Tragedy struck Thursday afternoon when I started working on these pizzas. I had been pleased to find just enough sauce in my freezer to use for the crab pizzettes, and I had it thawing on my counter all morning. In the afternoon, when I was ready to start rolling the dough, I placed a wooden board on the counter for my rolling surface. It was a little wide, and I gave it a little nudge to get it all the way on the counter. As I did so, the board hit the little container of sauce on the edge of the counter, and down it went. The lid had been just resting on the container, so when it hit the floor, the sauce splattered all over the floor. None of it was salvageable.
My mind raced with options. Did I have time to make another sauce (this had been slow-simmered for over two hours on a previous Thursday)? Did I have enough tomatoes to make another batch of sauce? Could I use just plain, old, store-bought spaghetti sauce? I did have some, and I thought about it briefly. Quickly glancing at the clock, I considered the options. I had two and a half, maybe three hours before people started showing up. I decided I would give it a try. I scaled down the original recipe roughly by a third, so I would only be making enough sauce just for this recipe (the original version claims to make three cups, and I only needed one). I was hoping that by doing so, it would reduce the amount of time I would need for simmering. Also, (ripe, unfrozen) tomatoes were becoming scarce around my house, and I wouldn't have had enough to make 3 (or 4) cups of sauce.
Déjà vu set in as I cut the cores out of my tomatoes and tossed them into the Vita Mix. I was working at break-neck speed (and so was my wonderful, beautiful, most-helpful Vita Mix). I found some frozen tomato paste leftover from something else in my freezer (why do they make the containers so big, when you hardly ever use that much at one time?). I started cooking the olive oil and the tomato paste while the Vita Mix was running (for that brief second). When that was ready for me to add the puréed tomatoes, I quickly poured emptied the Vita Mix bowl into the pan and popped my little piece of onion in is place for a quick "chop". Have I mentioned that I love my Vita Mix??
In less than ten minutes, I had the new sauce bubbling away on the stove, while I redirected myself to the dough at hand.
Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin
3 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon olive oil, divided
2 ounces tomato paste
10 ounces tomatoes
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 1/2 ounces onion
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 2/3 cup of water, divided
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 1/3 cup bread flour
10 ounces ricotta cheese
6 ounces shredded crab meat
8 ounces mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup fresh basil, minced
Make the sauce: Combine 1 teaspoon of olive oil and the tomato paste in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Cook and stir for approximately two minutes. Purée the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the olive oil and tomato paste mixture. Add the garlic, onion, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, and 2/3 cup of water. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until thick, about 30 minutes.
Make the dough: Combine the yeast, one cup water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes. Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast mixture and one tablespoon 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 oven to 350º F with pizza stone inside, if using. Divide dough into 24 equal portions and roll or stretch each piece into two inch circles. Brush the tops with two tablespoons of olive oil and bake for 8 minutes. Divide the tomato sauce among the 24 circles. Place a spoonful of ricotta over each circle and smash down with the back of the spoon to spread it out. Place the crab meat evenly over the pizzas. Top with the cheese and basil. Return to the oven for three to five minutes or until the mozzarella melts. Serve immediately.
I divided up my large wad of dough for the crab pizzas into 24 pieces. They seemed really small and the recipe had no indication of how large each piece should be rolled out to other than "tiny" circles. Once they were rolled out, it was obvious that some of the pieces had been larger than others - I had rolled them all to roughly the same thickness, and some were wider than others.
I rationalized that this is some of the charm of home baking and continued with my mission. I brushed them all liberally with olive oil and threw them in my preheated oven. By the time I had my dough rolled out for the Gorgonzola pizza, my sauce had thickened nicely.
It had reduced to about a cup, and it was barely enough to cover each of the 24 circles I had made. I stretched it as far as I could, using a spatula to get every tiny smudge of sauce out of my pan and onto a dough pillow. Incidentally, they did look like little pillows. They were still a pasty white, but they had puffed up a little in the oven.
Applying the ricotta seemed to justify everything. I put a little dollop in the middle of each pizza and smashed it down with the back of my spoon, sending some of the sauce to areas that weren't previously covered. The original recipe called for two cups of ricotta. This is usually about 15 ounces of ricotta, but as I was spreading the ricotta around, it seemed to me that if I were to actually use that much ricotta, my scant amount of crab would be lost and there would have been no reason to add it. I stopped at 10 ounces and still thought it might be a bit much.
