What shall I put on my pizza?
"There are as many options for finishing a homemade pizza as there are cooks." Nigel Slater
The other day I was telling you about what an adventurous child I was, and how I lost it from teenage on. Well here is another example of my unadventurousness.
I was looking through my list of potential subjects for this blog and found a reference to pizza toppings from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries III. So I Iooked it up. It seemed relevant after all as we are having pizza for dinner tonight. He starts his article with this:
"I have my ball of dough, soft and floury to the touch, kneaded with love and energy and ready to roll into the thinnest pieces I can manage. All I need now is something interesting, suitably springlike to sit on top."
So already. I am proving that I am not adventurous as a cook, or indeed, imaginative. Indeed how can I call myself a cook at all? Because I am using a bought pizza base. Yes of course I have made pizza with my own dough but I have never been very successful with it. And I do not follow Robert Carrier's advice, "if at first you don't succeed, then try, try, try again.". Well he didn't actually say it in the words of the old proverb but that is what he meant. I do tend to give up. Which is silly is it not? Fear of failure is the overwhelming thing. If it doesn't work I don't try again. Real cooks and chefs, not only make the same dish over and over again in their restaurants and cafés but they work on their recipes until they get it right. Magazines and cookery books put their recipes through their test kitchens until it's perfect. Indeed in fact they never get it right but keep on experimenting and tweaking. Sometimes it's the tiniest thing that can make a difference.
I'm also planning on using bottled passata for the base of the topping, though I do sometimes make my own tomato sauce - and it is better for it. Maybe my conscience will get the better of me when it comes to it this evening. Yes really I should do that. It really isn't hard and tinned tomatoes (for I don't have enough fresh tomatoes) actually make a better sauce I think.
So I'm really a bit of a fraud. I love to read about all sorts of exciting and different food. I love the pictures and the ideas and the words as well sometimes, though not all cookbooks are good on words. Donna Hay for example never has any - just glorious pictures and the recipes. I suppose this makes me a voyeur. I will make excuses - no time, too hot, too cold, too expensive, can't find the ingredients, a conservative husband, but really they are excuses. I used to make something new and different every night! What happened?
But back to the pizza topping thing. Nigel Slater goes on to list a mindblowingly delicious list of possibilities, some of which don't appeal - morcilla (Spanish black pudding) and manchego for example but most of the rest are, in true Nigel Slater style, mouth watering and achievable:
"fried garlic mushrooms with melting mozzarella, ... crème fraiche and basil with grilled aubergine and thyme. Or what about a layer of pesto with grilled courgettes and Parmesan... onions, sliced and softened by slow cooking in olive oil, fillets of anchovy and rashers of smoked bacon ..."
I could fancy all of those - and, in fact have done similar things sometimes - the onions in particular.
And then he does a complete change and goes for egg. The featured recipe is for Hemp seed pizzas with egg and rocket. In fact a modified version of the article - and the recipe is reproduced on the Guardian website.
"The idea is that the egg is added at the last moment, then cooked for barely a minute or two so that, when cut, the yolk oozes into the molten mozzarella." Nigel Slater
I then started looking for other pizza and egg ideas and, of course, came across dozens. The ultimate was this one - a GIuten free version - Cauliflower crust pizza with kale and roasted garlic sauce. Now how more urban hipster can you get?
I reckon pizza toppings (and pizza bases too - filo anyone?), now fall into three categories:
1. The classical - real Italian pizzas with the sort of conventional toppings that I might use - tomatoes, mushrooms, anchovies, salami, ham and seafood. And there are heaps and heaps of options here. Every region of Italy has its own local version.
2. The bastardised western ones - those that include pineapple, egg and bacon - all those breakfast pizzas that I found ... That truly awful Domino's one with the meat pies. Tandoori chicken! But maybe I shouldn't scoff at that one - maybe it's a double taste sensation
3. The truly imaginative gourmet pizzas - and I guess I would put Nigel Slater's hemp seed one in here. It almost belongs in the second category but it's very simple and the hemp seed (another day) is a distinctive feature - as is the simplicity of the topping and the artfully scattered rocket. Incidentally I find this more and more. It's so easy to do, but to me doesn't really add anything and is sort of out of place - and I love rocket. Better to have it in the accompanying salad - but there I am being unadventurous again.
In this category there are those that veer to the Middle East - using Middle Eastern spices such as sumac and zataar and minced lamb and beef. Pumpkin features often as do things like broccolini and kale, artichokes and goats' cheese.
So really it's an imagination thing. A bready base - well it could be pastry too - think pissaladière - and just about everything on top.
I suspect mine will be plain old tomato sauce, salami, anchovies (for me) and mozzarella. I could dress it up as 'classic' but I suspect it's more just boring. Tasty though.
And I do miss the regular inspiration of Nigel Slater's kitchen diaries. I shall have to buy his other two volumes and do the same thing - an article to read on the matching date season wise. Always something interesting and lots of new things to try. I determined to try several of the ones from my Kitchen Diaries III but have yet to do so. Unadventurous - or is it just plain lazy - again!
