More Pizza at Home: this one with yellow flower squash, gypsy peppers, anchovies, mozarella & tomato.
Author: Caroline
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Pizza at Home
I like to make pizza at home, but it’s almost always a ton of work. I haven’t made it in probably 18 months. Mostly, in the last year, I’ve been afraid. I have a small, electric oven. My pizza stone, upon moving in, took a spot next to the cleaning supplies under the sink–it doesn’t fit by a good four inches.
But, tonight, I stomached it. I made it. I did it. I went back to my favorite recipe for pizza dough, followed it to a T, produced a tender and silky pizza dough, made the mistake of using fragrant chestnut honey (go with the stuff in the bear container), and then ate it up with sardines and basil. You can do that too.
Let’s not reinvent the wheel. And by wheel, we mean the pizza.
Use Wolfgang Puck’s recipe as linked above for your dough. I don’t use a mixer, I do it by hand, and it comes out just fine. And probably with less dishes.
I like my pizzas lumpy sized. I don’t pride myself on the perfect circularity of my skins. It’s not important. Let’s talk about something more interesting…like salt. That sauce you’re putting on there? Why don’t you taste it and make sure you’d want to dip some boring bread in it before you put it on your pizza skin. And then add some salt until you think it is actually salty.
I used some Pomi strained tomatoes and let them simmer a few minutes. Minimal work. This was a weeknight dinner. Press dry some fresh mozarella in paper towels, slice it up, get some fresh basil, some anchovies in oil. I think you can probably figure this out. Don’t overload it.
Two main notations: Put your oven as hot as it will go. You will thank me later for the ensuing sauna of your studio apartment. And, use a pizza stone if you can. I tried to even cook mine crooked on it, but it would not fit. Too much slant, so I used my silpat. It was soggy in the middle, a problem I’ve never had before. So trust me, that $20 for a stone? Well spent. You can make scones, cookies, breads and more on it, too. And if all else fails, it makes most (uneven) ovens more evenly heated, just by leaving it in all the time. Souffle is happier.
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Five Spice Duck Breast & Cuban Black Beans
2 water duck breasts, trimmed nicely
Chinese 5 spice powder (2 T)1 can black beans
2 T olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 C water
1 tsp-2tsp oregano
1 T cider vinegar
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground chili
black pepper & SALTScore the duck breast skin in diamonds, add light salt, chinese five spice powder generously on skin side. Heat skillet large enough for all duck to high heat, add large grain salt. When hot, add duck breast skin down, brown, and turn over afterwards. Turn to low medium heat, cover, and cook a few minutes longer until medium rare or medium. Take out of pan and rest. Cut into slices and serve.
Ahead of cooking the duck, sautee the onions in a taller sided pan (quart?), adding garlic early on, and then when translucent or sweating well, adding all spices. Cook 1 minute with spices. Add black beans, vinegar, and water. Cook on medium high until thickened and water is gone or absorbed. Beans should be broken up. Inspired here.
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18 reasons / Meatpaper / Julio Duffoo / Artesenial, local Chaucuterie
I had the lovely chance to discover and attend an event at 18 reasons, an art gallery and gathering place for those interested in the production and consumption of (good) food, which is owned by BiRite (Creamery & Market) in the Mission District of San Francisco. I even ran into a co-worker…
There was an exhibit of photographs Julio Duffoo featuring mostly people in the livestock/slaughter/butcher industries, from industrial/large scale down to the urban farmer with a turkey coop in the back yard (in Oakland!). The photos were interesting but the real draw for me was a friend of a friend making the delicious chaucuterie platters we snacked on with our wine throughout the evening.
We had headcheese. We had rabbit pate. We had two kinds of salami, two kinds of prosciutto, lamb sausages (from a class the chef of the evening had taken on lamb butchering), some things I didn’t figure out. It was delicious.
And, because it’s around the corner from BiRite Market and the block of the mission with some of my very favorite food vendors, I scored a few things from Tartine, took a spin through BiRite, and nomnomnom’d on a bowl of ice cream (creme fraiche, salted caramel, cookies n cream) with my ‘boo.
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Vinegar-based Egg Salad with Capers & Homemade Pickles
6 hardboiled eggs (instructions follow)
2 T capers, rinsed & drained
1 carrot, small dice
2 sticks celery, small dice
1/2 red onion, small dice
1/2 C homemmade or b’n’b pickles, small dice
rice vinegar
olive oil/macadamia oil
mustard powder
1 tsp sugar
salt & pepper generouslyFor hardboiled eggs: Put the raw eggs in a pot with water, not too large of a pot, and with a lid that fits. Start with cold water. Cover and heat to just under a boil, hold at that temp for about 1 minute. Turn off heat, leave covered. let rest until water cool enough to put hands in, then rinse eggs and peel (you can wait until cold if you want). The reason to use this method is so that the yolk is yellow and not grey, creamy and not too crumbly.
In a bowl, mix 2-3 T of rice vinegar with 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, cracked pepper, 1-2 T macadamia or olive oil, 1-2 T mustard powder. The dressing should be thicker than vinaigarette and thinner than store bought creamy dressing. Reserve the prior ingredients in case you need more dressing.
Dice the eggs into cubes as best you can. Don’t worry about the yolk falling apart, but be sure not to discard it. Put it in the bowl. Add the other diced vegetables, mix together with a spoon. Eventually, and over the following days, the egg yolk will blend into the dressing. From the beginning, it should be fairly dry, but flavorful. Will develop liquid over the next day. Serve on a fresh roll.
