Sometimes, a sweet pizza with some great texture and interesting flavor is in order. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten a pizza a didn’t like. It’s just that every so often, I like to eat something that tastes “mature,” if that makes any sense. As Laura and I were enjoying this pizza for dinner last night, I mentioned that it tasted like something adults would enjoy. Kids probably wouldn’t like this one. It’s sort of an acquired taste, like beer or wine. Adults love them but kids don’t. Kids’ palates simply haven’t developed enough yet to like such things. It’s an awesome pizza though.
The Recipe
In order to prepare this pizza, you’ll need some dough. I have a great whole-wheat dough recipe that I shared on this website. If you follow that simple recipe, you’ll enjoy something that’s chewy and flavorful.
This recipe doesn’t use many ingredients, but what it does use needs to be prepared carefully. The primary topping on this pizza is onions. In order to get the full sweetness out of them, you’ll need to caramelize them, which means “brown” them, thoroughly. It’s these onions that put this pizza on the map.
The other two primary toppings are toasted walnuts and blue cheese. When I mentioned that this is an adult pizza above, I was talking mostly about the blue cheese. Some folks love this type of cheese while others don’t care for it much. I’ll tell you one thing – when it’s combined with the walnuts and onion, it’s out of this world.
Ingredients
Makes: 1 Pizza
Pizza Dough (Follow This Recipe)
Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Regular Olive Oil
Regular Table Salt
Ground Black Pepper
2 Pounds Onions, Chopped
1 Teaspoon Brown Sugar
1 Cup Walnuts, Chopped and Toasted
4 Ounces Blue Cheese
3 Scallions, Sliced
Step-by-Step Instructions
I pulled this recipe from the awesome cookbook put out by America’s Test Kitchen. It’s called The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook and it’s definitely a win. I’ve used many recipes from this book and I truly appreciate the effort that went into it.
Let Dough Rest
After following the pizza dough recipe, you should have your product in a large bowl waiting for use. If so, place 1 tablespoon of regular olive oil on a 16 inch baking sheet and then remove the dough from the bowl and place it on the pan.
Let the dough sit for 1 hour to warm up.
Shape Dough
After the dough has warmed up a bit, use your fingers to press it towards the edge of the pan. Be sure to keep the thickness consistent throughout, except for the edges. Those should be slightly thicker than the rest.
Next, drizzle some olive oil onto the surface of the dough and then liberally grind some black pepper on top of that.
Pre-Heat Your Oven
At this point, it’s safe to begin pre-heating your oven to 500 degrees. Also, adjust your racks so one of them is in the center position.
Caramelize the Onions
Warm up a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of regular olive oil to the pan and when it begins to shimmer, add the onions, brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cover the pan and let cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. This is just to soften them up. Then, remove the cover, increase the heat to medium-high and cook and stir for another 15 minutes or until the onions brown.
Add Toppings to Dough
Now that the onions are finished, you can add the toppings to the dough. Scatter the onions evenly across the dough. Then follow suit with the toasted walnuts and the blue cheese.
Bake the Pizza
When that’s finished, add the pizza to the oven and let bake for 10 minutes. After that time, rotate the pan and let cook for about 5 more minutes or until you see the edges of the crust are beginning to brown. When that occurs, remove the pizza from the oven and turn off the heat.
Add Scallions and Serve
At this point, you can sprinkle the sliced scallions over the surface of the pizza, cut into 6 pieces and serve. The pizza is finished.
The Final Pizza
Now that I think about, while the onions are sweet and the walnuts add a lot of nice texture, the blue cheese is probably the king here. It adds so much to the flavor it’s difficult not to come to this conclusion. give this pizza a try and let me know your results. Thanks for reading!
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