I wasn't sure what the plan was for Mom's birthday, but I thought I would bring pizza recipes, just in case. Having the eggplant pizza with my parents would be a great way to use up eggplants and not upset my husband. He claims to hate eggplant. When the neighbor told him it was part of the bella donna family (a poisonous weed), he was ecstatic to have another excuse not to eat it. However, he loved the eggplant, mozzarella, and saffron rice bake I made a couple of weeks ago. But, that is a story for another blog...
When I got to my parents' house on Wednesday, I found my dad in the kitchen, wearing a winter jacket and mittens. He was pale and clammy. Apparently, he started feeling bad early that morning, and was running a fever. He still was not feeling better on Thursday, so Mom and I decided that we should eat in instead of going out to celebrate her birthday. I showed her the recipes for the two scheduled pizzas and the recipe for the eggplant pizza. She (thankfully) chose the eggplant pizza and a the Cheddar Bacon pizza. I thought they were excellent choices.
We had a great morning. We started at the farmer's market, which was held in the parking lot of the Nisswa American Legion. They require all of their vendors to only sell local foods. All crafts, baked goods, etc. must be locally made, as well. We found several different varieties of melons that we had never seen before (mostly watermelon types). There were gorgeous tomatoes, including some pretty heirloom varieties. There was a meat vendor, selling locally farmed pork products. We couldn't resist buying some jalapeno brats for our lunch later. We dropped off our goods at home and headed to Fleet Farm, so she could use a coupon she had for ten dollars off. On our way home, we stopped at the local nursery, because she had some gift certificates to use. She bought some black-eyed susans.
Dad slept all day, and Mom had some errands to run (aside from our shopping spree), so I found myself alone in her kitchen.
Mom told me that there was still a ball of dough in her freezer for some other time I had made pizza while I was at their house (apparently Christmas Eve). It was the classic crust. I thought that maybe I could divide it in half and use it for both pizzas, but after it sat out all morning (while we were shopping) and didn't rise, I figured I had better make another crust for one of them. There was no way I would be the classic crust out enough to make two pizzas.
I decided that the eggplant pizza was going to get the new crust, and I would use the recipe that came with it to make it. There wasn't any sugar in the recipe, which I found odd, because yeast eats sugar. When the yeast eats the sugar, it produces carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise and become fluffy when baked. Now, since there is starch in flour (a long chain of sugars), I suppose it wouldn't necessarily need added sugar, but I wasn't willing to take the risk. My other dough wasn't rising, so I wanted to make sure I didn't have two cracker crusts. I added a teaspoon of sugar.
I always find it a challenge to cook in someone else's kitchen. I don't always know where things are, the machines aren't exactly the same, and even if it's the same equipment, it doesn't always run the same. I also think that different temperatures and humidity levels of certain houses affect recipes differently. My parents keep a warmer, more humid house than I do. I am not sure if that was the problem, or if there was some sort of operator error in the recipe. Or, perhaps, the recipe was just off. Whatever the problem was, once I had combined my foamy yeast-sugar-water mixture to the flour, it became very wet and sticky. I had troubles getting the dough off of the sides of the mixing bowl. I ended up adding an additional third cup of flour just to get the dough to come together nicely.
Once I had the dough together and smooth, I set it off to the side to rise and started in on the eggplant. I had Japanese eggplants. They are long and skinny instead of short and fat like a normal eggplant. I have given up growing the regular shaped eggplants, because I find the long skinny ones easier to use. When sliced, the slices are relatively the same size, and the smaller slices just seem to fit better in almost every dish. That being said, I was having difficulty getting the slices to be the same thickness. I guess I should have used the mandolin slicer instead of trying to eyeball it.
I tossed the eggplant with the olive oil and laid it out to broil. I flipped them after the first 8 minutes, but some of them were browning and others weren't. I think this may have been due to the different thickness of the slices. After broiling the other side for about another 8 minutes, some of the slices were burnt. I threw those out, took off the ones that were nicely browned and put the rest back in, a minute at a time, to get them browned as well.
CHEDDAR BACON PIZZA
Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner
Prepared dough (I used Classic Crust - see July 19, 2012 for recipe)
Olive Oil
2 ounces shredded cheddar
2 ounces shredded mozzarella
½ cup sliced yellow onion, separated into rings
4 slices of thick cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
Preheat oven to 500º. Roll out dough into a 16" circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board. Brush dough with olive oil. Combine the cheeses and sprinkle over the dough. Distribute the onion rings and bacon evenly over the cheese. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and slightly browned.