This recipe was inspird by the egg salad sandwich available at Blue Bottle Coffee in SF.
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Lipstick Peppers & Watercress
6-8 lipstick or gypsy sweet peppers
1 medium/small red spring onion (or shallots would do, etc)
1 bunch watercress, cleaned thoroughly
olive oil, salt, pepperHeat the oil at medium heat, add the diced onions when hot. When beginning to sweat, add the peppers in ring slices. Remove the seeds beforehand. When softened but not greying, add the watercress, turn off the heat, cover. Serve when wilted. Toss well. Add some lemon juice or zest if you feel up to it.
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Troffiette with Pesto & Asparagus
Do yourself a favor and make the pesto from scratch if you have access to a food processor. It’s soooo much better than that stuff you’re tempted to buy at trader joe’s. Shame on you.
1/4 C pesto
1 C troffiette (substitute a pasta of similar size if you must)
1 bunch asparagus (~ 1/2 lb)
olive oil
saltClean your asparagus and use a carrot peeler gently to remove the thick skin along the bottom. The result should not be white but a paler green from below the head down. Trim the ends off. Cut in pieces as in the picture.
Heat olive oil in non stick pan (about 2 tsp) at medium heat. Add asparagus and cook until bright. Meanwhile, boil the pasta until al dente (very important not to overcook for this one). When done, drain and add to asparagus, turning to low. Add the pesto, mix, and turn off heat immediately. Serve by itself or with some meat or other dish.
By the way, troffiette is a Ligurian specialty (as is Pesto aka “pesto genovese,” I’ve mentioned before basil grows like weeds in the seaside, Italian riviera hillside that is Liguria, let’s not even start to talk about the ligurian foccacia, lobster-like delicious seafood, or wines on this tangent), though it’s not impossible to find in the US or to make yourself. It’s a very easy to make shape, the hardest part is cutting the peice of pasta dough you’re going to work with small enough and using a fine enough ground wheat flour in its construction, as well as letting it rest long enough to cooperate with you. But I encourage you to try to find it or make it.
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Chili Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Apricot Chutney
Fair Warning: I made this not once, but twice in the last week.
The weekend before the one I’m enjoying right now was full of cooking. A friend and I spent a good amount of time together respecting each others’ skills, scheming up meals and projects, and visiting our friend across the bay, the Berkeley Bowl (at which I found out they now have a second location??!?!!?!!! Why is it not in SF!?!?!!).
We were to make pesto and apricot chutney, together. We ran out of time, and I took on the easier project of pesto–my friend–let’s call her the “other C” took on the chutney. I’ll include both recipes, which were inspired from these blog entries.
For the Pork:
1 pork tenderloin
1/4 C brown sugar
juice 1 lime
1 tbsp chili powder
1/8 C olive oil
several cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepperMix ingredients above, smooth over trimmed tenderloin and seal in container or ziplock to marinate at least 1 hr. The more thick you make (the more like a paste) the more the marinade will actually flavor the meat.
When ready to cook, heat grill to high. Slap the puppy on there, reduce heat to medium, cover. Turn it ~3x, whatever it takes to get each side on the grill, until its mostly firm but not stiff. Take it off, let it rest, slice it up. Note that tenderloin is OK to cook medium (or less than well done) even though it’s pork, because it’s a single cut of meat that hasn’t been exposed to bacteria (the outside has, and it’s been burnt!).
For the Apricot Chutney (with forthcoming commentary from “the other C”):
2lb ripe apricots
1 1/2 C brown sugar
1 medium onion
3/4 C golden (sultana) raisins
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 T salt
1 C or scant cider vinegar
1 tsp coriander seeds
3 cloves (or heck, I say more!) garlic
cayenne to taste
1 jalapeno, minced
zest of 1 limeRinse, halve, pit the apricots; slice the onion & garlic thin. Put all the ingredients but the cayenne in a large pan and boil until the apricots are very soft. Remove the apricots and reserve. Boil the remaining liquid until it is a thick syrup. Reincorporate it all, add & adjust the cayenne, serve it up or let it cool and seal it. Take steps you would in jam making for sterilization if you’d like this to last a while, otherwise use it within a few days.
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Indian Mystery Spice
He made his way home from India. I’d asked him to bring me something, anything, preferably not malaria or bedbugs. He can’t be named because he’s now an international food smuggler: I received a beautiful silk scarf and even more exciting the following:
Star anise
Cardamom
I have no idea what this is. Please help me. I got smart, and asked my friend Scarth who once ran a restaurant & cooked in India for several years. It’s Mace.. Well, the part of the nutmeg that surrounds the actual nut but is inside of the fruit.
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Summer Vegetable Sautee
A case of “there is a lot of stuff going bad in my refrigerator and we need to eat some vetatables. What goes with flank on the grill?” came up on me tonight.
1 small white onion (top attached, ripped from the earth ala farm-fresh-to-you style)
2 gypsy peppers (small sweet peppers)
3 medium yellow flower squash
1 small bunch spinach
1 bunch beet greens
Olive oil
Salt & pepperWash all your delightful veggies, and spin dry the greens. Chop the beet greens, take big stems off the spinach. Dice the squash into medium cubes, cut the peppers into small squares. Finely dice your onion.
Heat olive oil in a nonstick. When medium hot, add onion, and 1 min later add gypsy pepper, salt, pepper. 4 more min, add squash, keep heat up. Let brown, tossing. When cooked, add the greens, cover, turn off the heat.
I served it with my favorite marinated flank steak.
