Spring, sprang, sprung. It did it. Finally. I think. There are a lot of fat bees, and I don’t feel the urge to curse under my breath during my morning tip toe to the shower. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have to tip toe. I can walk quite flat footed & hum pop songs and towel off without shivering. So, yes, it must be spring. There are blossoms everywhere, cherry trees and daffodils, cobalt spindly things and white lacy blooms and yellow twining vines. You can tell I know a lot about flowers. I steal them. Really. I drive around my neighborhood so slowly it’s suspicious and leap out, shears in hand, and snip flowers. I don’t steel the good ones or the precious ones. Mostly the raucous, prolific ones or maybe even weeds. But hey, free flowers.
These are my months. Months of nettles and asparagus, spring chicken and lamb. Everything bursting forth and brimming, young and sweet. Spring is as delicious as childhood and just as ephemeral besides. I always feel a little frantic actually, a little desperate to catch every last drop of springiness and luxuriate in it, soak every bit up before summer comes hulking in with it’s pubescent produce, and it’s strapping, husky heat. Don’t get me wrong, summer’s superb and you’ll almost never catch me complaining about the heat. I have, apparently, lizard blood. But spring is poetry. Just ask every poet ever. They know a thing.
In my attempts to bathe in the essence of spring (and of course the essence of anything is food, right?) I always end up with a little bit more produce from the farmer’s market than I know what to do with. And then come the spring pizzas, marching out of my blazing hot oven, slipped off a cornmeal dusted stone with a peel, on a weekly, even bi-weekly basis. And let me tell you why. For one: bread. Everyone loves bread but no one loves bread more than me. Except maybe Patrick. That boy loves bread. Two: cheese. That is all. Three: I am cheap, cheap as dirt. And so is pizza dough from scratch, so we get along.
So you’ve got bread & cheese, the backbone of any self respecting meal. Then you’ve nothing more to do than add whatever is in your fridge. And I mean whatever. If potatoes and rapini can be as delicious on a pizza as they are, I assure you, pretty much everything is. The same principles as a sandwich apply I guess. But yes, get outside the pepperoni and margherita box (though make no mistake, those are both excellent pizzas). Step right out. Look in your fridge. What’s that bag of stuff taunting you, threatening to go bad on you at any given moment & riddle you with guilt? Yeah, put that guy on a pizza. And laugh. Oh how you will laugh. And eat. And laugh. And you will pizza & do the twist, and life will be spring and so grand.
Oh, and put and egg on it y’all.
Ingredients
For Crust:
- 1/2 cup buttermilk room temp
- 3/4 cup water almost hot to the touch (about 125° F)
- 2 tablespoons dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 3 cups all purpose flour sifted, if you’re into that
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- olive oil for oiling the bowl
- cornmeal or flour for dusting
For Toppings:
- 1 bunch rapini broccoli rabe
- 1 cup mixed baby potatoes purple, red, yukon gold or 3 medium sized, sliced paper thin
- 3 tablespoons fresh rosemary minced
- 2 minced garlic cloves
- olive oil
- kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flackes
- 2 cups grated gruyere
- 1 cup grated parmesan
- 4 eggs optional
Instructions
Make Crust:
- Proof the yeast: In a small bowl mix together the buttermilk, olive oil, honey, and water. Sprinkle in the yeast. Stir once, and let sit in a warm place until it’s nice and foamy, about 10 to 20 minutes. If you don’t have foam you do have a problem. Toss it and start over. Either it was too hot, too cold, or the yeast was old. The mix should be about 100-110° when the yeast goes in.
- Mix the flour and salt well. Stir in the foamy yeast mix with a wooden spoon quickly, dispersing clumps as much as possible at this point. You will have a wet dough.
- Knead the dough. Dust a work surface with flour, I do so pretty liberally. Add about 1/4 cup flour to the dough in the bowl so that you can scrape it onto your work surface. Add more flour as needed, but don’t get trigger happy. The dough will stick at first but just add little bits of flour and keep kneading. Start with about 1/4 cups but add less and less flour as you continue to knead. Add it slowly, don’t be over zealous. You want to end up with a dough that is “just past sticky” and is “threatening to stick to the work surface”. Knead for about ten minutes until you have a smooth, silky dough (not a dry, tough dough).
- 1st rise. Lightly oil the bottom of a large bowl with the olive oil. Form dough into a ball. Place the dough in the bowl, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place the bowl in a spot that’s room temperature, neither warm nor cool. In 2 hours or so, the dough should double in size.
- Shape the pizzas. Cut dough into 4 quarters. Place 1 quarter on a floured surface, pulling it gently into a round as you place it on the surface. Either stretch or pull the dough into approximate 6″ rounds, slightly thicker on the rim. I like to use my fists beneath the dough but if it threatens to tear, I lay it out and gingerly pat/pull. But don’t fret, you can patch up holes with a pinch of dough.
- Once formed, make sure each pizza isn’t sticking and add flour beneath them if they seem to be. Cover them with a towel and let them rest again for a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 60 minutes.
Make toppings:
- During the first resting of the crust, prepare the toppings. Heat oven to 375°.
- Toss sliced potatoes with 1 Tbsp olive oil and sprinkle to taste with kosher salt and with the rosemary. Roast until soft and crispy on the edges, about 10-15 minutes. More like 20 if you’re using bigger potatoes. Increase heat to 550° and place pizza stone in the oven if using.
- Blanch the rapini about 30 seconds and then shock in an ice bath. Drain and cut into bite sized pieces.
- Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a skillet. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, sautéing until fragrant, about a minute. Add the rapini & a healthy pinch of salt (about 1/2 tsp, but season to taste). Saute a minute or so. Remove from heat. Set aside along with the finished potatoes. Mix the two cheeses to combine.
Assemble:
- The oven should now be heated to 550°. ** there is a note in the intro to the recipe about an alternate baking temp
- If using a stone, top pizzas on the peel dusted with cornmeal or flour before putting in the oven. If using a baking sheet, top the pizzas on the baking sheet (also dusted with cornmeal or flour).
- Switch oven to broil, making sure there is a rack in the middle.
- Brush crusts with olive oil. Sprinkle half a cup of cheese on each of the four pizzas as you assemble them. Broil them with just cheese for about 3 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the crust is puffing. Remove from oven and add additional toppings, the rapini & potatoes and an extra quarter cup of cheese along with an egg cracked in the middle if you so choose. Broil until brown (I like dark spots on my crust) and bubbly and the egg white is cooked through about 5-7 more minutes. If it starts to get too dark just turn the oven off of broil and back to bake & move the pizza to the lower rack until done.
- Remove with a peel if they’re on a stone, slice, and serve!
My name is Beth, Elizabeth Evelyn to be exact. A native Tennessean, I was born in the South.
I am the author behind Local Milk Blog.