Top Five Pizzas in the KI Kitchen

I, like many others, am kind of obsessed with pizza. In fact, I’ve been debating since I was about twelve which is the more perfect food, pizza or burritos, and I’m honestly starting to lean toward pizza (please don’t let my brothers hear that). The thing is, while both offer all four food groups in one tasty and easy-to-eat package, pizza just leaves room for more creativity. Sure, you can get creative with “burritos” when you start to call them wraps, but that’s just not quite the same. And you know what? I can put all the things I love about burritos (mmm, carne asada) on a pizza, so…I think it really is the heavyweight champion of my personal square meal debate.

And I’ve made a lot of pizzas here, especially now that I’ve figured out the trick to dealing with sticky dough (I love you parchment paper). And especially since I’ve figured out that I can stop at Bertucci’s on my walk home from work and, for $2, buy uncooked pizza dough that is 50 times better than anything I’ve managed to turn out in my own kitchen so far. And, if you’ve been reading this here bloggity blog for awhile, you might have noticed that I rarely make a red-sauce-and-pepperoni style pizza. I’m all about experimentation, and putting all kinds of unexpected things on that lovely round of raw dough. And I’ve decided that it’s about time for a best-of-the-best list here at the Kitchen Illiterate. These are my favorite, top five things to do with pizza.

Mexican Pizza: My Most Brilliant Idea Yet?

A few weeks ago, I had this terrific idea: What would happen if I combined two of my favorite things, Mexican food and pizza? Would deliciousness result? Or would this be another ill-conceived notion that just doesn’t pan out outside of my head? Well, I am happy to report that this might be one of the most splendidly awesome things I have ever cooked and I had a very hard time not eating the whole entire pizza myself last night. I am also having a hard time not running into the kitchen right now to eat all of the leftovers. Were it not for the promise of dinner with Mr. X tonight, I would be doing that very thing right this minute, excessive caloric intake be damned.

These superlatives are deserved despite some minor, er, troubles with my pizza dough. I just can’t win with that stuff, I tell ya! If I were the paranoid type, I’d think the pizza universe has something against me, and was purposely thwarting my every endeavor. Good thing I’m more likely to blame myself. Uh, wait…

Saffron cream sauce, refrigerator pasta, and my new pizza peel

Now that the semester is finally over, I’m looking forward to some cooking and some baking and, yes, some blog posting. To kick off the good times, I have a few things to share that I actually did get around to cooking over the past few weeks. I know you’re thrilled.

That up there? That some extra special pasta with a saffron cream sauce. I had a similar dish in two different restaurants, and both times I swooned into my plate and vowed to attempt such a feat in my own kitchen. And for such an incredible dish, it’s actually pretty easy to pull off. Other exciting news? Pizza has returned! I finally got myself a nice, wood pizza peel. Any future disasters with sticky dough and topping-flinging have been averted, and I must say, the first pizza I made using this excellent tool was pretty sweet. The pizza peel is my hero. Pizza experimentation will resume in full force.

And last night? Last night was clean out the refrigerator night, and I managed to put together a delicious dinner in about 15 minutes, and achieve some winter-time comfort to boot.

Zucchini, Pepperoni, and Caramelized Onion Pizza

As Mr. X said, zucchini and pepperoni, together at least. Alright, he was being sarcastic, but he didn’t taste this pizza, either, and I’m repeating his commentary with no trace of sarcasm at all. This one was a winner. The sweetness of the onions balanced the spiciness of the pepperoni, and the zucchini was the unique, unexpected, summery tasting thing that tied it all together.

Not to mention the crust–I think I’ve finally found the recipe that’s going to stick. So much so that it’s going into the collection of basic, foundational recipes, the things I come back to over and over. This crust is chewy and crispy, and holds up like a champ to the crazy things I like to top it with. Yes, kids, we have a winner.

Another mushroom pizza

I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately. I’m not sure why I’m suddenly eating so many mushrooms. And putting them on pizzas, over and over again. Whatever the reason, I suspect it’s not going to stop anytime soon, and this one was a winner, so why complain?

And just look at that pizza crust! Glorious…crispy, golden, chewy but still light and doughy. It was pretty spectacular, which was all the more surprising considering how much I had to struggle with it to stretch it out and convince it not to stick to every surface in the kitchen. The dough? Peter Reinhart’s recipe, which I made a big fat batch of a few weeks ago. This had been in the freezer for at least a week, and I let it thaw in the refrigerator for two days, and then out at room temperature for 45 minutes. At higher than room temperature, because the temperature in the room was hellish and probably over 80 degrees. Why did I decide that this, one of the hottest days so far this summer, was a good one to heat the oven to 550F? I have no idea.

Mushroom Ragu Pizza

Ever since I made a chicken cacciatore pizza, I’ve been pondering other different and unexpected things to put on pizza, and the thing that kept running through my head was an incredibly rich and tangy mushroom ragu I made last winter. It seemed a perfect thing for pizza–the sauce and toppings all in one, and with two familiar pizza components, sausage and mushrooms, with a little twist. Different, unexpected, potentially awesome. I had to try it.

