Several weeks ago, right after Thanksgiving, I had developed the perfect pizza crust using a combination of all-purpose flour and bread flour when making my BBQ turkey pizza. Over the weekend, I had another craving for pizza so I decided to make pizza again, but this time, I wanted to incorporate my favorite pasta flavors into the pizza. One of the most basic pasta flavor combinations I absolutely love is lemon Cacio e Pepe. You can find my lemon Cacio e Pepe recipe here. The flavors of the pasta are so simple – just lemon zest, freshly cracked black pepper, and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, but the end result is an explosion of flavors. I had thought to myself if these flavors worked so well in pasta, it should work equally well in pizza. I decided to test this by making a version of lemon Cacio e Pepe pizza with fresh cherry tomatoes. Turns out, I was right. The flavors of the pizza tasted absolutely amazing. The lemon zest added a freshness and brightness to the pizza, while the cheese and black pepper worked to add a savory and light kick to the pizza. When baked in the oven at 500°F over a sheet pan, the pizza turned out very well. All of the components I absolutely love in a perfect slice of pizza was present in this pizza. The crust was chewy and puffed up just like authentic New York style pizza. After having success with this pizza dough and flavor combination, I am less tempted to buy pizza at the store. Of course, I will still always buy pizza when I visit New York City or Chicago because certain habits will never change, but this new pizza discovery will help hold me over whenever I get a pizza craving. The best part about making homemade pizza is all of the money I will be able to save throughout the year. If I tallied up my spending for an entire year, I am pretty sure most of my money went to purchasing pizza and groceries. Having a go-to pizza dough recipe will at the very least hold me over until I am able to visit my family in Brooklyn. Pizza is always the first food I request (other than my mom’s homemade chicken soup) whenever my travels take me to New York City.
Tomato, Lemon, and Black Pepper Pizza:
· 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
· ¼ of a small can of whole tomatoes
· 2 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, grated
· Zest of one lemon
· ¼ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
· ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
· 3 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, torn
· 6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved
· 1 sprig fresh basil, torn
Directions:
1) Prepare the pizza dough the evening before. In a large bowl, combine the flours, yeast, salt, and sugar in a bowl. Stir to combine all ingredients. Add the water to the mixture. Add the teaspoon of olive oil. Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Drizzle olive oil in the large bowl. Return the dough back to the large bowl. Place a sheet of plastic wrap over the large bowl. Let the dough rise undisturbed overnight.
2) In the morning, preheat oven to 500°F. Pour ½ tablespoon of olive oil on a baking sheet. Divide the dough in half. Reshape both halves into a ball. Place one of the balls of dough on the baking sheet. Save the other ball of dough to use later. Using both hands, stretch the dough on the baking sheet. Pour the other ½ tablespoon of olive oil over the dough. Keep stretching the dough with both hands until you form a circle. Leave the edges of the circle slightly raised for the pizza crust.
3) Hand crush about ¼ of a small can of whole tomatoes. Distribute the hand crushed tomatoes evenly over the pizza dough. Evenly distribute the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese over the pizza. Add the lemon zest, black pepper, and kosher salt. Top the pizza with the fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and torn basil.
4) Place the pizza in the oven for 11-13 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven once the crust is golden brown.
Takeaways: if you don’t want to open up a small can of whole tomatoes just to use ¼ of it for pizza, you can turn the pizza into a flatbread by omitting the whole tomatoes. When stretching out the pizza dough, try to stretch the dough as thin as possible without breaking the dough. I found the thinner I stretched the pizza, the better the outcome of the pizza once baked.