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Thursday, June 13, 2013

Spring pizza

Ramps were the one I hadn't tried in the Northeast Spring trinity (the other two in the trinity being fiddleheads and morels). They are essentially wild leeks, and while they grow in other places too people seems to be particularly nuts about them around here. I'd given up hope of eating ramps this year: Spring is basically over, and I thought my last chance had come and gone in Philly. But then they were selling them in the canteen at work (about the last place I would have expected!): they weren't in the best nick but good enough and I couldn't resist, so I bought a bunch.

But then, what to do with them? I settled on pizza as a good way of extending a small quantity of a fancy ingredient. I decided they would go well with hazelnuts, but otherwise wanted to keep that one simple. But figured we would need more than one pizza, so made enough dough and a second pizza with a riot of colourful (mostly green) Spring tastes on it. I wanted to explore a few more things regarding pizza: hoping for a good, quickish dough recipe, using 00 flour (bought by accident a while ago when looking for pasta flour, but probably perfect for pizza?), pre-heating our cast-iron pan / sliding prepped pizza onto hot pan, and freezing dough for future use. Decided to try out Jamie Oliver's recipe, as it contained both 00, semolina and olive oil, all of which seemed right in pizza, and also it proves in one hour (not unreasonable).

For the dough:
(makes enough for 4 smallish or 3 bigger pizzas)
3 1/2 cups strong white bread flour / 00 flour
(or 2 1/2 cups strong white bread flour / 00 flour plus 1 cup finely ground semolina flour (pasta flour))
1/2 tbsp fine sea / desert salt
1 3/4 tbsp dried yeast
1/2 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

Toppings for ramp pizza:
~4 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dandelion-ramp miso
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch (5) ramps, cleaned, trimmed, separated into bulbs and leaves and chopped
~8 hazelnuts, toasted and chopped (add after baking)

Toppings for green pizza:
1/2 cup frozen broad beans (without jackets), defrosted
1/2 cup frozen peas, defrosted
1-2 tbsp mint leaves
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp lemon juice
salt+pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 small bulb fresh spring garlic, trimmed and chopped (including green parts)
bunch of spring greens: nasturtium leaves, radish leaves, rocket leaves, roughly chopped (~1 cup when chopped)
5 black olives, de-pitted and chopped
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 piece of dry tofu, thinly sliced
flowers from 2 chive flowerheads (add after baking)

Mix the flours (I used the mixture of 00 and semolina) and salt with a fork, then dump on a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes. Add some of the liquid mix to the well, then bring in the flour, continuing to add the liquid and bring in the flour gradually until you have used all the liquid and the dough starts to come together. Knead for about 10 min, until the dough is smooth and springy. Put the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave somewhere warm for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Meanwhile, prepare the toppings. For the ramp pizza, mix together the tomato puree, vinegar, 1 tsp olive oil, salt+pepper and miso, then thin with a little water until a good spreading consistency. Heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan, then add the white parts of the ramps and fry for a few minutes until starting to soften. Add green parts, season and fry for a minute or two more until wilted. For the green pizza, put the broad beans, peas, mint, 1 tsp olive oil, salt+pepper and lemon juice in a blender cup and blend until they become a smooth, green puree. Cook the garlic and spring greens together as for the ramps, adding the garlic first and then the greens.

Punch down the dough. Divide the dough into 3-4 balls (one per pizza). You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required (I used two balls for this and put two more in the freezer*). For immediate use, roll a dough ball out to a rough circle about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer to a piece of baking paper scattered with semolina on top of a large wooden board. Put a pizza stone, cast iron pizza pan or baking sheet in the oven and heat to 450F. Arrange the toppings on the dough circle: smear the puree or sauce across the surface, taking it right up close to the edges, then sprinkle with the remaining ingredients (except stuff to be added after baking). Open the oven and carefully slide the paper and pizza onto the heated stone or pan. Bake for ~20 min, until the pizza is lightly browned and puffy around the edges. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a minute or two, then sprinkle with the final toppings (hazelnuts on ramp pizza, chive flowers on green pizza) before eating.


Both came out pretty good. The sliding onto pizza pan worked out pretty good, and the dough puffed up nicely (although there is definitely a sweet spot with thickness - it is possible to go too thin and end up with something super crispy that doesn't really puff up and browns instantly at the edges). I liked both topping combinations: ramps and hazelnuts definitely go well together, and the radish/nasturtium/rocket mix was very tasty with the green puree, sunflower seeds and pretty purple chive flowers.

*To use dough from the freezer, take frozen dough balls out to defrost ~2 hours before you want to use them (I had no problems with them sticking to the clingfilm or anything like that). When they are soft, you can roll them out as for the fresh dough and proceed from there. 
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