My friends have my number! Many Christmas and birthday presents I have received recently have had a food and/or cooking theme. I think people have gathered my interest in this field. One such gift was a DVD of A Moveable Feast featuring several celebrity chefs each making a delectable dish. The donor of the gift and the donee (me!) are getting together tonight (along with our husbands) to watch the DVD. What to eat while we watch? Maybe this is the time to tackle a category of recipes in Lydie’s book called pissaladieres.
I am reminded of a visit many years ago by a friend and her new husband. I slaved over a new recipe featuring a mélange of different cheeses blended with roasted potatoes and a bouquet of several herbs. This new husband, who has no truck with affectation, looked at the dish and said, “Oh, we’re having potato pizza in a bowl!”
A pissaladiere is essentially a French pizza. (It sounds so much more elegant in French!). Lydie makes it with a potato dough. So basically, I’m back to making potato pizza. This time not in a bowl!
(Later...)
The dough uses baking potatoes that are mashed and incorporated with flour and yeast. Lydie recommends using a heavy duty mixer with a flat paddle for mashing the potatoes and kneading them into the flour. If one doesn’t have such a mixer, she recommends mashing the potatoes with a ricer, then, kneading the dough by hand. I have neither a flat-paddled mixer nor a ricer so I used a simple mashing utensil, then, my hands. I was unable to get the potatoes to be totally smooth so that there were polka dots of potato in the dough. I was worried about this little flaw, but when it was baked, miraculously, the polka dots seemed to have disappeared.
As I was mashing, kneading, waiting for the dough to rise, rolling, I was thinking, “Well, this is interesting seeing how it works to make it from scratch but next time I’d rather just buy a bag of dough from my local grocer.” Sort of like learning the mathematical steps to a statistical program but really being content to hit a couple of keys on a computer program. I’ve changed my mind! The dough turned out to be delightfully light and flavorful. A special bonus was that it was very easy to work with. You know how regular pizza dough always seems to shrink back to its former size, like an elastic band, when you roll it out? Not so, this dough. I’m sure I’ll use this recipe again.
Lydie’s recipe book includes a variety of toppings. I decided on one with eggplant. Instead of sautéing the eggplant, which, in my experience, results in the eggplant soaking up the oil, I baked it, just brushing the eggplant with a little olive oil. Baking until it was soft took about 30 minutes. An interesting touch to this topping was combining mozzarella cheese with minced garlic and shreds of fresh basil, which was placed on the dough before adding the eggplant. It was really quite good.
The dough uses baking potatoes that are mashed and incorporated with flour and yeast. Lydie recommends using a heavy duty mixer with a flat paddle for mashing the potatoes and kneading them into the flour. If one doesn’t have such a mixer, she recommends mashing the potatoes with a ricer, then, kneading the dough by hand. I have neither a flat-paddled mixer nor a ricer so I used a simple mashing utensil, then, my hands. I was unable to get the potatoes to be totally smooth so that there were polka dots of potato in the dough. I was worried about this little flaw, but when it was baked, miraculously, the polka dots seemed to have disappeared.
As I was mashing, kneading, waiting for the dough to rise, rolling, I was thinking, “Well, this is interesting seeing how it works to make it from scratch but next time I’d rather just buy a bag of dough from my local grocer.” Sort of like learning the mathematical steps to a statistical program but really being content to hit a couple of keys on a computer program. I’ve changed my mind! The dough turned out to be delightfully light and flavorful. A special bonus was that it was very easy to work with. You know how regular pizza dough always seems to shrink back to its former size, like an elastic band, when you roll it out? Not so, this dough. I’m sure I’ll use this recipe again.
Lydie’s recipe book includes a variety of toppings. I decided on one with eggplant. Instead of sautéing the eggplant, which, in my experience, results in the eggplant soaking up the oil, I baked it, just brushing the eggplant with a little olive oil. Baking until it was soft took about 30 minutes. An interesting touch to this topping was combining mozzarella cheese with minced garlic and shreds of fresh basil, which was placed on the dough before adding the eggplant. It was really quite good.
And here is the result:
Funny, no mention of the pork and pear one that was also made by my wife. They both were a hit even though a couple of us are supposed to not eat pork. So, tonight (a couple of nights later) we had the pork one a half of which was left. Still really good.
ReplyDeleteLiking potatoes may help, but I really did like the crust. It went well with each of the offerings. At the end of the meal tonight which was accompanied by salad, I wanted a bit more pear to finish things off. We have a couple, but alas I was told they are for tomorrow night when women's book group is to be held here. What's a guy to do?
Looks really yummy, Chef Ene.
ReplyDelete