Lamb, Kalamata Olive, and Feta Pizza With a Greektini

   

 Easter was approaching.  Jennifer and family were in Mexico for Spring Break, and Pam was working.  We knew early in the week that it was just going to be me and Jeff for pizza on Thursday.  Jeff did his usual "meat trolling" on Tuesday.  This is where he lurks around the meat department and hunts for meat that is put on clearance, because it is getting close to its expiration date.  This week's find was some discounted ground lamb.  He suggested that we go off schedule this week and make up our own pizza.  I was game.

LAMB, KALAMATA OLIVE, AND FETA PIZZA

A Jeff and Steph Collaboration

Dough:
8oz. cold water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3¼ cup bread flour

Toppings:
10½ ounces whole-milk ricotta cheese
1lb ground lamb
2 teaspoons Greek Seasoning (such as Midwest Rubs brand)
2 small Roma tomatoes, each cut into four slices
2 oucnes yellow onion, thinly sliced
3 ounces whole kalamata olives, pitted
5 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon garlic-infused olive oil

Dough: Whisk together the cold water, salt, sugar, and olive oil in the bowl of a large stand mixer.  Add the yeast and whisk again.  Dump the flour in and mix with the dough hook attachment at medium speed until the dough comes together and starts to cling to the hook.  Remove the dough from the bowl, divide in half,  and knead each half for about three minutes or until the dough becomes smooth.  Form each half into a ball.  Cover with a damp towel and let rest for two hours.  Only one ball is needed for the pizza.  At this point, you can wrap one in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for another use.  Place the other ball on a small baking sheet.  Wrap plastic wrap over the ball and baking sheet and store in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

Assemble the pizza:  Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough out to a fifteen inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Spread the ricotta over the prepared dough.  In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the lamb with the Greek Seasoning until just barely browned.  Drain.  Scatter the lamb over the ricotta cheese.  Arrange the slices of Roma over the lamb.  Separate the onion slices into rings and evenly distribute the rings over the lamb and tomatoes. Scatter the olives over everything. Add the crumbled feta.  Arrange the garlic slices on the top.  Slide the pizza onto the preheated stone and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the garlic slices start to brown.  Remove the pizza from the oven and drizzle with the garlic-infused olive oil.  Slice and serve.

     With the ground lamb in mind, I had a gyro-type theme started in my head.  While gyros use lamb that has been cooked, processed, and reformed into something resembling meat pieces, I was okay starting out with plain old ground lamb.
     Jeff volunteered to help, and he browned the lamb, while I got the other ingredients ready.  We had a partially used carton of ricotta in the fridge that I wanted to use, so I spread that over the crust.  I was originally going to doctor it up with some seasonings to make it seems somewhat like a tzatziki sauce (the sauce commonly drizzled over gyros), but I had no cucumbers, and Jeff was afraid it would mask the lamb and its seasonings, so plain ricotta won out.

 
                                         He seasoned the meat very simply with a spice blend we picked up at a grilling show that was just simply called "Greek Seasoning".  It's mostly onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper (the rest is a whole lot of big words that I imagine we were never supposed to ingest).  The meat went right over the ricotta.  There was a lot of it, so we could barely see that there was anything underneath.
     Jeff sliced up a couple of romas.  He never does anything small, and this was no exception.  He cut the tomatoes into thick slices - or, rather, slabs.  When I raised my eyebrows at this, he exclaimed, "I want thick slices!"  So, the slabs went on top of the lamb.  It was a good thing Jennifer wasn't here!

     Next, I put paper thin slices of yellow onion over the tomatoes and meat and dotted the entire pizza with whole kalamatas.  I crumbled some feta and scattered that over the top.  It was beautiful and heavy.

                                             While that baked, I worked on my drink.  I thought a Greek-ish pizza needed to have an equally Greek-ish drink.  I rummaged through the liquor cabinet to see what I could come up with.  I found some Ouzo - the quintessential Greek liqueur, and I was off and pouring!

GREEKTINI

3 parts gin (I used Tanqueray)

1 part Ouzo

½ part lemon juice

Pour ingredients into an ice-filled shaker.  Shake.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Sip, swallow, repeat.

     The pizza was fabulous!  It was creamy and meaty, and the olives gave it the right amount of tang and saltiness.  The garlic slices had crisped up and became nutty and delicious.  Everything came together beautifully.  The only complaint I had about the whole thing was that the olives kept rolling off of the slice before it got to my mouth.  I'm not sure if that is a problem with the pizza or the martini...

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