Little Pizzas Saved The Night!

These pizzas were a lot more happening than the actual Oscars.

 

 

My favorite moments of the telecast:

Jen and Ben, together…so sweet.

Charlize Theron’s statuesqueness next to Dustin Hoffman’s umm…vertically challengedness

JEN HUD!

ADELE!

SHIRLEY!

BARBRA!

Jane Fonda’s YELLOW dress

Seth MacFarlane saying, “The next presenter needs no introduction.” Meryl Streep walks out and Seth leaves the stage. (If only the entire Oscars had had him doing that.)

JACK!

FLOTUS!

                           

Okay, here is the recipe for these cute devils. This pizza dough has a bit more salt than I usually add, but I find it needs it since it doesn’t have all the usual pizza toppings. (Even with smoked salmon, I think it needs the salt.)

Red Onion Pizzas With Smoked Salmon And Scallion Cream

(Makes 16 small pizzas or 32 cute littler ones)

Pizza Dough:

1 envelope yeast

1 tsp. honey

3 cups white flour

1 1/2 tsps. Kosher salt
1 tbl.extra virgin olive oil

1/4 red onion, peeled and diced small

additional extra virgin olive oil for brushing

For garnish:

Scallion Cream (recipe below)

2 slices smoked salmon, cut into a thick julienne

half a tomato, seeded and diced

capers

Proof the yeast by first stirring honey into half a cup of very warm water (105°F –115°F). Sprinkle the yeast carefully over the top of the water and stir gently. Let sit for 5 minutes until yeast gets bubbly. If it doesn’t, discard and start again with fresh yeast.

Meanwhile, process flour and salt in food processor with metal blade. Add olive oil and yeast mixture. Process until mixture just forms a nice ball at least 35 seconds. Process another 30 seconds. Add onion and process another 10 seconds or so. (You don’t want to chop the onion any more.) Turn dough out onto big piece of foil and work it just a bit until it’s nice and smooth.

If the dough didn’t have onion in it, I’d knead it on silpat. I don’t like it for baking, but I do like to work with dough on it, so I don’t have to scrub my counter afterward.

Place dough in a well-oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour and a half. (Mine was ready to go about 10 minutes early.)

Cut dough into 16 equal pieces and roll quickly into balls. Flatten each ball, cover with plastic wrap and let rest on counter for another 20 minutes.

At this point, I decided to cut some of the balls in half to make even smaller pizzas.   



The 1/16th size is good for a first course. The 1/32nd pizza is great for hors d’oeuvres.  Plus if I make them smaller, I can eat more. (Right?)

Brush each side with olive oil and cook the pizzas any way you wish. I cooked them over medium heat on a stovetop grill pan, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

Other choices – cook them on a barbecue, grill on top of the stove or bake in a 425°F oven for 6 to 8 minutes.

Cool at least 5 minutes. Top with Scallion Cream and a few carefully placed strands of smoked salmon, diced tomatoes and capers.

Scallion Cream

½ cup sour cream (part skim is okay)

½ cup Greek yogurt (non-fat is fine, full fat is fab)

2 scallions, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly

1 tsp. white wine vinegar

1 tbl. red onion, finely chopped (leave this out if you don’t want to deal with raw onions)

Mix all ingredients together. Cover tightly and refrigerate. Make a day ahead, if you wish.

Note: After the first rising, freeze any dough you're not using, wrapped airtight. Thaw and bring to room temperature before shaping and baking.


 

And The Winner Is…

My baby red onion pizzas!!! For best performance as an Oscar night snack.

 

 

Enjoy the show. I’ll post the recipe tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a funny look at memorable Oscar moments, including this one:

 

And The Winner Is...

My Lemon-Lime Ice Cream...by a landslide. Not that my Barbecued Chicken Pizza and Grilled Pizza with Smoked Salmon, Sautéed Red Onions and Sour Cream weren't good, but the ice cream was fantastic AND a breeze to make.

But to the pizzas first. You can find my pizza dough recipe here.

Barbecued Pizza (makes 3 individual pizzas)



1 cup barbecue sauce
6 boneless chicken thighs
1/2 pound pizza dough
4 to 6 oz. mozzarella, sliced

Reserve 1/4 cup of barbecue sauce. Mix 3/4 cup barbecue sauce with chicken thighs. Grill, broil, bake or sauté the thighs until cooked. Let cool, cut into small pieces and set aside. If making ahead, refrigerate until ready to use.

