The Houndstooth Gourmet

Last week when I visited the North King Street Market for the first time, I was delighted to find vendors that were new to me. Foremost was Greenstone Fields from Purceville, VA. Their selection of heirloom tomatoes was unique among the other wondeful vendors at my area’s farmers market. In particular, a large yellow and crimson “striped” tomato caught my eye as I envisioned it thinly sliced and spread over pizza dough, along with  mozzarella cheese and fresh basil leaves.

The color palette was even more attractive when Frank and I assembled a couple of pizzas last weekend. The taste was even better. Frank put his knack for shaping the dough to work, while I sliced the tomatoes and cheese, and cut fresh basil from our container herb garden.

As usual, I took a short cut in making homemade pizza by buying premade pizza dough from a wonderful place called The Italian Store in Arlington, VA. While I’m not Sandra Lee-Semi Home Made usually, I do think that having a frozen dough in the freezer leaves room for last minute possibilities when it comes to making a pie, calzone or stromboli or….you get the picture. For around $2, a ball of dough makes 2-10 inch pizza pies. It’s an amazing value, let alone the convenience!

Now, there is no shortcut when it comes to pre-heating your oven with a pizza stone (or other heat-retaining stone) prior to baking your pies. The heat must be as high as your oven will go. Mine goes to 550 degrees, and I begin to heat the oven an hour before I expect to slide the first pie onto the stone.

By doing this, the oven temperature does not drop to any significant degree when I open the oven to put the pizza in the oven. The stone simply retains the heat that it has absorbed for the prior hour, allowing the crust to get a nice brown and a bit of char–and char=flavor.

Pizza with Heirloom Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil

makes 2-10 inch pizzas

Ingredients

• Pizza dough-freshly made or pre-made, bought frozen from your favorite pizza shop
• 6-8 ounces mozzarella, thinly sliced
• 1 large tomato, sliced and placed on paper towels or dish towel to absorb excess water
• 10-15 basil leaves, shredded
• kosher salt and pepper
• olive oil
• Parmesan Reggiano, grated
• Cornmeal
• All-Purpose Flour, enough to dust hands and surface

Directions

Cut pizza dough in half. Wrap half not being used in plastc wrap until you are ready to assemble your second pizza.

Lightly flour a preparation surface (I use a large wooden cutting board) and hands. Shape pizza dough into a 10-inch round (and if it isn’t perfectly round, that’s ok!). Transfer dough to a pizza peel that has been sprinkled lightly with cornmeal to prevent sticking when sliding the pie onto a pizza stone.

Generously salt and pepper the surface of the pizza dough. Arrange one layer of mozzarella slices, followed by tomato slices and shredded basil. Add a second layer of mozzarella slices.

Drizzle olive oil over the top of the pie and grate Parmesan Reggiano to taste.

Slide the pizza onto your pizza stone and bake for 8 minutes, or until crust is slightly blistered and the cheese is melted.

Makes 4-6 slices.

Repeat with second half of dough and ingredients. Load it up!

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Tags: pizza, cheese, tomatoes, Recipe //