Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Pissaladière Pizza Recipe

You may not know what Pissaladière is and to be honest I didn't before reading Vegetarian Times either. Pissaladière is a type of pizza made in southern France, around the Nice, Marseilles, Toulon and the Var Districts. I am always up for something new so when I came across this recipe I thought it would be something fun and different to try. It was different from anything I have made before but I love a good challenge every now and then. Making dough from scratch was not as easy as I thought it would be but a lot more fun than expected! If you have some free time this weekend and feel like going outside of your comfort zone go ahead and try this out and you will not be disappointed!

Ingredients:

Serves 6
3 Tbs. olive oil
4 lb. sweet onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
5 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 recipe Quick Whole Grain Dough (see below)
1/2 cup roasted red pepper strips
20 black olives such as kalamata, pitted and halved

Directions:
  • Heat oil over medium-low heat in large skillet. Add onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, 35 to 45 minutes, or until onions are very soft. Meanwhile, prepare dough.
  • Uncover pan, increase heat to medium and cook, stirring, 10 minutes, until liquid has evaporated and onions are brown. Discard thyme and bay leaves.
  • Place an inverted baking sheet on oven rack set in lowest position. Preheat oven to 450F.
  • Divide dough into 2 balls. Place 1 ball in center of 15-inch piece of parchment paper. Flatten into a 10-inch circle.
  • Spread half of onions over dough, leaving 3?4-inch border. Arrange half of red pepper strips in crisscross pattern. Dot with half of olives. Repeat with remaining dough and toppings. Slide parchment papers with tarts onto baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes, until crust is golden.

Nutritional Information
Per Serving: Calories 370, Protein 8g, Total fat 13g, Carbs 57g, Sodium 620mg, Fiber 5g, Sugars 16g

Quick Whole Grain Dough
Makes 2 10-inch tarts Vegan

This dough takes under 2 minutes to mix and knead. If the dough is ready before you are, you can punch it down and let it rise again, or even make it ahead and refrigerate it, covered, overnight. Bring it to room temperature before shaping.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. instant yeast
3/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. olive oil, preferably extra virgin
3/4 cup warm water (105—110F)

Directions:

  • Combine both flours, yeast and salt in food processor; pulse to combine. With motor running, add olive oil and warm water through feed tube, and process about 15 seconds, or until dough forms a ball.
  • Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface, and knead just until smooth and manageable, about 1 minute. Place dough in greased bowl, and turn to coat. Cover with damp kitchen towel, and let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (Dough is ready when fingerprint on surface fills in slowly.)

What's your favorite kind of pizza?

3 comments:

muddy fingers said...

the REAL recipe uses anchovies, not roasted red peppers. But it sounds like a nice variation anyway. Still, the taste will be quite different. The anchovies are a sine qua non ingredient in pissaladiere, as much so as the onions and the black olives. I suspect this is an ancient recipe, before the pizza variation was invented when tomatoes and capsicums etc were brought from the New World to Europe. Hence, on the margarita pizza, you usually still find the black olives and the anchovies. It's obvious that the word pizza is related to pitta and pides, and that kind of flat bread is found around the Mediterranean. It is not an Italian invention.

Anonymous said...

This recipe is great, I tried it on my middle schooler's French class dinner. It went over very well - easy to transport and can be served at room temperature.

I think the first poster missed the fact that this is a vegetarian blog, that's why there are no anchovies here.

Anonymous said...

Fun and yum! I could eat that every week.