In the Hands of a Chef (18 page)

After making the recipe once or twice, try fine-tuning the cooking time according to the water content of the particular batch of tomatoes and the texture you prefer in the finished product. One caveat: Unlike slow-braising, which can improve the flavor of winter tomatoes, this technique depends on ripe, high-quality tomatoes. What you put in is what you will get out, only more concentrated. Slow-roasted tomatoes have a shorter shelf life than either sun-dried or slow-braised tomatoes. They will last for about a week in the refrigerator.

MAKES 2 CUPS

12 plum tomatoes or 2 pints cherry tomatoes

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1.
Preheat the oven to 250°F.

2.
Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise. Toss the tomatoes in a bowl with the remaining ingredients.

3.
Arrange cut side up in a single layer on a rack sitting in a shallow roasting pan. Roast plum tomatoes for about 4 hours, cherry tomatoes for about 2 hours. Begin checking after half the cooking time, then every 30 minutes. They’re done when the edges have curled and the skin has wrinkled, but they should still be juicy at heart. Let cool, then refrigerate in a tightly sealed container. (Do not store in oil.)

U
nless you live in a
greenhouse, there will inevitably come a time when the quality of the tomatoes available to you takes a dip. Tomato salads are out of the question, but what do you do when you want tomatoes for a sauce or soup, or to add to braising liquids for hearty winter meat dishes? You can rely on high-quality canned tomatoes or, for a more intense flavor, try these slow-braised tomatoes. They’re a great way to concentrate flavor in winter tomatoes. Food writer and cookbook author Nancy Verde Barr first introduced me to the Italian technique of slowly braising tomatoes in oil. Her stovetop version is more rigorous and authentic than mine. At Rialto, we braise the tomatoes in the oven—we can make more in a single batch and they require less attention. Slow-braising produces a more unctuous tomato than slow-roasting, better suited to soups, sauces, and braises, where you want concentrated tomato flavor, but texture isn’t an issue. Store slow-braised tomatoes in their cooking oil in the refrigerator, where they will last for 2 weeks. (Note: The oil tastes fabulous and is reusable.) Never insert your bare fingers into the storage container, or you risk contaminating the oil with bacteria from your skin.

¼
cup extra virgin olive oil, plus approximately
½ cup for braising

1 large white onion, cut into ½-inch dice 6 garlic cloves, smashed

18 basil leaves

? teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

24 ripe plum tomatoes or 48 ripe cherry tomatoes

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1.
Preheat the oven to 250°F.

2.
Heat ¼ cup olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the basil leaves and red pepper flakes, and stir well.

3.
Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise. (Leave cherry tomatoes whole.) Toss the tomatoes with the sugar and salt.

4.
Place the tomatoes cut side down in a roasting pan that will hold them in a single layer. (If you don’t have a large enough pan, use an additional roasting pan and more olive oil.) Spoon the onion mixture over the tomatoes. Add enough olive oil to come halfway up the tomatoes, about ½ cup.

5.
Roast until the tomatoes are tender, but not falling apart, about 3 hours (about 1 hour for cherry tomatoes). Stir once, gently, during the braising. Let cool; then refrigerate, covered, in their oil.

A
lthough this recipe calls for
two heads of garlic, I often double or triple the amount, especially if I know that I’ve got a brutal schedule coming up in the next week. Sauce, soup, or stock instantly acquires depth with the addition of roasted garlic. Also, since everyone ought to have as part of her culinary repertoire a raft of respectable quick meals, the combination of roasted and fresh garlic, olive oil, and herbs, with or without high-quality canned tomatoes, makes a homemade pasta sauce of which you can be proud. Roasted garlic will keep, covered and refrigerated, for 4 to 5 days.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 large heads garlic

1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2.
Grease a small roasting pan, pie plate, or baking dish with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season the oil with salt and pepper.

3.
Cut the garlic heads in half across the cloves, so you end up with a top and bottom cross-section of each head. Place cut side down in the pan. Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper. If the garlic seems dry (see box on following page), add 2 tablespoons water. Roast until the garlic is tender and the cut sides are golden brown, 40 to 50 minutes.

4.
Squeeze the heads gently, and the individual cloves should slide right out of the skin.

T
his chapter, which might easily
have been called Savory Crusts I Have Known and Loved, opens with my favorite Neapolitan flatbread—pizza. For me, pizza begins and ends with the crust. The topping may be interesting, but if it isn’t sitting on a rich, yeasty crust that’s both chewy and complex, all is for naught. The real difference between a good and a great crust isn’t effort—it’s time. Great crusts result from a slow second rising, which few commercial pizza makers take time to do. The recipe for Basic Pizza Dough shows you how to do it. Once you’ve got the crust down, you can play with any of the other pizza recipes.

In Italy, pizza is primarily considered a snack, and it’s in that spirit that I present these recipes. Thinking of pizza as a snack allows you to use richer ingredients than you might otherwise, because the intention is to serve small portions, something to take the edge off an appetite or whet it for things to come. Smoked Salmon Pizza with Mascarpone and Capers and Five-Cheese Pizza with Caramelized Onions are both quite rich, ideal for serving with drinks or as appetizers. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a pizza with very thin crust and ingredients that act more as seasonings than the usual toppings, Crispy Prosciutto and Parsley Pizza.