Roll out pizza dough into 3 ovals or rounds. Spread a spoonful of reserved barbecue sauce on dough, leaving a plain border around outside. Top with chicken. Spoon a bit more reserved barbecue sauce over the chicken and then top with the mozzarella slices.

Bake in a preheated 450°F oven for 15 minutes, or until cheese is nicely melted.



Smoked Salmon Pizza Rounds (makes 8 to 10 baby pizzas)



1 large red onion, sliced thinly
2 tbls. olive oil
Kosher salt
½ pound pizza dough
¾ cup sour cream
4 slices smoked salmon, cut into thin strips
1 tomato, diced
10 or so pitted Kalamata olives

Cook red onion in olive oil over medium high heat. Sprinkle with plenty of Kosher salt. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally until onion is browned. Set aside.

Roll out dough into about 8 to 10 small 3 inch circles. Place on hot grill. Cook about 3 minutes on each side or until you have nice grill marks.

Just before serving, top each round with a generous spoonful of sour cream. Arrange smoked salmon on top and then the sautéed red onions. Sprinkle with a bit of diced tomato and top with a single pitted Kalamata olive.

Lemon-Lime Ice Cream (makes 3 cups)
Adapted from Maurice Moore-Betty's Lemon Ice Cream in The Great Cooks Cookbook



1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk

Measure 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of lime juice and pour in a bowl. Stir in zests and sugar. Slowly stir in cream and milk. Pour in metal bowl and place in freezer for an hour or until the edges are frozen. Stir well and freeze for a few hours. Mixture may be frozen in ice cream machine as well.

Anne Fire Up Pizza

Secrets of A Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell
The Secret to Grilled Pizza

Parmigiano Sformato with Piquillo Peppers and Almonds
Grilled Pizzettas with Parmigiano, Prosciutto and Arugula and with Taleggio and Puttanesca

I’m excited that Anne is doing pizza. I’m always on the lookout for a better pizza dough recipe. Oh, she’s making GRILLED pizza, which I like, but it isn't quite as challenging to cook as a traditional dough. But let’s see what she does.

Anne adds yeast and sugar into warm tap water. She stirs it and lets it sit for 15 minutes. I approve of proofing the yeast. I never DON'T proof it.

She sprays little foil containers for her sformato or flan. (Let’s be honest, that’s not an attractive name for a dish.) The foil cups are sitting in a big roasting pan. Anne mixes together 2 cups of cream, 4 eggs, 1 cup of parm, a little pinch of cayenne and some salt. They go into the “ramies” and get baked in a water bath.

To make life easier, our restaurant chef pours the flan mixture into a pitcher and THEN into the ramekins and returns them to the roasting pan. Anne likes this recipe, because she can do them ahead. She fills the pan with hot water half way up, covers it with foil and puts them into a 325°F. oven for 20 - 25 minutes. “Easy breezy,” she says.

For the pizza dough, Anne adds 1½ cups of flour and makes a well in the middle. She says that’s how you should always combine wet with dry ingredients to avoid lumps. Olive oil goes into the well. She stirs in the activated yeast and then she “needs to knead it” in order to develop the gluten, which is “the protein that holds everything together.” She kneads the dough by hand.

You may be surprised when I tell you that I was hoping that Anne would make her pizza dough in the food processor. Sometimes I think I over-process mine and I wanted to see how she did it.

Anne doesn’t say NOT to use a food processor and it’s pretty hard to believe that, in her restaurant, pizza dough is made by hand. Of course, we should learn how to do it by hand before we turn to help from a machine, but, after that, all bets are off.

Another thing is that she’s making a tiny amount of dough – only 1½ cups – so it is a easy to knead it by hand.

She puts her kneaded dough in a bowl and covers it, “to do its yeasty thing”, which is to rise. It should sit in a warm place.

Anne moves on to making an infused olive oil with Fresno peppers, which are medium hot, she says. She slices them thickly and they go into a pan with plenty of olive oil. She heats it for a minute.

She toasts almonds in a 350°F oven. I use the microwave. She checks the flans, being careful not to spill the water. They’re done. She removes them from the water to cool off. Anne says they are absolutely fine done the day before.