In October, I had made crab canapés and was too frugal (er, cheap and lazy) to buy real crab that I would have to pay by the pound for the shell along with the meat. Also, once I got it home, I would have to shell it myself and hope that there were no pieces of shell mixed into my crab pieces. I had taken a risk and purchased refrigerated crab in a bag, and it had turned out better than I expected. I expected it to be a little fishy or tuna-y tasting, but it was sweet and salty and not the least bit fishy. So, for this recipe, I bought it again. It was $6.99 for a 6 ounce pouch, which sounds like a lot when you figure that comes out to $18.64 per pound. However, the lowest price I have seen crab legs on sale for is $6.99 a pound but I'm guessing only a third to a half of that is actual, edible meat, meaning to get a pound of just the meat, it would run me somewhere from $13.98 to $20.97, and I would still have to shell it.
It didn't seem like it was quite the two cups the recipe had called for, but it looked like a healthy amount on top of each of the little pizzas.
With a quick spattering of cheese and basil, these little cuties were ready for the oven.
Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner
1¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
¼ teaspoon sugar
½ cup warm water
1¼ cup bread flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
8½ ounces thinly sliced onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 ounces Gorgonzola cheese crumbles
2 ounces shredded mozzarella
4 cloves garlic, sliced
¼ teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
¼ cup shredded fresh basil
Combine the yeast, one cup water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes. Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast mixture 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 pizza stone inside, if using. Roll or stretch dough out to a thirteen inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board. In a medium frying pan, melt the butter over low heat. Once melted, add the onions and cook until they are soft and browned, about 30 minutes. Brush the edges of the dough liberally with olive oil. Spread onions over the dough. Top with Gorgonzola and the slices of garlic. Sprinkle with pepper. Bake for five to ten minutes or until cheese is starting to melt and brown slightly. Remove from oven and top with basil.
It took a while for my onions to brown up, and I am always amazed at how much they shrink upon caramelizing. They looked a little pathetic and lonely on my dough.
Once I got the "Gorgonzola" (my blue cheese crumbles that were made in Wisconsin instead of Italy) on there with the onions, it looked much better.
With the mozzarella and the garlic slices filling in all of the gaps, it was almost a thing of beauty.
Jennifer arrived, and I had her clean up the cheese and basil that had gotten sprinkled in between the appetizer pizzas (I don't know how that happened), while I started building our drink.
3/4 measure gin
3/4 measure vodka
1 measure triple sec
1/2 measure lime juice (about 1/4 of a small lime)
1/2 measure agave nectar
Brut sparkling wine
Fill a shaker with ice. Add the gin, vodka, triple sec, lime juice, and agave nectar. Shake. Strain into a collins glass half filled with ice. Top collins glass off with the sparkling wine. Garnish with a lime twist.
The sound of a cork popping out of a bottle of bubbly is always a festive occasion, and this was no exception. I had mixed all of the liquors together with the lime juice and agave nectar, and poured it into two glasses. As soon as I was done topping them off with the sparkling wine, Pam walked in the front door. I quickly whipped up another drink. It was bubbly and tart and strong, without being overly strong tasting. It was like a Fresca on steroids. It was delicious.
The crab pizzas were the first to come out of the oven. I was afraid of overcooking them, because I didn't want the crab to get chewy, fishy, or dry. The cheese had barely melted when I took them out. I think I should have left them in a little bit longer, because the sauce and ricotta didn't have enough time to heat all the way through. It may have been an adequate amount of time had the sauce and crust been already warm.
It had good flavor. The ricotta accented the sweetness of the crab and the basil contrasted it nicely, adding a little licoricey bite to every bite. The sauce underneath had a little bit of spice to it and kept the whole thing interesting.
On the other hand, the "Gorgonzola" pizza came out of the oven all brown and bubbly and gorgeous. It was clearly the favorite of the evening. We ended up bargaining for the last few pieces that were originally meant for Gracie and Jonah, but they refused to try it. It was warm and homey. The crust was crisp. The garlic added a nice zing to cut through the richness of the blue cheese. Even the little amount of cracked pepper that was sprinkled over the top added another dimension and made the whole combination sing.
And, after a couple more rounds of "tea," we were ready to sing, too.
Return to the beginning.
Return to the "Gorgonzola" and Caramelized Onion Pizza recipe.
Return to the Crab & Ricotta Pizza Appetizer recipe.
Return to the drink recipe.
