06 January 2011

Misti's 365 Project: Day 3 (Also, Not a Pizza recipe)

Today's photo is of an experiment Rod made for dinner.
For the time being, we're referring to it as "not a pizza", because it was inspired by really wonderful pizzas Rod remembers from home, but it's not going to make the grade if you're looking for (name a popular pizza joint from your hometown).

But, really, it's much too nice to have a negative moniker, so this will eventually have a descriptive name.

This "not a pizza" is based on the socca sold by street vendors in Nice, but with a bit of egg added to make the crust a little less brittle than socca (so it's easier to pick it up without losing all the toppings).

So, how to do it:

Crust Ingredients
1 cup of chickpea flour (we grind our own, but it's called besan or gram flour in the South Asian/Middle Eastern shops)
1 cup tepid water
1/4 cup of olive oil
3 eggs
a pinch of salt
garlic powder to taste

Whisk the chickpea flour, water, and olive oil together and let sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours.

After soaking, add the salt and garlic powder.
* If you're making flat bread, continue.
* If you're making the not a pizza, stop here and prepare the toppings.

Cooking Directions
Heat a cast iron griddle in a 500 degree (super hot) oven.
Whisk the eggs in another bowl until they're well mixed, then add them to the batter.

When the griddle and the oven are HOT, add a dollop of oil to the griddle and then pour the batter into the griddle getting it as even and round as you can.

* Cook at 500 degrees for 7 minutes to eat this as a bread side, then brush the socca with olive oil and broil it for the last minute or so broil it.


Toppings
You can pretty much use any toppings you'd like on pizza here, but I'll tell you where we started.

1/2 cup of seeded, finally diced fresh tomatoes (roma work really well).
1/4 cup finely diced sweet onion
2 tablespoons finely chopped olives
2 teaspoons fresh, crushed rosemary

1/2 cup shredded cheese

Put everything but the cheese into a single bowl and mix it up so you get an even topping.
After the crust has been cooking for 4 minutes, spread the topping evenly over it.
Switch the oven to broil and broil for another 3 minutes.
After three minutes, spread the cheese over the whole thing, and broil until the cheese is melt and just starting to brown.

Done. Serve hot.

3 comments:

  1. I once knew someone who made a pizza crust out of zucchini and eggs. I think I could find the recipe again, if you're interested. Let me know?

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  2. ps. The pizza in the photo looks AWESOMELY YUMMY!!!

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  3. Oh, I'd love to have that recipe, Valerie! Thank you!

    It WAS awesomely yummy. Even better were the leftovers for lunch today. (It looked small to me, but the socca crust made it very filling.)

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