Barefoot Bloggers - White Pizza with Arugula

I've been out of the loop with the Barefoot Bloggers for far too long, and I think its time I get back on the horse. I'm not sure if I'll get through both recipes this month, but if I was going to choose only one I knew that this had to be the one: Ina's White Pizza with Arugula, chosen by Angela of Nummy Kitchen.

I've been wanting to try a salad-topped pizza like this for some time, and this was just the excuse I needed to do it. There's just something about the juxtaposition of warm, crisp, cheesy pizza topped with fresh, peppery greens and tart dressing that appeals to me on a very base level - I guess its just the unique satisfaction that only comes from that perfect balance of tastes and textures.

The most involved part of this recipe is the pizza dough itself, and although I thought I had already found my go-to pizza dough recipe I decided to give this one a shot. I'm not sure if it was actually the recipe or the way I went about making it, but it came out head and shoulders above my old recipe. I tried to be patient with this one, adding the flour gradually to be sure I'd get the right consistency to the dough (soft and silky and pliable, unlike the rather dense dough the other recipe gives me) and I let it rise three times over the course of nearly 8 hours so that it could really develop some nice flavor and chewy gluten. I also used a 1-4 ratio of semolina/durham pasta flour to AP flour for a little extra complexity. The finished dough was extremely stretchy but delicate, admittedly difficult to shape and move, but with a light and airy quality that I've never achieved before.



I opted to grill my pizza rather than bake it, partly because it was hellishly hot and humid the day I made this and the thought of turning on the oven was not even close to attractive, and partially because I still think that grilling is the ideal way to get that puffy but crispy crust which I've never quite accomplished indoors. It was a good decision, and the finished crust was as close to perfect as I think I will ever get making pizza at home.

I brushed the crust with the garlic/thyme/crushed red pepper-infused oil and put it oiled-side-down on on the heated grill grate. The crust cooked until the bottom was just getting golden brown, then I brushed the top side with more of the oil and flipped it. Immediately the cooked side got another coat of the oil, some scattered slices of fresh mozzarella, Italian fontina, and low-fat feta (the original recipe called for goat cheese but I wasn't really interested in that) and a sprinkle of diced red bell pepper. By putting the cover on the grill it was transformed into an oven, allowing the cheese to melt and the dough to cook through. About 5 minutes later, the pizza was perfectly browned and crispy on the bottom and gooey-melty on top.



Bringing the pizza back inside, I tossed some fresh young arugula in a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a smidge each of sugar and spicy brown mustard for flavor balance and body. The dressed greens got piled on top of the hot pizza where they began to wilt just a bit, but before they had a chance to get too limp I sliced it in quarters and served it up.



Man, was this tasty. The combination of cheeses, the perfect (seriously, I mean it, it was perfect) crispy crust, the peppery tangy greens, the occasional sweet pop of the red bell pepper - just delicious. Surprisingly light but totally satisfying, it was an ideal summer dinner.



I would make this again in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact, I think I'd consider making this in personal pizza form at a bbq - a bit non-traditional maybe, but I think it'd be a hit.

Hummus Pizza

Just a quickie here to tell you all about a revelation that J and I had recently: hummus? AWESOME on pizza.

This particular specimen was made with an appropriately Mediterranean spin, beginning with a generous layer of hummus (a very simple basic recipe flavored with lemon, olive and garlic) topped with chopped fresh broccoli, caramelized onions, pine nuts, and a modest finish of shredded sharp cheddar and grated parmigiano reggiano (the good stuff), all on homemade pizza dough.



This was utterly satisfying as a pizza dinner, despite being way light on the usual fatty toppings. The hummus itself was actually extremely low-fat, because I used some of the liquid from the can of chickpeas to thin it out rather than a whole crapload of olive oil, and made up for the lack of olive flavor by tossing a couple of chopped brined green olives into the food processor. It came out delicious and you'd never know there was virtually no fat added (just 1 tbsp of olive oil for a little richness on the tongue). We've made practically guilt-free pies before by using skim milk ricotta or part-skim mozzarella, but unsurprisingly those pies would never hold a candle to this one when it comes to flavor and all around tummy satisfaction. It was delicious.



Now, I'm wondering just how far we could take this variation to mimic a real NY Italian-America pizza. Chickpeas are pretty much a blank slate when it comes to flavor - I mean sure, they have a taste all their own but they mix well with almost anything. Could we season the hummus with Italian herbs and spices to make a better fake-out for ricotta on a white pie? Could we add fresh tomatoes and basil to the hummus to make sort of a thick marinara paste? I'm not sure, but I totally want to try. And I want to explore the Greek and Mediterranean angle as well - topped with black olives and crumbled feta and Greek-style braised or sauteed greens, man would this be tasty. Or perhaps chicken souvlaki and thin slices of haloumi, cooked under the broiler till golden brown and crispy, then topped with a light, crisp, fresh cucumber salad. Mmmm. Am I drooling? Sorry.

And who says this variation should be relegated to chickpeas? Why not white beans in one of those Italian-style applications, or black or pinto beans to make a Mexican pizza? (Because we all love those - go on, admit it.) It'd be easy to mimic refritos on a pizza this way, without the extra, well, frying. In lard. Which is delicious, but not something I can really allow onto our dinner plates very often.



And as an added bonus to those of you (read: all of us) who are trying to save money on everyday food, this was seriously cheap to make. Less than $1 for a can of chickpeas on sale, and pennies' worth of flavoring ingredients added to make the hummus; half an onion, a small head of broccoli, probably less than $2 worth of cheese; pizza dough is nothing bu flour, yeast, and water in its most basic form, all very inexpensive if you're like me and buy them in bulk; and the pine nuts, while very tasty here, are really an unnecessary indulgence and could be omitted in the interest of tightening the belt a bit more. All told, when you consider that most of what went into this pie were pantry items for us, this couldn't have cost more than $5 or so to make. Not bad, considering how filling and delicious it was.

