By Elizabeth of Manhattan Food Project
I have a love-hate relationship with our smoke alarm, or rather its hyper-sensitivity: while I love that it would alert us quickly in an emergency situation, I hate that it’s both next to our kitchen and installed on one of our high ceilings. You see, we inevitably set it off several times whenever we make pizza at home because of the oven’s necessary high temperature to bake the pizza and the little smoke that is produced from cornmeal that falls onto the oven floor. We’ve established a good system to quiet the thing quickly, but still, it’s annoying. And yet, the final results are always worth the effort and then some that a few weeks later we’ll be going through the same motions again and make more pizza.
The tools needed for pizza-making are these: a hot oven (set it to bake and crank the temperature to the highest setting), a place to put the pizza in the oven (we use an upturned sheet pan) and a place to stretch the pizza (we use a peel, but you could also just use the upturned sheet pan to stretch out the dough and then place it directly into the oven). Cornmeal is very useful to keep the dough from sticking to the peel or the pan (moreso than flour), plus it gives the crust that satisfying texture and a little extra crunch.
If you’re new to pizza-making, do what we did in the past and start off with pre-made dough—it’s cheap and it’s one less thing to have to worry about as you get the hang of things. Once you’re comfortable enough with the process, that’s when you should try your hand at making dough. I use Jim Lahey’s because it’s simple and really easy to bring together if you have a stand mixer. That recipe yields enough for two small-to-medium pies, so our pizza nights always mean two different kinds to try.
Our most recent pizza night came about because I wanted to use the rest of my queso mahón (a mild cow’s milk cheese from Spain) and tomatoes and zucchini were at their peak. A glimpse at a gorgeous coca in one of my Spanish cookbooks provided inspiration for the first pie: a thin layer of the mahón that is then piled with zucchini, tomatoes, capers and freshly grated garlic. My Spanish friends would tell me that the addition of cheesetechnically means it’s not a coca anymore, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way because it paired perfectly with the vegetables. The second was a little more traditional: fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, prosciutto Americano and a chiffonade of basil to garnish it.
The last of the really good tomatoes are probably still out in the markets this weekend, so go and try these!
Tomato, Zucchini and Mahón Cheese Coca/Pizza Margherita with Prosciutto Americano:
makes one of each
- 1 recipe pizza dough, divided or 2 packages pizza dough (just to make sure you don’t run out)
- 4 plum tomatoes: 2 sliced into thin rounds, the other two diced
- 1 zucchini, sliced into thin rounds
- 4 oz Queso Mahón, grated
- Capers (optional)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 6 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced
- 4 oz prosciutto, diced
- 10 basil leaves, chiffonade
- Olive oil
- Salt
For both the coca and the pizza we blond-baked them to let them accommodate the heavy, somewhat wet ingredients. To do this, preheat the oven to the highest temperature (on bake), making sure there’s an upturned sheet pan lightly dusted with cornmeal inside. Dust a pizza peel/upturned sheet pan with cornmeal and stretch out each to desired size, and one at a time gently ease them into the oven from the pizza peel (or place pan directly into oven). Bake for about 6-8 minutes until the dough is firm but not brown. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and start assembling the pizzas:
For the coca: sprinkle the cheese onto the pie, then arrange the zucchini and then the tomatoes on top. Grate two cloves of garlic over the pizza. Season with salt and a little olive oil, and then place back into the oven and cook until the tomatoes are soft and the zucchini have browned slightly, about 5-7 minutes. About a minute before finishing, add the capers, and when the pie is ready, remove from the oven, let cool, slice and serve.
For the pizza: layer the cheese on first and then sprinkle the tomatoes and prosciutto on top. Season with salt (not as much is needed here because the prosciutto is salty) and add to the oven to let cook until the cheese is melted and the tomatoes are soft, about 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven, add the basil, let cool and then slice and serve.
