Saturday 14 August 2010

The Pizza Chronicles: Part III

Fresh Basil Pesto

I was dreading making this when I read the recipe. It specifically said you should make the pesto sauce quasi-medieval style; by mortar and pestle. Pounding nuts and leaves together didn't sound like an ounce of fun, but Tassajara insists, "The texture and aroma of this pesto is quite different if you take the time to pound it by hand in a mortar and pestle. All of the volatile oils and flavor components get released when the cells get pounded rather than neatly cut by the blade of a food processor." Ok, if you say so. So I pounded away, and worked up the second sweat of the afternoon. But you know, once you start doing it, you realize it isn't as hard and primeval as it sounds! Plus, I used live basil (as in, it still came in clumps of dirt) and it smelled glorious. This whole pesto making experience was a pleasant surprise because it was a lot easier than expected. The recipe for the Pizza also called for Rosemary Garlic Oil, but that was pretty anti-climactic, so I won't go into too much detail about it. Basically, just mince some garlic, put it over hot oil and add rosemary. Ta-da! This will brush the crust of your pizza so it won't get dry.

Topping the Pizza!

Speaking of the Pizza. So now, after all the preparation of the dough and the sauce, we were ready to start actually topping the pizza! This is the super easy part. We rolled out the pizza dough into a circle and spread a layer of the tomato sauce on it. In retrospect, we should have put more tomato sauce on it, but oh well. On went everything else except for the tomatoes (because they would have gotten soggy in the oven), and into the oven it went. The recipe doesn't specify how much time you should leave the pizza in the oven, but we put it in for 15 minutes and it came out perfectly. After covering the pizza with tomatoes, we sat down to eat. Maybe it was because it was a big pizza after a hard day's work, or because I used whole wheat flour for the dough, or everything combined, but I am really glad that there were three of us eating it! It was extremely filling. This pizza fed Eduardo and me for three meals, and it was delicious. If you're ever in the mood for a good sweat in the kitchen and have a few hours to spare, make this pizza. It was very worth it!

Not only did the pizza feed us for three meals, we still had enough dough for one more pizza pie! What did we do with it? The last chapter of the Pizza Chronicles, coming soon.

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