Marinara Pizza; Chicken Nugget Pizza; Stork Club

     I have a love-hate relationship with anchovies.  I hate the thought of eating little canned, hairy fishes.  When they are plentiful in a recipe, I cannot stand their salty, mushy, overbearing flavor.  I do, however, recognize their beneficial contributions to recipes.  When administered in proper doses, they do impart a nice saltiness that enhances the brightness of a main ingredient or star of the recipe.  In the background, they add an almost pickle-like Mediterranean flair that can be quite nice.  I repeat, in the background.
     One of the recipes on deck for this week highlighted anchovies.  And so the internal debate begins.  Do I veer off course of the mission to which I had committed myself some 16 years ago when I started this crazy pizza night?  That would mean, we just make the next recipe, regardless of my distaste for any particular ingredient.  I have made certain exceptions before, but the point of the original plan was to force us to expand our horizons, try new things, try old things that once disgusted us and see if our minds could be changed.  It has been largely successful thus far.  There have only been a few pizzas we have made over the years that have ended up in the garbage disposal, but there have been far more ingredients that we (mostly I) have turned our noses up at that we now enjoy and use in other applications (asparagus, spinach, blue cheese, to name a few).  I decided to respect the order of things and forge ahead with the hairy fish.

     The other pizza on the menu, chicken nugget pizza, sounded fun and whimsical.  I wasn't quite sure how the nuggets would turn out in this venue, but I was willing to give it a try.  That and I was really looking forward to a new honey mustard I had bought at the Bloomington Farmers' Market on Saturday.
     The nugget pizza recipe called for a "ready to top" pizza crust.  Being low on funds, I decided to make my own.  I was going to have to make one for the marinara anyway, so I may as well double the recipe for that and par-bake one for the nuggets.  Actually, I ended up making a recipe that makes four crusts, and I packaged up half of into two balls that I froze for later.

CLASSIC CRUST

(makes four 12-inch pizzas)

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1-3/4 cups warm water

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt    

6-1/2 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Continue mixing a little longer until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.  Punch dough down, and divide into four pieces.  Roll and shape each piece as recipe indicates.

     Once I had the dough made, I sealed up two of the four portions in zipper bags, labeled them with the date, and placed them in my freezer.  The other two portions, I set aside to rise, while I made the sauce for the marinara pizza.

MARINARA SAUCE

3 large garlic cloves

28 ounces of canned diced tomatoes, drained

4 tablespoons tomato paste

½ teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon fresh oregano

2 tablespoons fresh basil

½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Peel the garlic cloves and place them,  the tomatoes, paste, sugar and salt into a blender (preferably the VitaMix Total Nutrition Center).  Puree (for the VitaMix, start on variable speed at its lowest setting; gradually increase the speed to its highest setting; then switch to high).  Mix in oregano, basil, hot pepper, and black pepper.  Makes 1½ cups.

     The original recipe called for dried oregano, but I couldn't bear to use that when I had all of these gorgeous herbs on my deck.  I also tripled the garlic it called for, because - why not?  1 clove just simply wasn't enough.  It is my favorite food, and you really can't have too much, even if I was putting sliced garlic on the pizza as well.  I cut the salt, because I thought the original amount the recipe requested was too much, considering we were using canned tomatoes (I can't wait for my tomatoes to ripen!).  I doubled both of the amounts of pepper to give it a little extra kick (okay, maybe I was trying to overpower the fishies, but there is nothing wrong with that, is there?).

     When the dough had sufficiently risen, I wanted to pre-bake the crust for the nugget pizza to simulate the "ready-to-top pizza crust" it had originally listed in the ingredient list.  I rolled it out to twelve inches and put it in the 400º on top of the pizza stone that I had also preheated.  I set the timer for eight minutes.

    The timer when off, and I checked my crust.  Apparently, I should have poked some holes in it before I placed it on the stone.  It had puffed up, almost touching the bottom of the rack above it.  It billowed up unevenly, too, so it looked like a big, fluffy baseball hat.

     Then, I poked holes in it and tried to smooth it down, hoping to force it back into one coherent piece.  I set it aside to cool while I assembled the marinara pizza.

MARINARA PIZZA

¼ recipe Classic Crust dough (see above)

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ cup marinara sauce (see above)

8 anchovy fillets, drained and rinsed thoroughly

5 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven (preferably with pizza stone inside) to 500º.  Hand stretch or roll out dough to a 12 inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel.  Brush the dough with olive oil to lightly coat.  Spread the marinara sauce over the olive oil, leaving a ¼ inch border around the edge of the dough.  Thoroughly rinse the anchovies and place in a spoke pattern around the circle.  Sprinkle the garlic slices all over the pizza and top with pepper.  Bake for 10 minutes or until crust is golden.

     I made sure to completely rinse the anchovies and pull out as many of the hairy little bones as possible.  I was hoping to make them seem less fuzzy, less fishy. 

     I went with sliced garlic instead of finely chopped, because I was hoping to shift the spotlight to them and not the anchovies.  Also, it gave me an excuse to use a really cool gadget Jennifer had given me - a garlic slicer.  It is like a small cup with a divider in the middle.  You place as many cloves as you can in the cup, put the lid on and twist.  Perfectly sliced garlic comes out the bottom.  It is genius, really, and there is no risk of slicing knuckles or finger tips or anything!

 

     If you put these gorgeous little slices on top of buttered bread and broil it, they become crispy and nutty and just delicious.  I was hoping for the same result here.  I was still trying to convince myself that I wasn't going to be eating an anchovy pizza, it was a garlic pizza.

