Friday, April 1, 2011

Stuffed Crust Pizza with Guhan


This recipe is inspired by one on the cooking blog How Sweet It Is ( http://www.howsweeteats.com/). 

 I invited my good friend Guhan over to help me cook and eat a homemade stuffed crust pizza.  

What we used:
- Pizza Dough (you can buy it fresh at traders joe's. They offer whole weat and regular. I chose regular cause sometimes it's worth it to splurge)
- Tomatoes
- Cheese (mozzarella, asiago parmeseano, and honey goat cheese)
- Fresh basil
- Salt, pepper
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Garlic
What we did:

 While I rolled out the pizza dough (using lots of flour and as thin as it would roll out without breaking), Guhan was in charge of cutting up the  tomatoes.  We decided not to use a traditional sauce and instead dice the tomatoes to make our own fresh pizza base.  He also cut up some nice fresh basil.


Which we mixed with the honey goat cheese.  The honey goat cheese is what we decided to stuff our crust with.


My pizza pan is being borrowed by a friend so I used the bottom of a square pan instead.  This resulted in a wonky shaped pizza, but it gave it character!  We made sure to have extra dough hang off the side which would be used to create the stuffed crust.  We folded the extra dough over and made a pocket which guhan filled with the goat cheese and basil.




We mixed the tomatoes with fresh basil, salt, pepper, and extra virgin olive oil.  In the future, we decided we would also mix the garlic with the base.


Next we spread the tomato base on top of the dough.  Do not overload the pizza with the tomatoes or things might get soggy.


Next we placed the cheese on top.  We used both mozzarella and asiago.


Again, do not put TOO much cheese on top, remember that it will melt and spread.


In a stroke of genius guhan said we should mash some garlic with extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on top.  In the future I would have even enfused it (by simmering the garlic and probably some basil or rosemary with the olive oil over the stove) .. but this worked nice too.  We mshed the garlic, added some salt and pepper, and then thinned it out with a little water (wisk the water in).


We then drizzled it around the crush and on the pizza.


And then placed it in the oven (which was preheated to 375).










In about 30-35 minutes it was ready!


Perfect with a glass of red wine and a good friend!

Now that's a happy camper! 

No comments:

Post a Comment