Ok everyone, the sun is literally down every day when I get home from work, so there is no time to take pictures of food! As such, throwbacks!
Anyone who knows me even a little bit will know that I know how to say "Where is my pizza?" in 50+ languages. In any form, it is my favorite food by far. This pizza was inspired by my mom, who tried to make her minestrone soup fancier one day by putting something with a French name (pistou) on top of it. Little did she know that pistou is just pesto without pine nuts. It's so easy to make, not fancy at all, but still vibrant and powerfully flavored. It adds crazy freshness to the plainest of foods. It completely transformed my mom's minestrone, and when I put it on this pizza it was just like Blam Blam! Massive flavor explosion.
Trust me and make it yourself, and let me know what you think! Also, if you make extra pistou, which you should, it goes great on pasta, toasted bread, soups, literally any pizza, roasted veggies, grilled chicken, hamburgers, and basically anything else you can think of. I want to try and make a pistou sorbet, but Jess says it will be gross. Anyway, enjoy this recipe!
Butter Count: 8 Tbsp (including sauce)
INGREDIENTS:
306 g bread flour
2 g active dry yeast
8 g salt
2 g vegetable oil
200 g water
Enough of THIS SAUCE to cover a pizza, about 1 cup
1 ball fresh mozzarella, sliced
2 garlic cloves
1 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 oz Parmesan, grated
Zest of 1 lemon
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Mix the flour, yeast, and salt together. Add the oil and water. Mix with fingers until well combined.
2. Knead the dough for 3 minutes. Let rest, uncovered, 15 minutes. Knead for another 3 minutes. Split in half and cover with a damp towel. Let rest 4-6 hours.
3. Preheat a grill/oven to the highest possible temperature. If using a baking steel, place it inside the grill/oven at this time.
4. Place a sheet of parchment paper on the pizza peel (or the counter if not using a peel).
5. Sprinkle the parchment paper with cornmeal, generously.
6. Stretch half of the dough into desired shape and lay it on the parchment paper.
7. Cover the surface with sauce.
8. Cover the sauce with the cheese.
9. Transfer the parchment paper to the preheated grill/oven. Close the grill, if applicable.
10. Cook for 10 minutes before checking the doneness of the bottom of the dough. Cook additional 1 minute at a time before checking the doneness again. Repeat until the bottom is fully cooked and nicely browned.
10. If desired, transfer (without the parchment paper) to the broiler and cook an additional 2 minutes until the top is slightly burnt.
11. To make the pistou, pulse the garlic and basil in a blender. Add the oil, Parmesan, and lemon zest and pulse a few times until the mixture is a drizzling consistency. Season with salt. Drizzle the mixture over the pizza.
12. Repeat steps 6-11 with the other half of the dough because you obviously need two pizzas.
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