Is is lunch time yet? I am starving this morning. And I’m pretty excited about the pizza I brought for lunch. I made it on Saturday night and have grand plans in about 8 minutes to go re-heat it in the toaster oven at my office.
If you’ve been reading my blog since its inception, you’ll know that I love a pizza with potatoes on it. I also happen to love shaved brussel sprouts. And this pizza has both. So, it’s pretty delicious. I won’t say too much more because all I wanna do is post this and then go eat it. I’m still working without a real pizza peel, which is why all of my pizzas are in the shape of flat breads. Is there a difference anyway?
BRUSSEL SPROUT AND POTATO PIZZA
Ingredients:
- 1 large ball of whole wheat pizza dough (homemade or store-bought)
- 4-5 large brussel sprouts
- 1/2 of a russet potato
- 1/4 (or less) of a red onion
- grated parmesan riggiano cheese or fontina (I actually prefer fontina but I couldn’t find any in the store this weekend)
- 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- lots of pepper
- salt to taste
- rosemary to taste (about a teaspoon)
- flour (about 2 tablespoons worth. seminola flour is ideal, but if you don’t have it, you can just use regular flour)
- Tools: a pizza peel (or wooden cutting board with a handle), pizza stone, mandolin, cheese grater (I finally bought a grater/zester at the mall this weekend! woohoo!)
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Put the pizza stone in the oven and let it heat up on the top rack of the oven. Ideally, you should let it heat for an hour. I think I only allowed, like, 35-40 mins this time. I was hungry.
Using the mandolin, slice your potato and red onion into very thin slices. Put in a bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add salt, pepper, rosemary liberally and toss well, coating the potatoes. Set aside.
On a well floured surface, roll out your pizza dough. The dough should be stretched thin, but not too thin so that it won’t hold up with your ingredients on it. Flour the pizza peel well and stretch the dough across (not over the whole peel, just so that it’s as large as you want your pizza to be).
In a small bowl, combine the rest of the olive oil with the garlic. Using a brush or a spoon, spread the oil/garlic over the surface of the dough, leaving about a 1/4 inch border. Place the potatoes and onions on the dough in one, relatively even layer. Grate a bit of cheese over top.
Transfer the pizza to the pizza stone very carefully. It helps to pull the oven rack out a bit. It also takes a while to master this transfer, especially if you’ve already put your toppings on your pizza. Some people say you should bake the crust a bit first before you put the toppings on. But since I usually put potatoes on my pizza, I like to let them in the oven longer so they cook all the way through.
While the pizza and potatoes are baking, quickly (but carefully. you could lose a finger. I know from experience*) shave your brussel sprouts on the mandolin. Put the shaved brussel sprouts in the bowl that the potatoes were in and add a slight coating of olive oil, salt, and pepper. There should be enough oil residue left in the bowl from the potatoes that you do not need to add more. But definitely add more salt and pepper. Even some crushed red pepper if you like.
Once the pizza has been in the oven for about ten minutes, pull it out (leave it on the stone, just pull the rack out of the oven) and top with the brussel sprouts and more grated cheese. I do not like a lot of cheese on my pizza, so just use however much you prefer.
But it back in the oven and bake for another 20-25 minutes or so, until the dough is a bit brown and your potatoes are cooked through. Transfer pizza from the stone back to the peel. Let it cool a bit and then enjoy!
*Important tip: Always use the food holder/hand-guard whenever you use your mandolin. Seriously. I did not do this once and lost the tip of my pinky. It was traumatic. I am still physically and emotionally scarred.
Soup Du Jour 