Almost Meatless Pizza

We’ve been on a tear with our awesome new pizza stone lately—ye-ah, Fante’s!—so when Fairmount food writer and recipe developer Tara Mataraza-Desmond approached us to join in a virtual potluck promoting Almost Meatless (Ten Speed), the book she recently coauthored with Philly Mag critic and bogalicious buddy Joy Manning, we already knew what we would make. Their meat-light pizza employs just two pan-seared chicken thighs, but we hardly missed the protein thanks to potent sun-dried tomatoes and feisty, peppery arugula pesto. Vegetarians can omit the chicken altogether; vegans just leave off the Fontina—though it melts so, so beautifully. Mataraza-Desmond and Manning suggest making your own dough if you have the time, but picking one up at a pizzeria is cool in a pinch. (This recipe also calls for whole-wheat dough, but we used regular and it turned out just fine.) The recipe is incredibly easy to follow, written by Mataraza-Desmond and Manning in normal people language that leaves little to error. Only six steps, count ‘em: cook the chicken, make the pesto, stretch the dough, assemble the pie, pop in the oven. You can bake the pie on cookie sheet or pizza pan, but we (and the AM girls) would really suggest investing in a stone. It’s clutch. We hadn’t thought to preheat ours in the past; this Almost Meatless tip turned out a pie with a peerlessly crisp underbelly that cooked in just 10 minutes. You’ll get the idea in the slideshow below. Continue down to the recipe.

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Chicken Pizza with Arugula Pesto and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
(reprinted with permission from Ten Speed Press and the authors)

Makes 2 (12-inch) pizzas
Dough
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 (7-gram) packets active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (about 110°F)
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
Pesto
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Parmesan or romano cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried chile flakes
1 cup firmly packed coarsely chopped arugula
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1 tablespoon olive oil
Chicken
2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about
6 ounces total)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
Assembly
Cornmeal, about 1 tablespoon for the pizza peel
12 dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrated in hot water for 10 minutes
2 cups (about 8 ounces) grated Fontina cheese

Put a pizza stone on your oven’s lowest rack and preheat the oven to 500°F.


To make the dough, whisk both flours together and set aside. Combine the yeast with 1/2 cup of the warm water and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer and set aside for 10 minutes. Add the remaining 1 cup water, the salt, olive oil, and about 1 cup of the flour. Whisk by hand, adding more flour until a wet dough (resembling loose oatmeal) forms. Attach the bowl to the mixer, and with the dough hook, mix the dough on low for a minute. Continue mixing, adding the rest of the flour in 1/2 cup increments. Mix on low speed for 5 minutes to knead the dough. Depending on the humidity of your kitchen, it might seem like you have to add water to the dough, but don’t worry—the flour will hydrate over time. Cover, and set aside in a warm place to rise for 1 hour, then punch the dough down and let rise again for another hour. After the second rise, divide in half, forming two dough balls. Set aside on your counter while you prepare the remaining ingredients.


To make the pesto, put the garlic, cheese, and chile flakes in a food processor and pulse until minced. Add the arugula, pine nuts, and olive oil and process until a relatively smooth paste forms.
To prepare the chicken, pat it dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper on each side. Heat the vegetable oil in a sauté pan on medium-high until shimmering but not smoking. Add the chicken and cook for about 2 minutes, until browned. Flip the pieces over and brown the other side, for an additional 2 minutes, and then transfer to a cutting board. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1/4-inch strips and set aside.


To assemble the pizza, roll out the dough to two (12-inch) rounds. Dust a wooden pizza peel with cornmeal, and put a dough round on it to assemble. Top with half the pesto. Scatter half the chicken and sun-dried tomatoes evenly around the pizza. Top with half the cheese. Using the peel, shimmy your pizza directly onto your preheated pizza stone. Assemble second pie while the first one is in the oven. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cheese is brown and bubbly.


Tip: If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can make the dough by hand. Incorporate the flour 1/2 cup at a time by stirring with a spoon until you can lift the dough out of the bowl as a soft ball. Transfer to a floured surface and continue to add the remaining flour, kneading it in a little at a time. Once all of the flour has been added, continue to knead the dough for about 10 minutes, or until it is soft and smooth. Add the flour to the kneading surface sparingly so as to avoid drying out the dough.



Photo: blogalicious

Wineberries? Who Ever Heard Of A Wineberry?

New daddy Jim Burke, that's who. At James, these raspberry relatives bejeweled the foie gras terrine over brioche and honey-duck jus served last night. Wineberries are native to Asia, look like little razzies and vary in color from orange to maroon. We couldn't tell you what their flavor is like (, as we'd never even heard about a wineberry till now. But therein lies the intrigue. Few are the opps to taste something you've never tasted before. Hurry. At seriously seasonal James, what's there today might be gone tomorrow.

