Five Cheese White Pizza

In Italian it's called Pizza Bianco - White Pizza. My white is a bit more then Mozzarella and Ricotta and with all due honesty and humility is the best damn White Pizza in North America. Before you send me a nasty email telling me that my claim is not humble take note that I said the Best in North America, not the World!

Ingredients
1 Ball of Pizza Dough
1 Cup Shredded Part-Skim Mozzarella
1 Cup Part-Skim Ricotta
1/3 Lb. Fresh Goat Cheese
1/4 Cup Grated Asiago Cheese
1/4 Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Head of Garlic Finely Chopped
1/2 Cup Oil Packed Sun Dried Tomatoes Chopped
6 Ripe Roma or Plum Tomatoes
2 Tbs Dried Basil
2 Tbs Dried Oregano
2 Tbs Dried Thyme
1 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/2 Tsp Black Pepper

Preparation
I want to be clear I said an entire head of Garlic not a clove finely minced. If you are really shy use 3/4 of a head of garlic but not less.

If you made your dough from scratch you can do this while it rises or if you purchased dough at the supermarket leave it in the refrigerator until you need it but first ask yourself why am I using supermarket dough in the first place when making my own is so easy?

After washing your tomatoes cut off the about 1/4 inch from the stem end and then cut them in half length wise. Using your finger gently scoop out as many of the seeds along with the jelly surrounding them as possible, perfection is not required and place them face down on a cookie sheet that has been lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with cooking spray. Then put them in a 450 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

As always you can't trust ANY oven to be 100% accurate so check your tomatoes for after 20 minutes and every 5 minutes thereafter. You are looking for them to collapse almost completely and start to get brown in spots and there should be some black around them where they meet the foil. The black is not burned but the sugar in the tomato caramelizing.

When the tomatoes are done we can begin building our pizza.

Stretch your dough, round, rectangular, or other, to 1/4" or thinner and spread olive oil evenly on top leaving 3/4 of an inch for crust. Evenly distribute the dried herbs on the oiled dough. When all the herbs are on the pie should be pretty well covered and looking disturbingly dark.

That head of garlic is next in line to be added. You'll want to add enough to cover the entire pie ensuring that you get a mouthful of minced garlic in every bite no matter how small that bite is. Now is the time to go back and chop up the rest of the garlic because you didn't believe me in the first place. Go on, I'll turn my back.


Starting with the two dry grated cheeses, Asiago and Parmesan spread them evenly around. A note on the these two cheeses, Asiago is tangy and I prefer you don't substitute something else but the Parmesan can be replaced with, Locatelli, Reggiano or Grana if you like them better. Just be sure to evenly distribute them so that every bite gets a taste. 


Mozzarella goes next followed by crumbling the goat cheese around the whole pizza. Next add the chopped Sun Dried Tomatoes. I strongly suggest oil packed but if all you have access to is dry soak them in olive oil for an hour to soften them before use. Make sure you drain the oil by squeezing the tomatoes in your hand before spreading them around.


With a spoon add the Ricotta in lumps about 2 lumps for every slice. Finally add the oven roasted tomatoes to pizza and prepare to bake.Cook it at 450 degrees on either a pizza stone or top rack until the crust is lightly brown and the bottom is dark golden to light brown. Total cooking time will vary since you can't trust the temperature of ANY oven between 7 and about 12 minutes.

After you're done enjoying this be sure to send a note or maybe some flowers to your favorite pizza shop and let them know you won't be back for white pizza anymore.

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