Fennel Pizza and Cassini

 
     Jeff had been gone for over a week now.  Jen was out of town again.  Pam had something she needed to do (other than drink and eat with me).  I was looking at another pizza night by myself.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Like I mentioned last week, there's a lot less preparation.  I don't have to worry if my toilets are clean, if there is a giant dust bunny waiting to attack my guests, if there is still cheese left on the ceiling from a freak nacho accident.  It was just me.
     I thought I was going to make the Fennel Pizza last Thursday before I realized it would just be one for dinner and two pizzas were not necessary.  The ingredients are pretty hardy, so they were still good by the time this Thursday rolled around, and I didn't have to shop for anything.  I had a cornmeal crust in the freezer that I took out Thursday morning, so that part was taken care of.

FENNEL PIZZA

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

1-1/2 teaspoons sugar

1-1/2 cups bread flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon + 1/8 teaspoon salt (divided)

5 tablespoons olive oil (divided)

1 medium fennel bulb (about 6 ounces), thinly sliced

1 medium onion (about 6 ounces), thinly sliced

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 ounces Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons fennel fronds

few grindings of pepper

Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the flour, cornmeal, and ½ teaspoon salt together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and 2 tablespoons of 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.  On a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch dough out to a 15 inch circle.  Brush the dough all over with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  In a medium skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Add the fennel, onion, and garlic and cook for 30 minutes on low heat until soft but not brown.  Spread the vegetable mixture over the dough circle.  Sprinkle the fennel fronds over the vegetables.  Dust with 1/8 teaspoon of salt (or to taste) and a few grindings of pepper.  Bake for 5-10 minutes or until crust is golden.  Remove the pizza from the oven and top it with the Parmesan cheese.

     After I rolled out my dough, I took the fennel bulb out of my fridge.  Fennel is a strange vegetable.  It looks like a cross between onion, celery stalk, and dill weed.  I have tried to grow it in the past and have been unsuccessful so far.  I cut the stalks and fronds off of the bulb, cut a little of the root end off and sliced it as thin as paper with my mandolin slicer.  The onion went through it next, and I tossed those two veggies together to get them mixed up with each other.

     It didn't take quite 30 minutes for the onion and fennel to get soft in my frying pan.  I think it was because they were so thin.  If I had hand sliced them or sliced them a little thicker, I am sure it would have taken the full 30 minutes, if not more.

     The cornmeal dough I had set out to thaw was wonderful.  It was soft and pliable.  It smelled slightly sweet and had a slightly gritty texture to it.  It rolled out nicely, and I was able to get a pretty good (almost round) circle out of it.  I brushed it liberally with oil - I was looking for that great sheen that it is supposed to provide under my fennel and onions.

     The onions and fennel had shrunk up so much, I was worried that they wouldn't cover my dough adequately, but there was more to them than it appeared in the pan.

     After a few quick snips of the fronds from the fennel stalks, I was ready to put my pizza in the oven.

While it baked, I shredded the cheese that I needed to sprinkle over the pizza once it was out of the oven.
It was quite a bit of cheese, and my mouth was starting to water at the site and smell of it.  Salty, rich, tangy Parmesan....

     After about ten minutes, I opened the oven to take a peek.  Either I had rolled out the dough unevenly on one side, or my oven is hotter on one side than the other, because the right side of the pizza was very brown and crispy.

     I quickly sprinkled it with the Parmesan, covering up its flaws.  Cheese makes everything better, right?  And, it did this.

     I let the cheese melt a little from the heat of the pizza while I made my cocktail.

CASSINI

2 measures vodka

2 measures cranberry juice

¼ measure créme de cassis

Pour ingredients into an ice-filled shaker.  Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with three blackberries.

     I thought it was going to be like a Cosmopolitan, since it had the cranberry juice in it.  However, I was wrong.  It was a little wicked.  It was juicy and rich with a slight bitter finish - was that from the cassis or the cranberry?  Or from the blackberries at the bottom of the glass?  I wasn't sure, but it was lovely and dangerous.

     The pizza was good, too.  I would consider it more of an appetizer pizza than an actual meal.  It was light and crispy.  It had a nice saltiness to it from the Parmesan.  The licorice flavor of the fennel was muted a bit by the caramelizing, both on the stove and in the oven.  The fronds accentuated that muted flavor.  The slightly sweet cornmeal crust was a great vehicle for the fennel and onions.  Even though it was crisp, its flavor melted into the sweetness of the onions and fennel.  

     My only objection to this pizza was that there was no cohesion.  One bite and Parmesan and onions and fennel were all over my front, the table, the plate.  I like a pizza that sticks together, and this wasn't it.

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