At any rate, I'd encourage anyone who likes hummus to give this a shot - even if you're not aiming for low-cal or don't care about your fat intake, try it anyway. Its still an incredibly flavorful way to approach pizza in a new way.

A Lot From a Little Series 1, Post 2: Grilled BBQ Smoked Chicken Pizza

I'm starting a new semi-regular feature here at Table for Two, in which I will try to offer some tips and tricks on eating well without breaking the bank, especially when cooking for a small number of people.

A Lot From A Little Series 1, Post 1: How to Smoke a Chicken

Now that you've smoked your chicken and broken it down, you've got this big pile of delicious, moist, smoky chicken meat staring you in the face and begging to be used. So, you might ask, what exactly do I do with this stuff?

Well, for starters, you could eat it, just as it is. Whip up a batch of cole slaw, boil or grill some corn on the cob, slice a few tomatoes and drizzle with EVOO and sprinkle with salt, and you've got yourself one hell of a tasty and healthy end-of-summer dinner. We've done meals like this with subtle variations many times in the past, and its always delicious.

Or, you can just use it wherever you might otherwise use roasted chicken. It'd make a killer chicken noodle soup, or be a really interesting riff on chicken parm if mixed with a light and acidic tomato sauce and baked with a bit of fresh mozzarell and basil on top. (In fact, I think I'll be trying that next time...) Throw it in your favorite chicken pot pie or stew recipe, or sautee it in chili sauce for chicken enchiladas, burritos, or tacos. The light hickory smokiness would complement all of those things, and probably with very little recipe alteration.

However, if you're looking for something perhaps a little more creative or interesting than standard comfort food, let me tell you what we did with ours.

The day we smoked it (which, btw, was a Sunday, and I absolutely recommend making this a weekend project so you can take your time with it and relax a bit while the bird takes its smoke bath - perhaps by sitting outside with a beer and a good book) we used some of the meat to make grilled pizza for dinner. We've been trying to perfect our grilled pizza method all summer and wanted to get one more attempt in before the weather gets too cool and the days too short for grilled dinners. And I have to say that this time around was the absolute best yet - still not quite perfect, but we're close. So very, very close.



BBQ Chicken Pizza is hardly an original concept, and I have to admit that when its done right, I like it even better than regular tomato-and-mozzarella style pizza. I'm a sucker for sweet bbq sauce on just about anything, but when you throw in chicken and lots of cheese, well lets just say I'm not terribly proud of the lack of self-control I exhibit. Its downright shameful, it is. But I can't help it.

But when we made up our minds to smoke this chicken, and decided to give the grilled pizza another shot, it was just a natural jump from there to realize that the smoked chicken would be a perfect topping for a slightly charred and crispy crust off the grill. And if we were going for smokey and charred, the next logical step was bbq.

I pulled my beloved Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking off the shelf and thumbed over to the Pizza Margherita recipe, whose dough has been the basis of my experiments so far. This time around I halved the recipe, and used half bread flour and half semolina flour instead of all bread flour. Who knew semolina would make such a difference? The dough was softer, silkier, and stretchier, and rolled out to a perfect thin-but-stable round for the pizzas. And when it went on the grill, it bubbled and puffed and charred just like it would in a real pizza oven. I can't even describe how satisfying that was to watch - as soon as it started developing those big tell-tale bubbles, I knew I'd gotten it right.

Unfortunately our grill isn't big enough to make the pizzas completely outdoors, as you need to be able to move them away from direct heat in order to top them on the grill without burning the bottoms, so we grilled both sides and then brought them inside to finish them off. The crusts were topped with a thin layer of J's best-yet homemade sweet bbq sauce, followed by a generous amount of the shredded smoked chicken, some thin sliced red onions, a few slices of fresh mozzarella, and a generous sprinkling of an equal blend of shredded sharp cheddar and smoked gouda. The topped pizzas went on a baking sheet and under the broiler for just a few minutes until the cheese was melty and everything was hot, and the crust had taken on a bit more char around the edges.

When we took them out, this is what we got.



Looks pretty amazing, doesn't it? Almost like real pizza. And it damn near was.

I know we'll never achieve real pizzeria pizza at home without a brick oven - a standard kitchen oven will just never get hot enough. But I'm now a believer in grilled pizza as the best possible alternative - the high direct heat helps the dough to actually get crispy and to rise quickly enough to develop those big airy bubbles that I see as the hallmark of a real pizzeria pizza. And the crust this time was so, SO close to what I've been looking for in a homemade pizza crust. It was a bit on the dry side, perhaps, which I think I can remedy by adding more olive oil to the dough, and still a bit too dense and chewy in places, which I think could be fixed by letting it rise a bit longer than I did (which was almost not at all) to let the gluten develop. But I'm making progress, and I think next time I just might get it right.

But, I know, what you really want to know is how was the chicken on this pizza?

It was delicious. Perfect, really. The smokiness mellowed a bit among the sweet sauce, sharp onions, and creamy cheese, but was kept at the fore with the help of the smoked gouda. Everything melded into a near-perfect synchronous whole, all sitting atop that glorious crust... it was our best pizza effort to date.

And as a bonus, it was equally good the next day for lunch. Who says brown-bagging it has to be boring?

Next up in this series: Smoked Chicken Salad Over Greens.