A Pizza to Fall For
A lesson from Martha Stewart + My All Time Best Sourdough Pizza Recipe + The Perfect Pizza Wine
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“Everything I know, I learned from Martha.” If you look closely at my twenty-five-year-old, faded navy apron, you can almost still make out the words. I may not have learned everything from Martha Stewart, but in my teenage years, it was thanks to her I first learned to make pizza.
Martha’s was a simple recipe. A yeast, water and flour dough (no fancy Italian 00 flour here, just your everyday All Purpose) that could be mixed and kneaded after school, left to raise in our always warm kitchen, ready to roll out and bake for Friday night dinner. At a time when the fanciest pizza being peddled in our rural California town was a Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust, what Martha’s recipes taught me most was how to breakout of the mindset of a pizza being tomato sauce and cheese.
Her 1999 cookbook, Martha Stewart’s Hors D’Oeuvres Handbook, features recipes for Potato Bacon Pizza, Pizza with Wild Mushrooms and Fontina Cheese, and a Greek Pizza topped with tomatoes, olives and feta, not a drop of tomato sauce in sight. My inner blooming chef took that as permission to scour our family refrigerator turning out pizzas with shredded chicken, red onion and barbecue sauce and roasted red peppers and goat cheese. I even recall a ground beef and cheddar version I christened the Taco Pizza.
Six years ago, my pizza game leveled up with the birth of my first sourdough starter. The round the world journey of my starter is for another post (its offspring can now be found turning out loaves in friend’s kitchens from Zurich to Singapore to Portland). Suffice to say that the chewy, tangy, bubbly crust of a naturally fermented dough – yes, made with finely milled Italian 00 flour – was enough to never go back to yeast.
What stays with me still from my Martha days, is the permission to look at the pizza as a canvas for more than mozzarella and pepperoni. Thinking seasonally, or simply with ingredients already around your house, can produce that alchemy in the oven of unexpected flavors delivered to your tastebuds on a magic carpet of delicious flatbread.
Since Halloween is around the corner, pumpkins are everywhere and never far from mind. A very nice sugar pie pumpkin from my CSA box roasted and blended into an intensely flavored puree had me in the mood for that ubiquitous seasonal ravioli stuffed with squash filling and topped with brown butter and sage. For my pizza topping, I mixed the puree with the brown butter and a good dollop of crème fraiche thinking the tanginess would balance nicely with the sweet and rich flavors of the pumpkin. From there, it was a short path to lunch – the oven was hot and a pizza dough was already fermenting in the refrigerator. Topped with curry leaves from our garden (sage would do just as well) and some fresh mozzarella at the end of cooking, it was a pizza I think even Martha would approve of.
Recipe
Pumpkin and Curry Leaf Pizza
This pizza is a take on the fall staple of butternut squash ravioli with brown butter and sage. The puree makes enough for two, 12-inch pizzas but if you prefer to just do one, the remaining puree can be used for baking. For the pumpkin puree, the internet abounds with directions for how to roast your own pumpkin. Here is one recipe.
1 lb. (450 g.) cook pumpkin puree, from one medium sugar pie pumpkin
Water or chicken stock (optional, if needed)
2 T. unsalted butter
¼ cup crème fraiche or heavy cream
Water or chicken stock (optional, if needed)
Salt
2 uncooked pizza doughs, preferably sourdough (see recipe below)
Semolina flour or cornmeal
Olive oil
4 sprigs fresh curry leaves or 8 – 10 small sage leaves
4 oz fresh mozzarella
Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). If using a pizza stone, do this at least 30 minutes before baking. (Alternatively, heat your preferred pizza oven according to the appliance directions and proceed as you normally would after topping with the pumpkin puree, herbs and cheese.)
If the pumpkin is too dry, add the cooked squash to the blender with a bit of water or chicken stock and blend till smooth and spreadable. Meanwhile, place butter in a small saucepan over medium low heat. Let bubble for 4 – 5 minutes just until milk solids have begun to brown. Immediately remove from heat and add to the pumpkin puree along with the crème fraiche and a couple pinches of salt. Blend all together until a spreadable consistency. Taste and add more salt if needed.
On a parchment lined baking sheet or pizza peel, sprinkle semolina or cornmeal. Working with one pizza at a time, shape dough into a round pizza shape on the peel or baking sheet, being careful to gently stretch and push the air bubbles to the outer edge – this will form the bubbly crust of the pizza. Use a spatula to spread pumpkin puree evenly over the pizza dough. Drizzle the whole pizza with olive oil, using a small pastry brush to cover the crust with a thin layer of oil. Top with half of the curry or sage leaves and slide into the oven (onto a preheated stone or just place baking sheet in the oven) for 8 minutes, turning 180° halfway through. Remove from oven add half the mozzarella, roughly torn. Bake for another 1-2 minutes until cheese is just warmed through and is starting to melt.
Repeat with second pizza dough.
(If using an Ooni or similar pizza oven, add all the topping before sliding into an 800°F oven for 90 seconds, rotating as needed to evenly cook.)
Sourdough Pizza Recipe
This recipe is adapted from my friend in sourdough making, Jochen Breuer, who got it from an Italian friend of his.
650 water
1kg 00 flour
150 grams sourdough starter
20 grams fine sea salt
Mix the flour and water by hand (it will be sticky). Cover and let rest for four hours.
At the same time, feed your already refreshed starter one last time.
After letting the dough rest for four hours, add 150g of starter to the dough and mix by hand, squeezing the starter into the dough until well incorporated. After 30 minutes, add the sea salt, squeezing by hand to fully incorporate. Do your first stretch and fold, shaping into a rough ball.
After an hour do another stretch and fold. Repeat after another hour. Then leave covered at room temperature for 2 hours and before placing in fridge overnight.
The next day, make dough balls of 250g each at least 2 hours before cooking.
When you make the pizza, the top of the dough ball should be to top of the pizza.
Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). If using a pizza stone, do this at least 30 minutes before baking. Shape dough into a round pizza shape being careful to gently stretch and push the air bubbles to the outer edge – this will form the bubbly crust of the pizza. Add sauce of choice and bake for about 8 minutes rotating once. Remove from the oven and add any cheese and extra toppings. Bake for another 1-2 minutes until cheese is melted.
To Drink…
Brezza Langhe Nebbiolo, Piedmont, Italy 2021
Everyone needs a good pizza wine, the kind of easy drinking red you can pop without a lot of fuss and know it will be good. Also, if your pizza night turns into a party, you will be wanting a good enough value that you can keep opening bottles without the cost hangover. This Nebbiolo made from grapes grown in declassified organic certified vineyards around the village of Barolo, does the trick.
Brezza, a well-respected fourth generation grower and vintner in Barolo, set out to produce this Langhe Nebbiolo to showcase the character of the Nebbiolo grape but without the seriousness of a chewy Barolo. Designed to be drunk young and fresh, this bottle is showing bright red fruit, violets and herbs with light tannins and good acidity that will be a good dancing partner, wherever your pizza creativity takes you.
$29 from Wine Connection and others
Pizza is still my all time favourite food … eaten it in many countries, with each their own version of ‘pizza’. This though, is an entirely new take for me. Thanks Californiavore!