Michael Leddy, at Orange Crate Art, posted about food supplies for waiting out snow storms, this time including anchovies. His post reminded me of anchovy pizza, which I first had while stationed at Great Lakes Naval Hospital while attending hospital Corps school. The enlisted hang-out was called the Rathskeller. They served great pizza and passable beer.
I'd never heard of anchovy pizza but I was game to try anything once in those days. The anchovies looked a little like tiny strips of bacon, were as salty as the salt pork we used to put in a pot of beans back home and stunk to the high heavens.
Michael's post triggered a good food memory and prompted me to try making the anchovy pizza from long ago. That gave me an excuse to use all the favorite toppings I like, the ones that made my grandson gag when I told him about it.
"You can have it all, Nanny," he said. (Good!)
I started by putting some garlic cloves to roast in the oven. Garlic is another thing Donovan can't stand. (Excellent!)
While they were roasting, I sliced the veggies, grated the cheese and chopped the rest of the toppings. Toppings included parsley, broccoli rabe, mushrooms, red bell pepper and julienne strips of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. Capers, chopped artichoke hearts, anchovies and sliced olives rounded out the tangy flavors. Finely grated Asiago cheese and a home-style pizza sauce finished the list of ingredients.
Mixed up a crust made of white whole wheat flour, organic pasty flour, yeast, salt and a so-called Tuscan herb blend, to which was added olive oil and warm water. Stirred and kneaded well then gathered the dough into a smooth ball. Poured a little olive oil into the bottom of the bowl, rolled the dough-ball in it before setting the bowl in a warm spot to let the dough double in size - took about an hour.
I sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese on the crust before adding the sauce. Layered on the toppings, reserving the anchovies and the rest of the cheese until last. One half of the pizza was anchovy, the other half was artichoke and sun-dried tomatoes.
Put the pizza into a hot oven and set the timer for twenty minutes. Answered a phone call from my sister in Louisiana, from whom I hadn't heard for several weeks. Aroma from the kitchen told me the pizza was done.
Overdone, as it turned out. Also had forgotten to slice the roasted garlic to add to the toppings, but tossed them on the artichoke end anyway. The anchovies broke apart, sort of dissolved onto the crust. The pizza was not at all like I remembered, had way too many toppings and the crust was dry. The flavors were pretty good, but over all, I was disappointed with the results.
Nevertheless, I ate most of it. Next morning, my face was puffed up like a dead toad because of all the salt. Some things are better left as good memories and this pizza was one of them.
13 comments:
Except for the anchovy, which is always too salty for my taste, the rest is mouth wateringly (literally) lovely....and so healthy. Is that why junior didn't like it, I wonder?
Probably so, Tom! Donovan is finicky about his pizza - although he'll eat pineapple on his pizza. Go figure!
I used too much anchovy on this one - way too salty for me, too.
Hope you are doing well, post-surgery.
Pizza is always a bit of a crapshoot, each added ingredient a variable with a potential for problems. Still, you put in all your dream ingredients, lavished yourself with your own preferences, enjoyed the anticipation and aroma, that alone is worth doing.
We did a pizza in a cast iron pan, with traderjoe pizza dough. It was good, but not something we'll do often - a little too doughy in the end. Still, worth trying, and Failure is Always an Option!
You are so right, Z, about the crapshoot! And not only is failure always an option, but one of my best learning tools.
I've already decided how to change the next one to try to make it closer to the one of memory. (Have to do something with those left-over anchovies!)
Everything I could wish for on a pizza, I'm a fiend for anchovies, except perhaps broccoli rabe, not even sure what that is.
They do seem a bit hit and miss, at home and out too, I had a simple Napolitaine at our local which is usually fine and it was like cardboard - French pizzas are always thin but this wasn't right.
Roast garlic is always worth having in any form, though rather anti-social.
Broccoli rabe has leaves similar in shape to mustard greens, with fleshy stems that have single broccoli florets on the end. They're also good raw in salads; steamed and drizzled with a rich basalmic vinegar; chopped for soup (I have a soup recipe called Italian bean and sausage that includes rabe and/or kale - yum!), or sautéed lightly in olive oil or butter with mashed roast garlic, a dash of nutmeg and a smothering of heavy cream.
I roasted 30 toes of garlic but ate about a third of them fresh out of the oven. They are like vegetable candy to me. I have a few left and plan to make the rabe-garlic-cream dish tomorrow.
One can never have enough roasted garlic toes on hand - never!
I do believe I remember the rathskeller!! Or maybe not, good lord, that was 50 years ago for me.
I love fresh anchovies on a caesar salad, but my pizza is a margherita, served outside in a cafe in Greve in Chanti, south of Florence.
Martha, it looks great, though I too could do with fewer anchovies. I'm passing this post on to my son, who's the pizza king of our family. His pizza experiments include kale (really good).
THIS LOOKS SO GOOD!
Even if it wasn't quite what you were going for.
And it inspires me---I am going to add Pizza Making as an activity for the residents at work!
I am trying to add savory treats to our repertoire of sweet baked goods.
The only previous appearance of broccoli rabe (sort of) I know of occurs in Jabberwocky:
All mimsy were ye borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
But then I haven't devoted myself to the culinary arts.
There is a precedent for your subsequent experience. Coleridge (v. famous poet) had a dream in which he was exposed to a new poem laid in front of him in its entirety. Still in his night-shirt he sat down and started transcribing it but was interrupted by the now infamous "person from Porlock" who had come to see him on business. Thus the poem remained unfinished. You can see why STC was tee-ed off. The poem is kinda familiar:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan,
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man...
I can only eat a little bit of anchovies, but overall the pizza sounds delicious.
Hello, everyone:
I have been fighting with Blogger/Google for several days, trying to regain access to my blog dashboard so that I could post your comments and respond to them.
Thank you.
Should Fish More: The rathskeller was the first place I had a dark beer. Loved it. Never went back to the pale stuff. I wonder if Great Lakes still stands - so many bases have closed since we were there.
Michael: I love greens. Haven't used kale on pizza yet, but I bet it is good! My sister in Louisiana makes a killer Green Gumbo, using all kinds of greens in a gumbo base.
Fresca: This is super easy, too. Bet they'd like to make pita pizzas - they're quick and easy, as well.
Robbie: Brillig is my favorite time of day. Also known in my family as long shadow time.
I once wrote a few words to help me remember a hot, exciting idea for a character in a story I was writing, but all I can recall are those few words.. Still have the scrap of paper on which I wrote, "...like Huck, he..."
S.A.W.: I used too much anchovies on this one, way too much. Might have been pretty good if it hadn't over-baked, too. Ah, well - there's always next time.
Post a Comment