Thursday, April 17, 2008

Potato-Rosemary Pizetta...

I'm pretty sure that Jeff could live on pizza if he could and before I really got into cooking, we probably had it delivered once a week. However, now that we have been making it at home, I can't even remember the last time we ordered out!

Our dinner tonight, Potato-Rosemary Pizetta, fuses a couple of Jeff's favorite foods together - pizza and potatoes! Kind of like a hybrid between a flat bread and a pizza, we modified our favorite homemade pizza dough to use in this sauce-less dish. While the original recipe did come with a recipe for the dough, we took elements from that and married it with ours. Instead of the all-purpose flour that we usually use, we swapped that out for a higher-protein bread flour and kicked up the dough by adding a tablespoon of fresh cracked black pepper and fresh rosemary. Because this is still prepared in the food processor, the dough comes together in a snap!

Once the dough had risen, it was rolled out to to the size of a half sheet pan - it will be quite thin. Transferred to the pan, the dough is then stretched to fit with the edges folded up slightly to form a lip all the way around. At this point, the herb and pepper studded dough is set aside and allowed to rest until the dough looks puffy - you are not really looking for it to double in size. Paper thin slices of a large russet potato are arranged on top, followed by additional fresh rosemary and a smattering of nutty Asiago cheese.

Baked until golden, we easily lifted the thin, crisp crust out of the pan without any bending or breaking when we were ready to serve it. The pairing of potatoes and rosemary was such an excellent combination, while the sharpness from the shower of cheese on top was just enough to heighten the flavors in this dish. You could, of course, use fresh grated Parmesan if you don't happen to have Asiago, but we both thought this nutty cheese brought a little unexpected element that was a nice change of pace.

7 comments:

  1. I'm already in love with this dish, just from the picture! Not a huge fan of rosemary, I know - call me crazy. But I'm going to trust you on this and try it, since it would just be potato pizetta without it.

    Quinn

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  2. I'm beginning to favor sauce-less pizzas over traditional pizzas, so I should give this a try. The flavors sound really great and complimentary.

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  3. Quinn - What don't you like about rosemary?

    Christina - We both thought the combination was quite tasty!

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  4. This pizza looks very reminiscent of a pizza place we used to have in the Cities called Spudzza...my sister and I LOVED it, but I think they've all closed down. I'm VERY excited to try this recipe - thank you!

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  5. Some people might think it's strange to put potatos on top of bread or pizza crust. But they don't know what they are missing out! Looks great Joe! In Italy I even had a pizza topped with french fries!

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  6. Jeez Joe, I had to think about what I don't like about rosemary. I guess I'm just not herbal! Because thyme and tarragon, eew. OK, now I have Simon & Garfunkle in my head - I like parsley and sage!

    We discussed this recipe at the office, since we are all wild about that mashed potato pizza from Uno. Potatoes and pizza - pretty close to the perfect food!

    Quinn

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  7. Elisabeth - I hope you get a chance to try the recipe out!

    Clumbsy - See, now I really need to go to Italy just to have a taste of that!

    Quinn - We've actually made a couple other potato pizzas in the past couple of years!

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