Pizzas are always made with a yeasted dough. Tarts, on the other hand, can be made with a variety of crusts. I’ve included three tart recipes that demonstrate a range of flavor and effort; an
Alsatian Tarte Flambée made with smoked bacon, onions, and cheese; a simple Tomato, Basil, and Parmesan Tart that would feel at home anywhere south of the Vaucluse; and a recipe that has its origins in the eastern end of the Mediterranean—individual Phyllo Tarts with Smoky Eggplant, Bulgur, and Roasted Red Peppers.

A pair of contrasting
crostatas
closes the chapter.
Crostata
is a generic Italian term for pie, sweet or savory; it may be baked in a standard pie plate or free-form. Made with pastry dough and filled with a mixture of precooked vegetables, savory crostatas are often topped with cheese or a custard mixture. A Spring Vegetable Crostata illustrates the light style, while the Caramelized Squash, Pear, and Blue Cheese Crostata is a heartier cold-weather dish. By the way, making a crostata is a great technique for transforming leftover vegetables into a different dish altogether.

Y
ou can make good pizza
dough in a few hours. Great dough, one whose crust will make people sit up and wonder if they’ve been eating cardboard all their lives, requires a little extra time, but almost no extra effort. A memorable pizza crust will almost always have been made from dough that has had the benefit of an extended second rising, usually stretched out over 6 to 8 hours. This second rising allows the gluten fibers greater time to develop, resulting in a chewier crust. The long second rising also eliminates the raw quality that crust made from “quick” dough sometimes seems to have. A good crust tastes mature, like a well-made bread, good enough to stand on its own, instead of just serving as a vehicle for the topping.

I always let my dough rise slowly the second time. The minor inconvenience of planning ahead is more than offset by the superior flavor of the finished pizza crust. If I’m going to make pizza on Saturday, I prepare the dough Friday night and let it rise once at room temperature. Then I punch the dough down and throw it into the refrigerator. By chilling the dough, I slow the second rising way down, so it takes place over 6 to 8 hours. On Saturday morning, the dough is ready. I leave the dough in the refrigerator if I’m going to use it that night. If I’ve made extra, I wrap it tightly in several layers of plastic wrap and freeze it. Frozen pizza dough lasts for a month.

Most pizza dough recipes are vague when it comes to the size of the pizza that the dough will make, as well as the thickness of the crust. I make thin-crust pizzas, meaning the dough is about
³
/
₁₆
inch thick. But you don’t have to worry about measuring this. If you roll a pound of pizza dough into two 12-inch pizzas, the dough will be the right thickness. You can even roll the dough out into two 16-inch pizzas, in which case the crust will be really thin, an effect that works particularly well when you’re topping the dough with only a few ingredients, or with items that you don’t want to cook too long, or when you’re using the dough for homemade crackers.

¾ cup warm water
½ package yeast (scant 1 teaspoon)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1½ to 1¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more as needed

1.
To proof the yeast, put 2 tablespoons of the warm water in a large bowl, stir in the yeast, and let it rest. After a few minutes, bubbles should begin to form, demonstrating that the yeast is alive and active. If nothing happens after 10 or 15 minutes, discard the mixture and start over with fresh yeast.

2.
Add the remaining ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons water, the salt, and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to the yeast mixture and mix well. Use a wooden spoon to stir in 1
½
cups flour
½
cup at a time. After incorporating the final
½
cup flour, the dough should be too stiff to stir; if not, gradually add the remaining ¼ cup. Transfer the dough to a clean board and knead until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes. You can sprinkle the dough with a little flour if it’s too sticky to knead, but try to use as little as possible: The more flour you use, the denser the dough will be; the less flour, the lighter the dough, and hence the crisper the crust. Try to work with dough that’s still a little tacky.

3.
Rub a large bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Put the dough in the bowl, then flip it so that it’s completely coated with oil. Cover with a damp towel and allow to rise until doubled in bulk. Depending on the yeast and flour, this can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours.

4.
For a quick dough (for use within an hour or so),
punch it down after the first rising, then cut it into 2 or 4 pieces, depending on how many pizzas you intend to make, and roll the pieces into balls. Cover the balls with a towel and let rise again at room temperature until double in bulk, about 45 minutes; as soon as the dough finishes the quick second rising, it’s ready to use.
For a slow second rising,
punch the dough down after the first rising, cover with the towel, and refrigerate for 6 to 8 hours.

5.
After the second rising, the dough is ready to use. Either proceed with one of the pizza recipes or wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Or, if not using within a day, put the wrapped dough in a plastic bag and freeze it; allow frozen dough to thaw in the refrigerator. All dough should be at room temperature before using.

A
pizza stone and a pizza
peel, the wide wooden paddle used to move pizza in and out of the oven, will make your experience more satisfying. Pizza stones come in a variety of sizes and shapes. I own two rectangular ones, the largest that will fit on my oven racks. Each stone will hold one 16-inch pizza or two or more smaller ones. The circular stones seem to hold only one pizza, unless you’re making very small ones.

About half an hour before the pizza is ready to bake, I preheat my oven to 500°F, giving the stones time to warm. The stones provide an even source of direct heat for the entire bottom surface of the dough, producing a crisp crust. Several large unglazed tiles (referred to as “unsalted” or quarry tiles in the trade), available at many home renovation stores, are an inexpensive alternative.