Asparagus Egg Pizza and Bramble

     Asparagus is a weird vegetable. The stalks have always reminded me of the sleestacks from the Land of the Lost.  You have to admit that there is some resemblance....

     It is related to onions, garlic, and lilies.  When eaten raw, it tastes almost exactly like a fresh pea.  Speaking of pee, it contains some natural compounds that change the odor of urine.  After a little research, I found out that it affects most of the people that eat it, but only 22% of the population can detect it.  I must be one of the lucky ones that has the sniffer gene, because it is one of the more pungent aromas I have ever encountered.  I was also amazed at how many studies were done on this topic.
     On a good note, asparagus contains certain enzymes that are helpful in breaking down alcohol in a person's body.  This is good news, because if you have the bad drinking gene and suffer from hangovers, you can have an asparagus omelet in the morning and feel much better.  I wonder if eating it while drinking would prevent the hangovers from ever occurring in the first.  I would imagine so.  Perhaps instead of garnishing martinis with olives or lemons, we should garnish with a stalk of asparagus!
     This pizza had originally been scheduled for earlier in the month, but I couldn't find any asparagus at the time (OK, I didn't try really hard - they didn't have it at Cub, so I gave up).  I found some at Costco when I went with my sisters and Gracie last Friday.  However, the delicate spears were severely jostled on the ride home with so many other bulk items careening around in the back of Jennifer's SUV, that by the time Thursday rolled around, the asparagus was a little worse for wear.  Some of the tips had broken off, and some were bruised and starting to mush up.  These were problems on top of the fact that they were extremely fat and a little woody (actually, a lot woody - I ended up breaking off almost half of each piece to get to the good stuff).  I guess I can't complain when buying a vegetable out of season.

     Jeff and I had a private pizza night.  Both my sisters (and Roger) were out of town, and none of the usual additional personnel had called in a reservation.  Pam was probably relieved to find out she missed an egg pizza.  She has a weird form of ovaphobia, where she doesn't fear the whole egg itself, just the white part.  She will not eat the egg if she can see the whites.  Scrambled eggs are fine, because the whites are mixed with the yolk to make a yellow curd.  It is strange, but true.  It may not be a fear, per se, maybe just a texture/aesthetics issue, but her reactions to the whites are so strong that I would prefer to refer to it as a phobia.

Asparagus and Egg Pizza

Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza

1½ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 cup warm water 

1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

3¼ cups bread flour

¼ cup olive oil

6 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

6 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

6 eggs

12 asparagus tips

Make the dough:  Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir 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.  

Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough out on a flour or cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Make it into roughly a thirteen inch circle, keeping the outside edges thicker than the middle of the circle.  Prick the dough all over with a fork.  Slide docked dough onto pizza stone, if using, or onto a pizza pan and into the oven.  Bake for about 5 minutes until dough is a little puffy and begins to slightly brown.

Hollow out six evenly spaced divots into the dough, either with your fingertips or a spoon, making sure not to go all the way through the crust.  The indentation should be a couple inches in diameter.  Combine the cheeses together and sprinkle over the crust, leaving the hollows mostly uncovered.  Crack an egg into a bowl, making sure there are no egg shells in it.  Pour egg into one of the divots.  Repeat with the remaining give eggs.  Arrange asparagus in a spoke pattern between the eggs - two in between each egg.  Sprinkle the pizza with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.  Bake until eggs are just barely set - up to fifteen minutes, depending on how thick the egg is in your hollow.  Slice and serve immediately.

     Jeff was really excited about this pizza.  About 15 years ago, we had another egg pizza where the eggs were baked on top in their original form and looked and acted like a fried egg.  He loved it, never forgot it, and still talks about it on occasion.  I think I may have ruined this one for him, though.  I had a really hard time getting the eggs to set.  I was beginning to see the rationality behind Pam's ovaphobia.  Every time I pulled the oven rack out to get a better look at the pizza, the whites, some of which were barely white at this point, were extremely jiggly, and I feared that the yolks were going to solidify before the whites became a tolerable texture (and look).  I think the problem may have been that the "cups" I had made in the crust were a little too deep.  If they had been larger around, the egg would have been flatter and the whites may have cooked faster.

     When I finally pulled it out of the oven, a couple of the yolks were almost solid, three of them looked nice and runny, and the other one was somewhere in the middle.  The whites had lost all of their translucency (and their jiggle).  By the time I had finished cutting the pizza, though, the middle-of-the-road yolk had completely moved out of the liquid stage, and the two "good" ones were somewhere in between.  I guess I should have pulled it out before it looked done, since the eggs continued to "cook."  The flavor was good, but I think it would have been better if I could slather the rest of the piece and the asparagus with ooey gooey yolk.  It was a little like having a breakfast sandwich with asparagus on it.

     If I were to do it again, I would definitely make sure that there were six people ready to enjoy it, because this is definitely something you need to eat right away.  I really don't think that it would make good leftovers.

Bramble

2 measures gin

1½ measures freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ measure agave syrup

½ measure black raspberry liqueur

Combine first three ingredients together in an ice filled shaker.   Shake and strain into a low-ball glass half filled with crushed ice.  Drizzle liqueur over the the top.

     The drink of the week was a nice match for it, too.  It was breakfast with juice.  The bramble was sweet and tart and cut right through the richness of the cheese and yolk.  And, it was a gorgeous lavender color!