My First Pizza
5.27.10 § 9 Comments
I’m not sure why pizza is something I’ve never made before. I mean, I like love pizza and since moving to New York, going a week without eating at least one slice is a very rare thing. Yet, despite my love, I’ve never attempted to make any. However, when I came across a recipe for asparagus, fingerling potato, and goat cheese pizza, I gave into temptation, and man, it’s a good thing I did, because this pizza rocks my world.
I used a really basic dough recipe for my first attempt—I’m still kind of amazed how easy the dough was to make. Literally, all you do is combine flour, salt, and olive oil, add in a mixture of yeast and warm water, put it in the fridge overnight and *POOF* you have dough. I’ve mentioned before that I really have no idea how things like this work. Baking is so much less intuitive to me than other types of cooking. But, work it does. This is a picture of the dough after it sat in the fridge overnight (where it doubled in size-queue the twilight zone music please).
Shopping for pizza toppings was great—green onions, asparagus, and fingerling potatoes are all available at the Union Square Greenmarket right now. The green onions were particularly incredible. I don’t usually associate the word “gorgeous” with onions, but in this case, I’ll have to make an exception. Unfortunately, I was in a hurry to make the pizza, so my photos don’t really do them justice.
In addition to having some beautiful produce to work with, I found out that making pizza is really fun. I got a little bit overwhelmed when it came time to roll out the dough (my friend Adam can attest to the fact that I even considered attempting to toss it for a minute, until I decided that the most likely end result of that would be a pizza-dough-covered floor), but I ended up using my hands and everything worked out fine.
Thankfully, Adam agreed to take some photos while I prepared the pizza. It kind of made me want to hire someone to hang out with me and take pictures while I cook OR I guess I could start dating someone who is a good photographer…I’ll have to consider this some more because washing your hands between each step to avoid getting the camera covered in mozzarella is a huge pain.
adapted from Bon Appetit
3 tbsp olive oil (2 for brushing on the dough, 1 for tossing the asparagus)
Place potatoes in small saucepan. Add enough water to cover by 1 inch. Sprinkle with salt. Bring to boil and cook until potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain. Cool. Cut potatoes into thin slices.
Preheat oven to 450°F. On a rimless baking sheet, roll and/or stretch pizza dough to 16×11-inch oval. Mix 2 tablespoons olive oil and garlic in small bowl. Brush garlic oil over dough. Sprinkle 3/4 of green onions over, then mozzarella, leaving 1/2-inch plain border. Top with potato slices and goat cheese. Toss asparagus and 1 tablespoon oil in medium bowl. Scatter asparagus over pizza. Sprinkle with Parmesan, then with salt and generously with pepper.
Bake pizza until crust is browned and asparagus is tender, about 18 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining green onions. Cut into pieces.
Your dough comments are hilarious. It will make more sense with time, I promise! In fact, speaking of dough, I found a pretty good flour tortilla recipe (Santa Fe School of Cooking) that I’ll send you. There’s no yeast so it’s not as magical, but also way faster (takes me about an hour, some of which is waiting).
The pizza looks great! I’m glad it turned out well. I’ve really enjoyed my pizza stone, you might think about one if you want to make pizza/pita/naan often.
The pictures turned out really well! And kudos for making your own dough–I still haven’t done that yet. I just read an article on homemade pizza in the NYTimes that made me hungry, and seeing your finish product just did the same thing X20!
Okay, since the dough is so easy, you’ve just about convinced me to try it. It’ll be a good way to eat more veggies.
Looks fabulous!
Oh goodness that looks delicious. Way to brave the recent heat wave and turn that oven on.
Better than Artichoke?
Ummm…if not better than equally as good (and you know that’s saying something)!
It certainly looks delish!
Mine’s in the oven… hope it tastes as great as yours looks!