She juliennes piquillo peppers for a salad. I don’t love these, even though they are Spanish and not as nasty as the American ones.

For the topping. she mixes together chopped tomatoes, slivered Gaeta olives, capers, chili peppers and olive “erl”. That can’t be bad! The sformati are cooling. (That sounds like the word for old tires in Italian.)

Anne is “ready to get rolling”…literally, as she grabs the dough and a rolling pin. She forms them into golf ball shapes on a floured board. She rolls them into crazy shapes, but she says it's fine if you want to be a “circle person”. Mine are usually oval. She throws the dough right on to the hot grill. It has that “burnt toast feeling”. The first one bubbles and Anne turns it over, back and forth, a few times.

"It’s not easy being cheesy", Anne chants as she preps her cheeses. The Parmesan is ready to go. There’s more dough flipping. She cuts the rind off the Taleggio. She says you can use any cheese you like - mozzarella and bleu cheese, for example. The 2 rolled out doughs go on a baking sheet. One is topped with the Taleggio and tomato mixture. The other gets Parmesan cheese before it goes into the oven, and prosciutto, arugula and chili oil after it comes out. The pizzas are baked at 425°F. until the cheesy stuff melts, about 3 or 4 minutes.

The Parmesan flans go back in the oven to warm up.

Anne cuts the pizzas on a board. She tops the tomato pizza with fresh parsley. The Parm one is topped with prosciutto, arugula and her gorgeous chili oil, which “gives it a little zip and brings everybody together”. Is Anne talking about bringing together the guests OR the ingredients? I guess both.

She tastes. Cheesy, delicious, lovely!

Anne gets the garnish for the sformati ready. She dresses the piquillos and almonds with sherry vinegar, beautiful olive oil and salt. She adds some greens. She unmolds a flan perfectly and dresses it with the salad. It’s really, really pretty. That would be a nice first course, or luncheon dish. (Does any have luncheon anymore?) She tastes. Fantastic. Anne reminds us that most of it can be done ahead and we can be superstars at our own pizza party.

The pizzas looked great, but what I also like about these recipes is that they show different ways to serve pizza. I love to top my pizza, homemade OR store-bought, with salad. The components can be used in different ways too. The tomato mixture would be good as a garnish for grilled meat or fish or to top a pilaf or other rice dish.

I'm Ready

I grilled the pizzas:

I topped them:


I poured the champagne:

Wait WHAT??!! The Oscars don't start until 8:30?!!

I'm not waiting. I have to taste my pizza.



Definitely Oscar-worthy...

Hurray For Hollywood

Maybe it’s the strike or the lousy weather, but I'm not really that excited about the Oscars this year. I will, however, still be making my most favorite Oscar snack in the whole world. Wolfgang Puck served it years ago, at one of his earliest Oscar dinners. (This is his 14th year of preparing food for the Governor’s Ball. Here are some of this year’s recipes.)

The one I love is a signature early dish from Spago, It's quite simple, although quite elegant too. I'm talking about his Grilled Pizza with Smoked Salmon, Crème Fraiche and Red Onions.

Wolfgang didn’t invent grilled pizza, but he took it to a new level. It is a brilliant idea. Especially if you're a lover of thin crust pizza, grilling it really gives a super crisp result.

This is basically the recipe I use, except that the dough is grilled, instead of cooked at a high heat in the oven. Do either, but the grilling is fun. Also, I don’t roll it out in circles. I prefer long ovals. I find it easier to hold one side and munch your way to the end.

So basically I grill the pizza dough and then the toppings go on after it comes off the grill. I add the red onion INTO the dough before grilling. Then I top the pizzas with sour cream or crème fraiche. Sometimes, I go with smoked salmon and sometimes I use a zesty tapenade.

To grill pizza dough, follow your pizza dough recipe and shape individual pizzas. Brush both sides lightly with olive oil, leaving plain a one inch border around the edges. Put on a hot grill. Leave until pizza puffs up…a minute or two. Turn over and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, moving to cooler part of the grill if it’s getting too browned.

If you want to add traditional toppings like cheese and tomato sauce, add them after both sides are cooked. Put topped pizza on cooler part of the grill. Close lid and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until cheese is melted.