Baby Back Pizza

Meant to post about this last week but forgot, so here goes. 

The traditional Thanksgiving Back Ribs were a little meatier than usual so I was left with the highly unusual combination of leftover baby backs and leftover pizza dough, from Saturday night's pizza, on Thanksgiving Monday as I was casting around for lunch options. The result was Baby Back Pizza, and it was deeeeeeeelicious.

I just sliced the meat off the ribs and added them to pizza crust along with some green onions, cheese and a blend of 3 parts tomato sauce to 1 part BBQ sauce and baked.

The result was a smoky/sweet delight, served with a little greens and a cold Pale Ale it was a perfect lunch, although daughter passed on the Pale Ale. Behold, the Pizza Rustica.

Should the stars ever align like this again I would add a tad more BBQ sauce and possibly some spinach, maybe even used some smoked provolone in the cheese mix. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out.

Pizza on the Grill, First Attempt

So what I really want is a wood burning oven in my back yard, or better yet on my back deck, so that I can make even better pizza than I already do, which is pretty good if I do say so. In addition, of course, I could make wicked bread and roast stuff and cook salmon in about a minute and a half and ............ but I digress.

Barring a lottery win, and since I rarely buy tickets my chances aren't good, I'm not going to get the wood burning oven of my dreams anytime soon so I decided to experiment with pizza on the grill. There's tons of info out there about grilling pizza and lots of zealots who claim it's the only way to make pizza, assuming of course you don't have one of those post lottery win wood burning ovens lying around. The problem is that as with many things regarding food, and the internet, much of the information is contradictory, direct heat, no, indirect heat, straight on the grill, no, on a veggie tray or a pizza stone, lid up, lid down ..........it's enough to make you give up on the whole idea, but I forged ahead because I really would like to make pizza in the summer without over heating the kitchen, assuming it ever gets hot enough for that to be an issue of course .

So last night I made my initial attempt at grilling pizza and while it wasn't a resounding success both daughter and I agreed that it showed enough potential to try again, wife is in Los Angeles at a conference so she made no comment. I made what I think were two mistakes: first I used thawed home made dough which seemed to lack in yeast as it rose very little over the course of the day and resulted in a slightly tough crust but my second mistake was not letting my fire get hot enough before putting the dough on the grill. This is a problem I have often with the grill, I lack patience and start too early which is why wife generally handles the grill, regardless the pie turned out alright with a nicely charred crust and I was able to get the topping hot and the cheese melted, apparently these are problems that frequently occur in grilling pizza.

I had the foresight to have a backup pizza ready that was baked in the non wood burning oven and it was definitely slightly better cooked than the grilled pizza, but the grilled pizza had nice smoky flavour and that great charred crust so I'm going to persevere. Next time I'll use freshly made dough and let the fire get hotter and see where that leads me, I'll probably still do a backup oven pizza though, I mean what's the worst case scenario: Too much pizza ? Not a problem in our house.

I was so focused on the pizza that I forgot to try out a new Pizza Red, settling instead for La Casona de Castano, a reliable consistent Monastrell from Spain which is in steady rotation as our House wine but which really lacks the acidity required for pizza. Anyway I'll keep you posted on Pizza on the Grill and when I finally master it I'll let you know what technique worked for me.

The return of Pizza Red

Well if nothing else the blast of Arctic air, and the accompanying snowfall, have given me pause to blog.

It's been awhile since I made pizza and tried a new pizza red but Monday night was such an occasion . It didn't start out that way as Mondays are usually a soccer practice night which means daughter eats large at 5:30ish and we eat light around 8pm but the snow forced closure of the practice facility so I rethought dinner and decided to make pizza. I even got ambitious enough to make the dough from scratch as opposed to frozen dough from Calabria Bakery . For those who have never tried, pizza dough may be the easiest dough to make, just flour, water, salt and yeast provide all you need, though I add cornmeal, olive oil and basil to mine. Anyway with pizza as the main dish the decision became: What pizza red to enjoy ?.

I had a bottle of Portuguese red on hand that I've enjoyed with the braise in the past and decided to put it to the Pizza test and I'm happy to report that the wine passed with flying colours. The wine in question is Porca de Murca, a blended red made from indigenous grapes in the Douro valley of Portugal, primarily Tinto Roriz. The Douro is most famous for producing the sweet fortified Port wines but produces lots of table wine as well, Real Velha produces about 100,000 cases of Porca de Murca red annually.