Other than rolling out what appeared to be a yeastless crust, the cheddar bacon pizza was easy to put together, too. We had leftover bacon from breakfast (I had made Mom over-easy eggs and bacon), and I just crumbled up four pieces of that for the pizza. She had some Tillamook cheddar from Oregan. It was nice and sharp, but not so much so that it crumbled when I shredded it. Unfortunately, it was white cheddar, so it didn't add much color to our pizza. The onions should have added color, because they were supposed to be red onions, but we didn't have those. Yellow onions were the ones for us, because the price was right.
It really did bake in just about five minutes, and in that time, the cheese browned perfectly, adding enough color to make the pizza look interesting again. The cheese that was in the middle of the onion rings browned, too, adding contrast to the lightly colored onions.
EGGPLANT PIZZA
Adapted from Gourmet
1½ teaspoons fast-acting dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2/3 cup warm water
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1lb eggplant (about two Japanese eggplants)
3 ounces grated mozzarella cheese
1 ounce grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
Combine the yeast, sugar, and water in a small bowl. Set aside for at least five minutes. Stir together the flour and salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the yeast mixture. Stir on a low speed until the dough forms a ball and is elastic and smooth. Set aside for at least an hour in a warm, dry place.
Slice the eggplants into 1/3 inch circles. Toss with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Place the eggplant on a sheet pan in a single layer. Broil on high for about 8 minutes per side or until slightly browned, monitoring closely to prevent burning. Place browned eggplant slices on a plate lined with paper towels.
Preheat the oven to 500º. Roll the dough out to a 12 inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board. Toss cheeses together until adequately mixed. Sprinkle an ounce of the cheeses over the dough. Place the eggplant slices over this cheese, slightly overlapping each other. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the eggplant. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and hot pepper and cook, stirring constantly, for about a minute. Distribute oil, garlic and pepper mixture evenly over the eggplant and cheese. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cheese has started to brown.
Now that I had my eggplant already broiled, the rest of the recipe was a piece of cake. A little shredded cheese went over the crust first - I assumed that was for adhesive purposes: we wanted the eggplant to stick to the dough. Then, the eggplant was layered over that. The rest of the cheese was sprinkled over the eggplant. The most labor intensive part of the deal was cooking the oil, garlic, and pepper flakes that were drizzled over the top of the assembled pizza. It looked like a masterpiece.
Next step was to get it into the oven. I did have a little issue, however. Mom only had one pizza peel, and I had used that for the cheddar bacon pizza. I figured if I rolled the other pizza out onto a wooden cutting board, it would be like the same thing. Unfortunately for me, she only had the really large cutting boards that slide out from underneath the counter. It was a little unwieldy for me to take it out of its home, travel across the kitchen with it, and try to slide the pizza off of it and onto my preheated pizza pan. I thought I could just slide the one pizza peel underneath the pizza once I had the cheddar bacon one in the oven. I set the peel next to the eggplant pizza and lifted an edge onto the edge of the paddle. I tried, with one swift motion, to pull the pizza onto the peel at the same time I pushed the peel forward. The edge of crust that was on the paddle flipped over onto the rest of the pizza, mixing everything up. Mom tried to help me, but we just ended up folding the pizza in half and unfolding it onto the paddle. We then had to redistribute all of the ingredients back over the crust.
Dad tried to sit up and take nourishment, but he couldn't make it through the one piece that we gave him. Unfortunately, Mom and I were so worried about him that we were unable to truly taste and enjoy the pizza either. Don't get me wrong - we ate some, and we liked it - heaven forbid we miss a meal! We just had a lot leftover. We also decided to save the cake for another day.
The eggplant pizza was surprisingly good. I like eggplant, but the flavor was so above my expectations, that I may have to make this again for Jeff (just to prove he can like it). It was garlicky and sweet and earthy all at the same time. It did need a little salt, but I think that was because I forgot to add some when I was broiling the eggplant.
The bacon pizza was good too (how could it not be - it had bacon on it). The crust was a little tough (no yeast?), but the cheese and bacon combination was the ultimate in comfort food. It was warm and salty, and the onions added a nice vegetal juice to the richness of the bacon and cheese.
Love the bit of food chemistry you have in here :)
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