty, could just be some sliced up tomatoes, wodges of mozzarella randomly scattered about, basil leaves, all drizzled with olive oil. That's it. Any place that does not begin their pizza menu with this is not a real pizzeria, sorry. I am very firm on this point.
From there you can branch out into more exotic pizza territory, like pear slices combined with brie and candied walnuts; or grapes, gorgonzola and rosemary; or artichoke hearts and alfredo dotted with spinach, or . . . strawberries, goat cheese and balsamic reduction. Now, to continue.)
For summertime thin-crust pizzas, I do cheat and put them together on flatbread or pita round or sliced baguette or the nearest available ready-baked substance. It keeps my time with a +400º oven to a minimum. The following makes 2 small pita pizzas, which could certainly feed one or be shared with a friend in a multi course meal. Scale up as needed.
Begin by pouring the vinegar* into a medium mixing bowl and adding the sugar and a generous amount of ground black pepper. Add a dash of red wine if you like. Slice the tomato into 1/4 inch rounds, and then halve. Place in the vinegar. Slice the strawberries into rounds and place in the vinegar as well. If you have a cutting board that has a little 'moat' bored into it to catch the juices of whatever you're cutting, I recommend it, because you will definitely want the drippings of the strawberries and tomatoes to mingle in with the vinegar. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature for 25-35 minutes while you get every thing else ready.
Pan-cook the chicken breast with a small dollop of olive oil until just done, 3-5 minutes per side (? - I never time this, flip it when it needs to be flipped). Remove from heat and allow to rest on a cutting board. When cool, cut 1/2 inch slices across the grain and rip up into smaller pieces; it should be relatively flakey. You probably will have some unchopped chicken leftover, unless you are feeling quite carnivorous.
Arrange the rest of your ingredients in a work station around a baking sheet. Brush both sides of the pita bread with olive oil and set on the baking sheet as the base layer of your pizza. At this point, pour off the liquid from the strawberry-tomato mixture into your pan-it can mingle with the juices from the chicken, that's fine-and simmer on medium-low while you assemble. Give it a stir every once in a while, like when you've finished laying out an individual ingredient. Now is also a good time to preheat the oven to 400ºF.
The strawberries and tomatoes that you retained in the bowl should be looking pretty juicy after their time with the vinegar. First arrange the tomatoes in a pinwheel around the pitas, and fill in the spaces with the strawberry rounds. Add the basil leaves whole, while nipping the tarragon leaves off the stem and sprinkling them around. Grind some more black pepper over all of these, and then begin dotting the chicken bits on top. To hold everything in place with a gooey later of melted cheese, add a mixture of the goat cheese and buffalo mozzarella. You don't have to carpet bomb it with cheese because the pita won't support the weight of all that, but use enough to anchor things a little.
By now the balsamic vinegar mixture should have reduced down into a lovely glaze. Remove it from the heat and gently drizzle it over the top of your pita pizzas. Not too much, a couple of spoonfuls will do, because a little goes a long way and the tomatoes and strawberries are still holding on to more of the same mixture. Try aiming for the spots not covered in cheese. Save the rest of the reduction for another meal, possibly involving seared grape tomato halves and pasta. Mm!
Pop into the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and begun to get crisp a little on the edges. Take it out and let it rest for a few minutes, because the only thing worse than scalding your hands on molten mozzarella is scalding them on molten mozzarella and boiling balsamic glaze. Then, cut into quarters and proceed to shcaffe, as Nadia G. says. Iced pomegranate-blueberry soda is optional, but highly recommended.
*Tonight I was plumb out of balsamic vinegar, so that section is very approximate and subject to personal taste. I ended up cobbling together some blush wine vinaigrette dressing with a mixed-fruit wine and a splash of ume vinegar. It seemed to work just fine, probably not as flavor-intense though.
This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/76603.html and has
comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
Now these berries are so ripe they are almost past ripe, nearly black with juice and sugars starting to break down. I didn't jump the gun and immediately set to making strawberry jam when I got home from the farmers market yesterday, so the color deepened even more, intensifying the flavor. This brought to mind the blurb on Not Martha earlier this week about strawberry pizza, which is as tantalizing a proposition as I have ever heard. Obviously due to my chili allergies, an ingredient change-up was necessary, though I did not stint on the peppercorns. It's possible that my version is even better, though I leave it up to you to make the comparison since it would kill me to do it myself. Literally, kill me.