     Jennifer had told me the day before that they weren't going to be able to get here until after 8:30, because Jonah had a baseball game until then.  I figured that she wouldn't make her kids wait until they got here to eat dinner, so I decided it was safe to use the jalapeno honey mustard for the sauce on the nugget pizza.  Of course, as soon as I spread the sauce over the crust, I found out that my friends Paul and Leslie were coming with their two kids.  I wondered if they would like anchovies...

     Actually, I wasn't worried that the children would starve at that point, because Paul and Leslie always bring two pizzas they have made themselves when they come on Thursdays.  There is usually at least one that is kid-friendly, and their girls are still so little that they really don't eat much.

     Today's selections from the Dahlens were a Canadian bacon pizza with pineapple and a pepperoni pizza with mushrooms.  Pam was already here when they arrived, my marinara pizza was assembled and ready for the oven, and I had just started working on the nuggets.  Allegra had fallen asleep on the way here and wasn't quite ready to wake up yet.  Paul brought in their pizzas and took Allegra outside to wake up and play.

CHICKEN NUGGET PIZZA

20 breaded chicken nuggets, cooked

¼ recipe classic crust (see above)

½ cup fire-roasted jalapeno honey mustard

1½ cup shredded Colby-jack cheese

½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook the chicken nuggets according to the package directions.  Preheat oven and pizza stone to 450º.  Roll the dough out to a 12 inch circle on top of a cornmeal dusted pizza peel.  Poke the dough all over with a fork.  Slide onto preheated pizza stone and bake for 8 minutes or until crust starts to firm up but hasn't browned yet.  Cool crust for at least five minutes.  Spread honey mustard over crust, leaving a quarter-inch border all the way around.  Top with the two cheeses.  Distribute the nuggets over the top of the cheese.

     I was a little confused by the original recipe.  It called for breaded chicken nuggets, cooked.  All of the chicken nuggets I have seen in the store are already cooked.  Should I cook them again from their frozen state or will cooking on the top of the pizza be okay?  I decided to cook them by themselves first, because I was afraid that they wouldn't get hot enough in their brief stint in the oven with the pizza, and I was really worried that they wouldn't crisp up.  Turns out they didn't crisp up anyway, but they were fairly tasty (we, of course, had to sample a couple before we placed them on the pizza).  I thought that by increasing the oven temperature from the original instruction of 400º to 450º would aid in the crisping of the nuggets, but they still weren't.  I imagine it would be difficult for them to get crispy on top of all that steamy cheese and sauce...  Maybe next time (if there is one), I would brush them with a little oil.

     I had both ovens going and put all four pizzas in at once.  Then, there was nothing to do but make drinks for me and Leslie.  She asked why it was called "Stork Club", and I told her it was guaranteed to make her pregnant.  She was skeptical but after tasting it, she admitted that she could see how it could result in pregnancy.

STORK CLUB

1 measure gin

1 measure cognac-based orange liqueur (like Harlequin's or Cointreau)

1 measure orange juice

½ measure freshly squeezed lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

     The first sip was bracing, but it gave way to a slightly sweet, slightly sour finish.  It was refreshing and fruity and absolutely delightful.  It was sure to cleanse the palate after any high flavor bite of pizza.

     With our drinks ready and the oven timers going off, Leslie went outside with Chelsea and sent Paul in to help with the carry out.  It was a beautiful evening, and we were going to take advantage of it by eating outside.

     The pizzas were gorgeous and smelled wonderful.  Pam had already brought out the plates and napkins and joined Leslie outside.  Paul grabbed two and headed down the stairs toward our back door.  As I was picking up the other two paddles, I heard irregular footfalls, a yell, and a splat.  I peeked down the stairs and saw Paul kneeling at the bottom with a perfectly in tact Hawaiian pizza still on its paddle, but I couldn't see his other hand from where I was standing.  After asking if he was okay, he said that the one of the pizzas slid onto the floor in his fall.  I told him to go ahead and slide it back onto the peel, I wouldn't tell anyone.  He said, "it's not that simple."

     The pizza had actually stayed on the peel, the toppings had slid off onto the floor.  After laughing for a little bit (and taking a picture).  I told him to put the toppings back on - no one will know.  He said he would know, and he wouldn't eat it.  We did end up putting the toppings back on the completely naked side of the pizza, but marking where the "safe" side of the pizza was.  I had a piece from each side and found the "floor" side to be the more delicious of the two.  There were significantly more toppings on that side, and I didn't find one single piece of grit or anything.  I am not sure if Paul ever tried that side, but there were more "safe" pieces left at the end of the night than the others.
     The Hawaiian was fabulous as always.  I don't know how he does it, but he makes the same crust recipe every time and it always turns out exactly the same.  It is light and fluffy with just the right amount of sturdiness.  Every time I repeat a crust recipe, it turns out different.  Of course, that could be the AADD in me that forgets ingredients, mis-measures ingredients, changes cooking temps and times, etc.
     Pam, Paul, and I declared the anchovy pizza "okay".  It didn't totally suck.  As Paul put it, it was something different and it had decent flavor, but it didn't wow us.  Jeff had several pieces, but he is a huge fan of anchovies.  I don't think Leslie tried it.  She granted me permission to skip pizzas on the list that had ingredients that I don't like.

          It was great to see the Dahlens, and I was glad that Pam was able to show up.  The evening was perfect - just about 78º and not nearly as humid and sweltering as most of the previous days this summer.  Not even anchovies could ruin it for me!