Tuesday 10 March 2009

Paper Chef 38 - Fig Pizza - 2 ways

With this month's Paper Chef ingredients there was a lot of scope for different combinations and recipes.
The ingredients were: figs, polenta, mint & anchovy.
At first glance you wonder what & how these ingredients will combine, but, surprising, they actually combined quite well.
After a glass or 2 of wine, I started thinking of what to do. My first idea was a modified Caesar salad with figs and polenta croutons. Next idea was a pizza with a polenta base, bocconcini figs & anchovy. Then Paul suggested a modified pissaladiere with figs melted in with the caramelised onion, again on a polenta base. Decisions!
In the end it ended up being a double pizza, but I'm still tempted to make the salad some time.

Polenta base:
1 cup prepared polenta
1 1/2 cup plain flour
7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
Salt
1/4 tsp sugar
Water

Sift flour, yeast, sugar & salt into a bowl. Add polenta & just enough water to make a dough. Knead until smooth & elastic. Leave to rise in a covered bowl till doubled. Roll out and use as needed.

Pissaladiere:
3 large onions finely sliced
3 fresh figs skins removed
Olive oil
1 tsp Dried mint
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Fresh mint
In some olive oil, cook the onions, figs, dried mint & balsamic over a low heat until the onions have caramilised and most of the moisture has evaporated. Let cool.

Topping:
2 fresh figs cut into 1cm slices
anchovy fillets
2 bocconcini, sliced
fresh mint
tomato sauce
Roll out the dough to fit one large rectangular tray. One half was for the pissaladiere, the other was for the fresh fig.
I made a little dam out of some dough so the two different pizzas wouldn't run into each other.
Brush some olive oil on the base of the entire pizza. Spread the onion & fig mix evenly over half the base. Arrange the anchovy fillets in a diagonal crisscross pattern. Stud with the olives in the centre of each diamond.
On the other side spread the tomato sauce. Lay out the sliced bocconcini. Lay some sliced fig on top. I lightly pan fried the fig slices to remove some excess moisture. Lay some anchovy fillet across each fig slice.
Bake in a hot oven until the base is done.
Remove and sprinkle fresh mint over the whole pizza.
And enjoy.

4 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

That is picture perfect beautiful.
I was really blown away surprised at really enjoying all these flavors together. That wine would need to be a good spicy red to stand up to this pizza.

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a creative solution, and looks good too. I made the salad, which turned out very well, mint and anchovies in the dressing. Then, when we started to eat (and after I had taken some photos) my husband asks, so where are the polenta croutons? Unmade, that's where. I had polenta in the frig, waiting for me to cut and fry. I'm easily distracted, unfortunately.

Murasaki Shikibu said...

Making a pizza with this combination is a great solution. Hats off!

Harini said...

Using polenta in a pizza base sounds great...I will try that soon!