Photo: KristineBoykaKluge

"Make The Pizza, Make The Pizza"

Stuck with a surplus of farmers market ingredients—say, a shitload of squash blossoms—and not sure what to do? Pizza is your answer. Give me your tired, your weary, says the pizza pie, your slightly bruised tomatoes and flaccid asparagi. Of course, fresh is best, but when it comes to the just past prime, a thin crust is an equal opportunity employer.

We've never made pizza before, but armed with a new pizza stone (a $40 investment at Fante's) and two balls of springy, olive oil-glossed dough from a local pizzeria (a $6 investment), things came together easily—so easily in fact we were pretty sure we had effed something up along the way. Could it really be as simple as flouring our board and hands? Could something as common sense as working the dough with our fists (not dramatically tossing it in the air) really achieve a trim, brittle crust worth talking about? Could a lack of methodology in topping application really be the best method of all? Turns out, yes, yes and yes.



We prepared two pies. The first was an improv of a traditional Margherita, with fresh Mancuso's mozzarella; sweet, fragrant tarragon (instead of basil) from the garden; and in-a-pinch heirloom tomato marinara, simply one big Brandywine chopped and pureed with a drizzle of oil, salt, pepper, a spoonful of tomato paste and a touch of water). The second pie required a bit of forethought, meaning we had to defrost a batch of April's nutty, garlicky-good ramp pesto. The pesto paired up with grand, trumpet-like squash blossoms; baby green zucchini (Blooming Glen sells the fruit with the flowers); a handful of Tom Culton's lime-toned patty pans; chopped garlic scapes in the bottom of the vegetable bin for at least three weeks; and more fresh mozzarella.

We cranked the oven to 500, popped in the pizzas and waited about 15 minutes. By then, the heat had burnished the crusts a fetching golden brown and rendered the toppings bubbly, charred and commingled, like beer does for strangers at a party. Four quick strikes with a serrated pizza wheel (also from Fante's) turned each 10-inch pie into eight even slices, eagerly washed down with copious amounts of Sunshine Pils. Not saying we're Osteria-worthy pizzaoili or anything, but both pied were pretty freaking fantastic: crisp, smoky, bursting with the ripeness of their respective toppings. Our dinner guests were rather impressed. Let's keep it our secret that we had no clue what we were doing.

Video: Youtube. Photo: blogalicious

Formule Express At Bistrot La Minette

The biggest occupational hazard of being a food writer is never getting back to those places you’re always meaning to get back to. (Art Etchells of Foobooz eloquently describes said occupational hazard here.) For us, La Minette was one of those places. We reviewed back in the fall, liked the buttercup-colored bistrot well enough, but haven’t been back since. Rectified. Chef Peter Woolsey’s $14 Formule Express lunch lured us back, a two-course deal if we’ve ever seen one. (There’s also a three-course option, Formule Dejeuner, for $19.) We still think Minette (not Parc) is the best-looking French bistro in town, and it’s only gotten prettier as Woolsey has added dual sidewalk patios flanking the entrance, as well as a charming, bee light-canopied courtyard where French movies are screened on Monday nights.



There’s no underestimating the sweet little details here, from the bundled washcloths in the opulent unisex bathroom to the glass Pernod Ricard flask filled with h2o for cutting—just a splash at a time—a measure of fragrant pastis. And there's more: slices of house-baked baguette sorted in a little tin tub; room-temp butter finished with good fleur de sel; silky house-made chocolates even when you skip dessert. Thus, Minette's $14 lunch special becomes something more. It sure doesn't hurt that the tomato tart was a perfect expression of summer: oven-dried fruit arrayed like petals inside flaky round pastry. It could have been heavy, but lots of thyme and chives and a lemony frisée salad kept each bite fresh and lively. The follow-up, a leg of duck confit, was a little salty in parts but beautifully cooked and posed over a simple assembly of creamy fingerlings and toothy, toothpick-slender haricots verts. The Formule Express includes a nonalcoholic drink, but don’t even try to kid yourself. When in France…

Photo: blogalicious

Cescaphe Correction

David Myers--not Danny Meyer--chef/owner of Sona in Los Angeles will be joining Tom C. on the guest list tonight for the star chef-studded wedding at the Cescaphe Ballroom. Kerry Heffernan, chef of South Gate at NYC's Jumeirah Essex Hotel, also confirmed. Talk about Judge's Table.

Hi, Chef! T.C. In NoLibs Tonight

Tom Colicchio will be in Philly tonight, but he's not cooking or hosting a charity event. The Top Chef head judge is among the invitees for the wedding of (unGoogleable) Cali chef Nick Liberado (sp?) at the Cescaphe Ballroom in Northern Liberties. (Also reportedly attending: Shake Shack's Danny Meyer.) Really just an an excuse to use this picture.

Photo: GreenBayPressGazette