The wine has a very dark colour in the glass and the nose is a tad dusty with lots of sweet berry fruit, in the mouth there are notes of blueberry and sour cherry and a touch of black pepper and a nice level of acidity which helps greatly with the cheese/tomato/salami combo of the pizza .

Overall this wine is a solid addition to the Pizza Red collection, and is also a good partner to the winter braise, there is an inherent fruity component to the wine which would be difficult if the braise involved too much sweet overtones but if the braise is a robust one then this wine is a solid, and very inexpensive companion . The Porca de Murca is actually on sale this month, down a buck to $10.99, but that doesn't warrant any bulk buying in my mind . However the wine's flexibility, it would also go nice with tomato based pastas and roast chicken, make it worthwhile to have a couple of bottles put aside for wintery nights.

For those who don't speak Portuguese "Porca de Murca" literally means "pig, or sow, of Murca", there is a statue dating back to the Iron Age of a wild pig in the village square of Murca, thought to honour a Celtic like divinity. It looks a lot like a cartoon hippopotamus to me

Searching for Pizza Red, an Ongoing Saga

So it appears that fall has truly come to us quickly, clouds and rain, highs in the teens and chill over night. Without the clouds and rain it would be perfect, as I prefer my temperatures in the teens, but I do hope the sun will keep shining until at least November.

With the fall comes a change in menu at our house, the summer season is grill and saute', salads and steaks and all that stuff but with the cooling temperatures it's time for the oven and the slow cooker. It's also time for home made pizza, which is among daughter's favourite things and one of the more versatile dishes known to man.

I occasionally make the dough from scratch but more often than not I employ the frozen dough from Calabria Bakery, the bakery is located on Victoria just south of 33rd avenue and well worth the trip (try the sfogliatelle stuffed with nutella if you go) but most often I buy the dough at Stong's Market in Kerrisdale.

Take the dough out of the freezer the night before you want to have pizza and leave in the fridge overnight. On the morning of Pizza Day I take the dough ball out of the fridge and coat with a bit of olive oil then place it in a bowl, cover with a towel and put the bowl in our laundry closet while I do two or three loads of laundry. The heat and humidity created in the small laundry space helps the dough rise and by 3 o'clock or so it's ready to punch down and roll.

I use rectangular bake pans rather than the stone because I'm lazy and can cook two pies at once that way, dough is stretched to fit the pans and topped with simple tomato basil sauce . I generally cook down a combo of good quality canned diced tomatoes with some basil, oregano, shallot, salt, pepper and whole garlic over low heat. After 15 minutes or so I remove the garlic and discard then give a quick puree with a hand blender and add some Passata to get the texture I want. Sauce the crusts, sprinkle with chiffonade basil, add cheese and whatever else you want and bake at 500 degrees for 15-20 minutes, I like my crusts crispy, and serve with a salad of mixed greens and dinner is done. I generally make enough so that there is leftover pizza for daughter's lunch the next day and an after work meal for me .

Pizza requires wine as a partner, burgers and Asian food can get by with beer but pizza needs fruity red to bring out all its' glory . The wine must be dry, but must have fruit to counter the acid in the tomato sauce, but the wine also needs acidity on its' own to work with the cheese so really simple reds aren't likely to be enough.

We generally have pizza 2-3 times a month over the fall and winter season so this year I'm going to chronicle, as often as I remember, the wines I buy to go with the pizza and how they fare. It should be noted that our House Special Pizza is topped with meat (pepperoni for daughter/wife, prosciutto for me), cheese (generally a blend of mozzarella, fontina and romano), roasted cremini mushrooms and sauteed spinach (the veggies are cooked ahead of time to release the water in them that would otherwise make for soggy pizza).

This week's pizza red was a Rioja from Bodegas Antano the Rioja Crianza 2008, which retails at a very reasonable $12.99 at the BCLDB and has wide distribution. The BCL site waxes long and eloquent about the profile of this wine, I found it fruity with a nice balance, some spice, cocoa and dried cherry on the nose, as with most wines made primarily from Tempranillo there is a bit of a dusty character and a hints of tobacco leaf/leather and coffee in the palate. The wine finishes long and was a very good match to this week's pizza .