My mom, Pam, and I had watched an episode of "Chopped" on Food Network, and one of the judges berated one of the chefs for calling something a chutney, when she didn't feel it was a chutney. She said, "you can't just throw some things on a plate and call it a chutney." So, I needed to do some research on chutney, because I wasn't exactly sure what it was either. Apparently, it is a reduction of fruit and spices, usually made with the addition of vinegar.
At Cub, they only had Major Grey's chutney, which I already had but not in enough quantity to use in the chutney pizza recipe. Also, I was looking for something different. I gave up trying to buy it (I didn't want to go anywhere else that day), and did some on-line research to find recipes. I found a peach-nectarine chutney that sounded interesting, so I went for it, even though it meant another trip to Cub to get peaches and nectarines.I started working on the chutney and the yogurt cheese on Wednesday, because Thursday was "Garage Sale Day". My mom was coming in to town for the day, and she and Pam and Jennifer and I were meeting friends of Pam's, who plan a whole day of garage sales, including lunch. They lead the pack, and the rest of us caravan behind them, and we invade the poor souls who dared to sell their cast offs on that day.
SUMMER FRUIT CHUTNEY PIZZA
adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza
40 ounces low fat yogurt (I used half fat-free Greek yogurt, and half low-fat plain yogurt)
½ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup + 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, divided
¼ cup packed brown sugar
4 whole cloves
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup dried cranberries
2 tablespoons minced ginger
¼ teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
½ cup crushed red pepper
1¼ pounds firm white nectarines, peeled, pitted, and chopped
1 pound firm ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and chopped
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3¼ cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons curry powder
¼ cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
Cornmeal
3 tablespoon minced fresh chives
Make yogurt cheese: Line a mesh strainer with several layers of cheesecloth. Spoon the yogurt into the cheesecloth. Cover the top with plastic wrap. Place strainer on top of a bowl. Refrigerate, allowing the yogurt to drain, for at least 12 hours.
Make the fruit chutney: combine vinegar, ¼ cup granulated sugar, and the brown sugar in a large saucepan. Place cinnamon stick and cloves on top of a double layer of cheesecloth. Tie the corners of the cheesecloth together to form a closed package. Bring the vinegar mixture to a boil. Add the cinnamon and clove package, raisins, cranberries, ginger, mustard seeds, and crushed red pepper. Reduce heat and simmer for about eight minutes. Add the chopped nectarines and peaches and increase heat again, bringing the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Discard cinnamon and cloves. Cover and chill for at least two hours.
Make crust: combine sugar, water, and yeast in a small bowl. Set aside for at least five minutes. Stir the flour, salt, and curry powder together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil and continue to stir at a low speed until the dough clings to the hook and is able to be formed into a smooth, round ball. Place in a greased bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel and set in a warm, dry place for at least an hour.
Assemble pizza: Preheat oven (with pizza stone inside, if using) to 500º F. Roll, stretch, and shape the dough into a 16 inch circle on a pizza peel or board dusted with cornmeal. Prick all over with a fork. Slide dough onto pizza stone in the oven (or place on an oiled pizza screen in the oven), Bake for about 5 minutes or until dough just begins to brown. Top crust with the yogurt cheese. Spread the chutney over the cheese. Return pizza to the oven for another five minutes - just enough to get the cheese warm. Remove from oven and sprinkle the chives over the top of the pizza.
I had never made nor eaten yogurt cheese before now. I was a little surprised at how little effort it was. Really? I just put the yogurt in some cheesecloth and tomorrow it will be cheese? What else can I put in cheesecloth to transform it into cheese?
While the yogurt was hanging out in my fridge, transforming itself into cheese, I started in on the chutney. It started with a search for cloves. I knew that I had some. I can only think of a couple of times where a recipe called for cloves. I remember my mother used to punch a bunch of them into a ham before baking it, and I remember some winter drink recipes that called for them steeping for a while.
After a long search, I finally found a bag of them in my axillary spice box. I had no idea how old they were, but a sniff and a bite proved that they were still very strong. It had a strong woodsy, almost licorice-like flavor to them.
These are strange little items. A little googling told me that they are the dried buds of flowers from a tree in Indonesia. Wikipedia said that they look like irregular nails, but I think that they look like miniature brown golf balls on miniature brown tees. They are supposedly effective in abating dental pain. Although, I don't know how anyone would have figured that out, because if my teeth hurt, I certainly wouldn't want to put a hard brown twig-like thing in my mouth.
It was nice that I didn't have to go searching for the cheesecloth - it was already out for the yogurt cheese, and there was just enough left on the roll to make a little satchel for my cloves and cinnamon stick. Again, I was steeping the cloves in some fruity concoction.
It didn't take long for the vinegar and sugars to boil, and I threw in the packet of brown spices in with the raisins, cranberries, ginger, mustard seeds, and red pepper. My house was really starting to smell good. After a short simmer, the peaches and nectarines went into the mix.