(Dear readers, if you only ever get your pizza from a pizza chain, the following is likely to sound incredibly foreign and wrong. Bear with me, please. Let us begin with the concept of pizza at its most basic - pizza margherita, which is a bare-bones tomato sauce, could be sweet, could be salty, could just be some sliced up tomatoes, wodges of mozzarella randomly scattered about, basil leaves, all drizzled with olive oil. That's it. Any place that does not begin their pizza menu with this is not a real pizzeria, sorry. I am very firm on this point.
From there you can branch out into more exotic pizza territory, like pear slices combined with brie and candied walnuts; or grapes, gorgonzola and rosemary; or artichoke hearts and alfredo dotted with spinach, or . . . strawberries, goat cheese and balsamic reduction. Now, to continue.)
For summertime thin-crust pizzas, I do cheat and put them together on flatbread or pita round or sliced baguette or the nearest available ready-baked substance. It keeps my time with a +400º oven to a minimum. The following makes 2 small pita pizzas, which could certainly feed one or be shared with a friend in a multi course meal. Scale up as needed.
- 2 eight inch pita rounds
- 1 medium tomato - sweet, flavorful varieties are best
- 12-18 very ripe strawberries, depending on size
- 1/4 c red wine or balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar
- cracked black pepper
- 4 oz of goat's milk cheese or mild, flavorful cheese curds (Canonball Cheese Curds higly recommended, but you've heard me say that before.)
- 2 oz buffalo mozzarella
- 8-12 basil leaves
- 4 sprigs of tarragon
- 1 chicken breast, salted and peppered to taste
- extra virgin olive oil
Begin by pouring the vinegar* into a medium mixing bowl and adding the sugar and a generous amount of ground black pepper. Add a dash of red wine if you like. Slice the tomato into 1/4 inch rounds, and then halve. Place in the vinegar. Slice the strawberries into rounds and place in the vinegar as well. If you have a cutting board that has a little 'moat' bored into it to catch the juices of whatever you're cutting, I recommend it, because you will definitely want the drippings of the strawberries and tomatoes to mingle in with the vinegar. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature for 25-35 minutes while you get every thing else ready.
Pan-cook the chicken breast with a small dollop of olive oil until just done, 3-5 minutes per side (? - I never time this, flip it when it needs to be flipped). Remove from heat and allow to rest on a cutting board. When cool, cut 1/2 inch slices across the grain and rip up into smaller pieces; it should be relatively flakey. You probably will have some unchopped chicken leftover, unless you are feeling quite carnivorous.
Arrange the rest of your ingredients in a work station around a baking sheet. Brush both sides of the pita bread with olive oil and set on the baking sheet as the base layer of your pizza. At this point, pour off the liquid from the strawberry-tomato mixture into your pan-it can mingle with the juices from the chicken, that's fine-and simmer on medium-low while you assemble. Give it a stir every once in a while, like when you've finished laying out an individual ingredient. Now is also a good time to preheat the oven to 400ºF.
The strawberries and tomatoes that you retained in the bowl should be looking pretty juicy after their time with the vinegar. First arrange the tomatoes in a pinwheel around the pitas, and fill in the spaces with the strawberry rounds. Add the basil leaves whole, while nipping the tarragon leaves off the stem and sprinkling them around. Grind some more black pepper over all of these, and then begin dotting the chicken bits on top. To hold everything in place with a gooey later of melted cheese, add a mixture of the goat cheese and buffalo mozzarella. You don't have to carpet bomb it with cheese because the pita won't support the weight of all that, but use enough to anchor things a little.
By now the balsamic vinegar mixture should have reduced down into a lovely glaze. Remove it from the heat and gently drizzle it over the top of your pita pizzas. Not too much, a couple of spoonfuls will do, because a little goes a long way and the tomatoes and strawberries are still holding on to more of the same mixture. Try aiming for the spots not covered in cheese. Save the rest of the reduction for another meal, possibly involving seared grape tomato halves and pasta. Mm!
Pop into the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and begun to get crisp a little on the edges. Take it out and let it rest for a few minutes, because the only thing worse than scalding your hands on molten mozzarella is scalding them on molten mozzarella and boiling balsamic glaze. Then, cut into quarters and proceed to shcaffe, as Nadia G. says. Iced pomegranate-blueberry soda is optional, but highly recommended.
*Tonight I was plumb out of balsamic vinegar, so that section is very approximate and subject to personal taste. I ended up cobbling together some blush wine vinaigrette dressing with a mixed-fruit wine and a splash of ume vinegar. It seemed to work just fine, probably not as flavor-intense though.
This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/76603.html and has
comments. Please comment there using OpenID.