A Tale of Two Pizzas: Brussels Sprout/Pancetta vs. Prosciutto/Egg/Arugula
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 12:37PM First I found this recipe from Tastespotting in my email in-box. Then this recipe from Martha Stewart. Mark was a man with homemade pizza on his mind, and I was more than inclined to accommodate his cravings. I'd always opted to buy store-bought dough in the past, but with the inheritance of my mom's old KitchenAid stand mixer, I was eager to try making dough at home. We experimented with two different recipes, and though both were very good, one was the clear winner and will definitely turn up in our kitchen in the future.
- 5 cups bread flour
- 1 tbsp honey
- 3 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp pizza/instant yeast
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 3/4 cups plus 1 tbsp room temperature water
The day before we were going to make the pizzas, I mixed together all the ingredients in the mixing bowl of my Kitchenaid Stand mixer, until sorta well combined. I attached the dough hook to the mixer, then mixed the dough on low for 3-4 minutes, until it had all kind of clumped together. I don't want to seem like product placement, but...man. I love my new mixer. It makes everything so easy! BUT if you don't have one, you can use arm power.
I let it rest about 5 minutes, mixed for another 2 minutes on low speed, then divided the dough into 4 pieces and rolled each piece into a ball. I brushed each dough ball with olive oil, put them all in their own plastic bags, and let them sit for about 15 minutes before sticking them in the refrigerator overnight.
Before I got home from work the next day, Mark took two of the dough balls out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature for about 2 hours before we wanted to eat. The other two balls of dough went into the freezer for another day of pizza experimentation.
- 1 medium-sized ball of fresh mozzarella
- 8 large Brussels sprouts
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 oz pancetta
- 1 handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese
- Salt
- Olive oil
- 1 ball of dough
For our first try, I copied a pizza I had heard about a while ago and always wanted to try, the famed Brussels sprout pizza from New York's Motorino. I preheated the oven to about 475 degrees. Once the dough was ready to go, I rolled it out pretty thinly into a vaguely rectangular shape on a cookie sheet, brushed it with olive oil, and stuck it in the oven for about 7-8 minutes. For some reason, it bubbled up, necessitating that we lance the dough "boil" with a knife and press it down. It didn't really affect the finished product that much, but if anybody knows what we did wrong, advice would be much appreciated.
While the crust was cooking, I trimmed each sprout and peeled off all the good leaves (tossing the core, tough outer leaves and wilted leaves), diced the pancetta, and sliced the garlic as thinly as I could. I also squeezed all the excess moisture out of the mozzarella, then tore it into chunks. As we'd learned in pizza experiments in the past, it's important to get rid of all the extra water in the cheese, otherwise you get soggy pizza.
After it came out of the oven and cooled slightly, I topped the crust with the mozzarella, Brussels sprout leaves, garlic, pancetta, parmesan, and a sprinkle of salt.
I baked the pizza in the oven at about 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then stuck it under the broiler for about 30 seconds to char the tops of the sprouts. The pizza was really, really tasty - I loved that the sprouts maintained a little bit of their bitterness and bite, which was nice paired with the saltiness and fattiness of the pancetta. And the crust turned out so much better than I hoped, with a great crunch and just a hint of sweetness.
- Tomato sauce (we used store-bought this time around)
- 1 handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
- 4 oz thinly sliced prosciutto
- 1 handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 3 eggs
- 2-3 handfuls of arugula
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 ball of dough
This time around, Mark insisted on rolling the dough out into an oval-ish shape and making it a little thicker, since this pizza had to support eggs in addition to the other toppings. Again, we brushed it with olive oil and stuck it in the 475 degree oven, this time for 5 minutes.
Once the crust was cooked, Mark topped it with a thin layer of tomato sauce, then wove a lattice-pattern with the prosciutto. He sprinkled the pizza off with the mozzarella and parmesan, then carefully cracked 3 eggs on top and stuck it in the oven for about 11-12 minutes. In the meanwhile, I tossed the arugula with some olive oil, salt and pepper.
When the egg whites had just set, we put the pizza under the broiler for about 30 seconds...which was about 10 seconds too long, as the crust maybe kinda caught on fire a little bit. No matter, most of the pizza escaped unscathed. We finished our creation off with the arugula.
I'm not sure if it was the slightly burnt crust, or the use of processed cheese, or the inclusion of tomato sauce, but while this pizza was also very good, it wasn't quite up to the standards of our first pie. No matter. In any event, while I don't know that I'm ready to swear off professional pizzerias for good, the whole experience made me excited to try out new dough recipes and different combinations of toppings.
Pizza in Recipes: At Home
Reader Comments (5)
Perhaps fruit on pizza? ;)
Sounds awesome, glad you have been cooking a lot on that coast!
WOW!! brussels sprouts on a PIZZA??!! brilliant!!!
Caitie-
I haven't been cooking enough, actually, but we're getting there. I'll cook you something nice when you get here, your room is ready!
Evan-
They were so good. You know, you should try the original at Motorino and get back to me.
I came across your recipe while looking for brussels sprout pizza - this looks delicious!
Maybe next time, try poking a few holes in the dough with a fork - I think that should help avoid some of the air pockets that cause those bubbles.
Liz-
Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely remember that next time. And yes, this pizza was WONDERFUL.