While that was simmering, I made the dough for the chutney pizza. I thought that two tablespoons of curry powder was quite a lot, but I went for it anyway. The moment I opened the jar of powder, I started salivating. I love the warm, spicy smell of it. It is made up of a few different spices. My dad is always marveling about the fact that curry is a conglomeration of spices, where allspice, which sounds like it should be a mixture of spices, is only one berry. Once my dough was together, I popped it into a zipper bag and threw it in the freezer, hoping I would remember to take it out of the freezer in the morning before the day's events got started.
On Thursday, after I had gleaned all of the bargains I felt I was going to get for the day, I started back in on the preparations for the evening. I had remembered to thaw my dough that morning, but it was still cold when I got home in the afternoon. I let it sit while I contemplated the Spaghetti Pie recipe.
SPAGHETTI PIE
Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin
10 ounces dried thin spaghetti noodles
4 eggs
½ cup half-and-half
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
3 tablespoons fresh herbs (I used a mixture of rosemary, oregano, basil, and Italian parsley)
1½ cups pizza or pasta sauce (I used leftover No Cook Pizza Sauce that was in my freezer)
8 ounces of mozzarella
3½ ounces sliced pepperoni
Cook the spaghetti according to the package directions. Drain and allow to cool to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350º F. Mix the eggs, half-and-half, salt, pepper, and herbs with the cooled noodles. Pour into a greased 12" deep dish pizza pan. Bake until set, about twenty minutes. Spread the pizza sauce evenly over the top of the noodles. Cover with the cheese and top it with the slices of pepperoni.
The recipe had suggested a 12" quiche pan. I didn't have one of those, so I settled for my deep dish pizza stone.
My next quandary was that it called for 6 cups of cooked spaghetti. I had no idea how much dried spaghetti was needed to make 6 cups cooked. I eyed up my 16 ounce package of noodles and tried to picture them broken up and shoved into a one cup measure. I decided that it looked like it was about three cups, and I was pretty sure that spaghetti didn't get bigger when you cooked it. I was wrong. I cooked up 32 ounces of dried spaghetti and come out with about 15 cups of cooked noodles!
I thought that the eggs might puff up a little in the baking, but it didn't happen. I wonder if that wasn't because the half-and-half was too heavy. All that happened was that the noodles cemented together and the top got a little brown.
The sauce spread nicely over this "crust". It wasn't like the macaroni pizza, where most of the sauce got lost in the cracks and crevices between the noodles. The sauce held its own and once the mozzarella and pepperoni was over the top of it, it looked just like a regular deep dish pepperoni pizza.
At first, I had measured out the pepperoni into a one cup measure, as the original recipe called for, but I had only gotten a little more than half of the slices on before I would have to start overlapping them. I decided against using the entire cup.
By this time, my dough for the chutney pizza had warmed up and risen a little. I rolled that out to about 16 inches. That wonderful curry smell hit me again, and I could see little flecks of spices distributed through the dough.
While that had its stint in the oven, I pulled out my yogurt "cheese." I was a little disappointed that it wasn't firmer. I wondered if more time draining would have made it so, or was this it? It was a little like cottage cheese without the whey, but a little smoother. It was tangy and a little sweet.
The crust came out of the oven a nice golden color, and it smelled fantastic.
I let it cool a little bit before spreading the yogurt over it.
The chutney came next, it quickly went into the oven.
Pam had arrived, and after she showed me the treasures she picked up after I bailed, I mixed her up a martini.
BALD EAGLE MARTINI
2 measures tequila
1 measure ruby grapefruit juice
½ measure cranberry juice
½ measure lime juice
½ measure lemon juice
Pour ingredients into a shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass.
It was strong and delicious. First taste was sweet, and then the tequila gave me little burn after I had swallowed. And, it was my favorite color for a drink - PINK!
The chutney pizza was beautiful. It was colorful with the bright, glistening peaches, the green of the chives, and the smattering of raisins on top of the creamy white cheese and the golden crust. We dug into it so quickly, I didn't get a chance to get a picture of it before pieces were missing.
The flavor was spectacular. It was the clear winner of the evening. The chutney was slightly sweet with a little underlying spicy heat to it. The crust was soft and warm and also spicy. The cheese was creamy and tangy and brought everything together and tamed the embers of the chutney and the crust.
The spaghetti pie was good, too. I think I may have made a mistake by not using all of the pepperoni. We all decided that there shouldn't be more pepperoni on the top, but perhaps the extra 2½ ounces should be chopped and disbursed throughout the noodles. The noodles were a little bland and detracted a little from the pepperoni and cheese. Maybe there should be less noodles altogether. This might require more research. Gracie loved it just as it was, but she is our carb-queen.
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