Here are four pizzas I made recently. I remembered to move the pizza stone to the oven floor so I got a nice char on the crust. In all of them but the first, the cheese blend is asiago, fontina, and mozzarella. For my tomato sauce, I take a can of tomatoes and pulse them a bit in the food processor, then mix in red pepper flakes, dried oregano, salt, black pepper, some kind of acid (lemon juice or red wine vinegar) and sometimes sugar if the tomatoes need the help.

Pizza Margherita

Not much to say about this classic combination: basil, sauce, mozzarella.

Hot Italian sausage and fennel. This is an idea I got after eating it at La Rinata. It’s a great pairing since the sausage already has fennel seeds in it.

The Wedge has really great fire roasted tomatoes that are in the refrigerated case across from the butcher. They are quite sweet and intensely flavored as you would expect fire-roasted tomatoes to be. I also got marinated artichoke hearts in a jar from the Wedge but they were nothing special. It’s the tomatoes that made this pizza a nice treat in February.

This last pizza had shiitake mushrooms, ham and taleggio cheese, in addition to the usual sauce and cheese blend. I sauteed the shiitakes before starting the pizzas to get rid of their extra moisture and brown them. The ham was Black Forest ham that we had in the fridge and needed using up. The nicest surprise for me in this pizza was the taleggio cheese. I saw a recipe for a pizza that was just crust stuffed with taleggio a few years ago (on Emeril Live I am afraid to say) and was intrigued, but could never find taleggio. When I saw it in the dairy case at the Wedge I knew I needed to buy it, even if I didn’t have an idea for how to use it. When I got home I inspected further: the cheese has a very funky cheese smell but its flavor is actually pretty mild, creamy like brie but more surprising in its flavor. I thought it would go pretty well with the rich ham and mushrooms and I was right. If they still have taleggio next time I am at the Wedge and thinking of pizza, I will have to try a cheese and dough pie.

3 comments | Artichoke Hearts, Asiago, Basil, Crust, Fennel, Fire Roasted Tomatoes, Fontina, Ham, Italian, Margherita, Mozzarella, Pizza, Sausage, Shiitake, Taleggio, Tomato Sauce, Toppings

This entry was posted by Tom on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Pizza. You can subscribe to responses to this entry via RSS.