Dateline: November 16, 2020 Cauliflower Crust Pizza, Two Ways

I impulse purchased a box of cauliflower pizza crusts.  I also had some canned clams that were almost past their best by date.  Voila, clam pizza.  Ok, that takes care of one of the crusts, there are 2 in the box, and you can't just save one crust.....The second pizza was a pesto based, onion, mozzarella, and romano cheese pizza.  

To keep the crust from getting soggy, I drained the juice from the clam cans and saved it in the freezer.  I dumped the clams into a bowl, added a T of olive oil, sliced red onions, mashed garlic and some calabrian peppers.  I spread a thin layer of olive oil on the crust and topped with the mixture above, spreading it into all corners of the crust.  A little bit of sliced onion left and some pesto were sprinkled on top.  Into the oven it went.

The box said to bake at 425° for 7-9 minutes.  I did 7 minutes.  The outside edge of the crust was cracker crunchy, but the bottom of the crust in the middle was not as satisfyingly crispy.  While the cracker quality of the crust was a nice switch up from regular pizza crust, it was not a replacement.  The cauliflower crust passed the skeptics test.  Would I buy it again, probably not, but it wasn't horrible.  In a pinch I would use it.

The second pizza was pesto on top of the crust followed by sliced red onions, little mozzarella balls, called perlini, and some romano cheese.  A few remnant onion slices were put on top along with additional dribbles of pesto.

The second pizza came out better.  It was crustier, however, the taste of pizza #1 was better.  I think that was because of the calabrian peppers which added a nice zip to the clams.

The pizza on the left is the clam pie and the one on the right is the pesto mozzarella pie.  You can see that the pesto pie is darker in the crust than the clam pie.

Dateline: May 15, 2020 Tidal Pool and Farm Field

I just took some pizza dough out of the freezer, homemade, sourdough, no less.  After thinking about what to do with it, I took out a second piece and it is defrosting as I type.

I had a hankering for pizza, but I have no sauce, no mozzarella, no ricotta, so traditional options are off the table.  Of course, I could send the husband-unit out to the store for such things, but prefer not to do that.  So what can I do with pizza in a different direction?  Clam pizza!  And in foraging in the freezer, I found some left over lahmacun.  Problem solved! (Please pardon the self-linkage.)

My concept for the clam pizza is to stretch out the dough when it is thawed, slather it with garlic oil, layer with the chopped clams, cover that with fine threads of pecorino cheese and oregano.  Perhaps a few of the killer cherry tomatoes that I have sitting on the counter?  Cut side up, so as to not water down the clamminess of the pie.  Maybe a little bit more garlic oil mixed with some of the clam juices.  I want to grill it.  I have a pizza ring for my Akorn King Griller and am thinking today maybe the day to take that bad, bad girl out for a test run.

The pizza ring is a stainless steel ring with handles and a slot in the front which is positioned on the grill and theoretically turns it into a pizza oven.  That's the theory, now to test that hypothesis!

With that much air flow going into the grill, it should get screaming hot, just like a pizza oven and the pizza should cook in about 5-ish minutes or so.  Copious testing notes will be made!  No, probably not, I will rely on the blog to help me remember what the hell I did with it!  For the lamhacun, I will attempt it on the aforementioned pizza oven experiment.

As an aside, last night I made a small mod to my pellet grill.  I added some lavalock insulating tape to the edges where the lid meets the grill.  My thought was that the smoker needs this so that the smoke stays in the smoker and exits out only through the smoke chimney. We will see, it needs 24 hours to fully cure.  I have enough tape to redo the rim of the Akorn if the spirit moves me.  Right now, that grill is doing ok.

I know you are dying to know how cheap am I really?  Well, the lump charcoal that got wet over the winter is slowly drying out and when I grilled another chicken last night, I know, too much chicken, but with the Cov-id meat issues, it was all I could get hold of, anyway, it was not as stinky, in fact, not stinky at all.  What came through was the citrus in the Peruvian marinade that FreshDirect puts on their prepped chicken.  It was really tasty.  A possible explanation for last night's positive outcome was that I let the grill get up to 400° F before adjusting the vents down.  It maintained a lovely 400°-425° F for the entire cook, without much wavering!  That chicken was cooked perfectly in about 40-45 minutes.

What to serve with these experiments?  A salad is always nice, maybe some shishito peppers blistered on the said same grill?  Maybe for dessert some grilled pineapple, or grilled watermelon!  All of the fruit will need to be inspected as to its ripeness and suitability for grilling.  The possibilities abound!

Here we go with tonight's dinner:

Pancetta

First off, I cleaned and sauteed the mushroom and pancetta.

'Shrooms

Then I went out to the grill and started a roaring fire.  I put in the pizza ring, and realized that it was not going to get screaming hot anytime this century, so I took it out and opened the vents and closed the lid.  While I waited for the grill to heat up, I rolled out the dough on a grill mat.  My thinking was that it would be easier to manipulate and to get in and out if it was on something and not just dough stuck to grates.

dough flecked with garlic oil

This, above, is sourdough pizza dough that has been dappled with garlic oil and bits of fine garlic. 

On the right, is a bit of crisped up pancetta that I will sprinkle about on top of the pizzas

mushrooms, sauteed

crisped up pancetta

I considered putting raw mushrooms on the pizza, but opted to sautee them in a bit of garlic and olive oil.

 To the left, is the pre-fired clam pie.  Under the shroud of pecorino cheese are 2 drained cans of chopped clams and fresh oregano leaves.  The cloud of cheese is then topped with some pancetta, hot pepper flakes, thinly sliced fresh garlic, and black pepper.

The second pie, was an amalgamation of left over lahmacun, sauteed mushrooms, pancetta, and garlic oil.

The clam pie went into the oven first.  When I got outside the grill had climbed to 800°F, so the pizza would cook very, very fast.  I opened up the grill put the ring into place and closed the lid.  I now had to wrestle the grill mat into the opening with tongs and watch it carefully.  As the clam pizza was bubbling away, I checked the bottom and it was really getting scorched.  I slid it off the mat onto the grill grates and kept peeking.  It was obvious that the bottom was going to become cinderized if I didn't get it off immediately. 

Onto a sheet pan and into the house.  I got the torch from the closet and got the spinach leaves ready and I torched the top side to cook the crust and brown the top some.  I was afraid that the dough would be quite raw in the center, but it was not.

Next went the lahmacun and mushroom pie into the oven with a more modest layer of pecorino on top.  This one too, quickly got charred on the bottom, and removed quickly and torched.

Out of the balance of the spinach that I washed, a chopped cucumber, 3 scallions, and a handful of cherry tomatoes rounded out the salad going with the meal.  I dressed the salad with lemon juice and left over garlic oil.

Lahmacun + Mushroom Pie

I think next time, I will put the pies onto the grill from the top, rather than thru the small opening at grate level.

Secondly, I will put a pizza stone on the grill and cook on that rather than on the grates or on a mat on the grates.

Thirdly, the flavors of both pies were outstanding.  The cinnamon in the lahmacun gave the pizza an interesting taste profile.  Not Italian, shifting further south into a blending with the Mideast perhaps.  I had never had a pizza like that before.  The clam pie was not clammy enough for me.  I think that was because I did not put any of the clam juice on the pie for fear that it would get soggy.  Visually, the spinach added something, but flavor wise it brought nothing to the party.

I would urge people to give the Lahmacun pie a try.  The mushrooms takes it away from its Turkish roots, into a more Mediterranean tasting experience.  Loved both pies and will continue to try to perfect grilling a pizza as the season progresses.