Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Day After Boxing Day Pizza


Here's a little Tre Stagione pizza I made as an antidote to Christmas food. It was in honour of the black truffle olive oil we received as a present from our friends, John and Victoria Carley.

After years of making pizza dough in various ways, and getting too soft or too sweet a dough, I went back to my notes I made at the elbow of Sam Furgiuele - the father of my friend Cathy. There are no measurements - just technique. originally this would have been made on a table - volcano-style. I used a stand mixer, but kept true to the traditional way of combining things.

The right side has a bed of (leftover) braised leeks finished with heavy cream and tarragon. They got chopped up and topped with a wonderful Westfalian ham from Leslieville Cheese store. Little dots of Gaie Blue cheese from New Brunswick were scattered over.

The middle section was some nice cremini mushrooms I got at Harvest Wagon and roasted up in a hot pan. They went over passato and were finished with olive oil and mozzarella cheese.

The left side also had the passato, with oregano and Westfalian ham and mozzarella cheese punctuated with a few cherry tomato quarters.

A shaving of Reggiano parmesan, fleur de sel and olive oil went over it all. The famous truffled olive oil was kept off the pizza until it was served and drizzled on at the table.

The verdict on the crust? - the old ways are best!!!