I’ve been having some serious dough problems lately, though. More than anything else I’ve experimented with, pizza dough seems to be the most difficult to perfect. It turns out sticky, or too stiff, or rises too much or not enough. I can’t seem to figure out that brilliant tossing technique to get perfect, round, even surfaces. I end up with holes all over and dough that sticks to the surface and is impossible to slide onto the pizza stone. I just can’t seem to figure this one out, and whenever I do end up with a good batch, it seems like a fluke. Well, I’ve given up on Giada’s dough, after three out of four experiments have turned out badly, and this time I decided to go back to Peter Reinhart’s recipe for Neapolitan pizza dough, from American Pie.

Pizza Chronicles, Part Six (or Eight): Stonewall Kitchen and a Pizza Stone

I luuurve our pizza stone. I’ve never had such crazy, impassioned feelings for a kitchen implement before, but this is true and lasting love. This is neverending devotion and infatuation. This pizza stone is the answer, the solution to all of my dough baking woes, to my not quite perfect crusts and my constant feelings of pizza dissatisfaction. Now that there is a pizza stone in my life, I can scale the peaks of pizza perfection, I can create crispy cheesy bites of wonder and glory rivaling anything the local pizza delivery man can send my way. My dreams of creative pizza experimentation can be realized.

Ok, I might be waxing just a bit too poetical, but when I pulled this pizza out of the oven last night, I couldn’t help feeling a little thrill in my heart. It was, yes, the best pizza so far. I realize I say that every single time, but I also take that to be a sign that my methods are improving. And method, shmethod, the single best pizza improver so far is the pizza stone.

Aish bel lahm and broccoli bil banadura

The Middle Eastern Cookbook has been sitting on my shelf virtually untouched for many, many months. Everytime I’m tempted to experiment from its pages, I’m put off by the ingredients I don’t have and, frankly, the less than appetizing pictures. I mean, the photograph of Kofta on page 71 is enough to put a person off food for a couple of days. But last weekend, tempted once again by an unfamiliar cuisine, I cracked the book’s spine and immediately my eyes fell on a recipe for Aish bel lahm. The picture looked like something I’d had before. Something I’d had and loved.

When I was in college my friend Sarah’s father, an Armenian man who’d moved to the States from Lebanon many years before, would occasionally bring her some frozen flatbreads, topped with either delicious meatstuffs or a tangy herb paste. I could never get the name right, but I loved them, and when we both moved away from Santa Cruz and I couldn’t remember what the damn things were called, I wondered if I’d ever get to try them again. When I saw the picture of Aish bel lahm, it was like running into an old friend. An old friend I was going to eat for dinner! Mwah hah hah! Ok, sorry.

Pizza Chronicles, Part Five: A Field Guide to Pizza Excellence?

Our house is right on the main road running through Jamaica Plain, a road traveled at most hours of the day and night by buses and trucks that can’t take the windier and narrower alternate route into Boston. Very noisy buses and trucks. My bedroom windows are situated in such as way as to really effectively transmit that noise right from the street level straight to my bed. It’s truly amazing, a real feat of engineering! What this means for a light sleeper like myself is that once summer’s arrived and the windows are open, I’m woken up every morning at 4.30, when the first bus rumbles by, electonically squawking “Route 39, Forest Hills to Back Bay, Route 39.” Lately, various mental stresses and strains have preventing me falling right back to sleep, and this morning I said to myself, “F*&% it, I’m just getting up! Hell, the sun’s already up! Why not me?”

This explains why, by the time I got the DMV at 8.30 am, I was already grouchy.

There is no group of people in this world better skilled at causing ladies to want to yell lots of swears and weep copiously than the fine people at the Chinatown branch of the  Massachusetts DMV. Needless to say, I found myself in a bureaucratic hell spiral for most of the morning, gaping incredulously at the lack of logic and competence around me.

Kalamata Olive and Brie Pizza: A Pizza Inspired by the Marketing Department Can Be Good

Last week I saw a post on Slashfood describing an Olive and Brie pizza, devised by the marketing department at Lindsay Olives. It immediately struck me as an interesting combination of flavors and something I would definitely have to try, only without the Lindsay Olives because I just don’t see the point of those bland, canned black olives. And my friends, let me tell you, this was a little bit unreal, that’s how good it was. The saltiness of the kalamatas meld with the smoothness of the brie and the slightly sweet sourness of the mustard to create something wholly unique and satisfying. Crystal brought home an unbelievably good prosecco, too, which complemented this pizza like they were made for each other.

This was a night of celebratory mourning (whatever that means) as it was the series finale of Gilmore Girls. Thus our weekly date of dinner and Gilmores, ongoing for at least two years, comes to an end, right before Alex leaves us, and as we move into Crystal’s last summer in Boston. Fitting somehow, or am I being sentimental?