If you love the south of France and French recipes, you have to love Pissaladière. If you don’t love olives, garlic and anchovies, you are clearly in the wrong place.
This savory pizza is named after the olive-and-anchovy condiment pissala. These pizzas are often made on rectangular baking sheets. But round or rectangular, there are delicious.
This will work best if you have a wooden pizza paddle and a pizza brick for your oven. It looks like a lot of steps but really after doing it once or twice, it’s super easy. And the crust is fantastic for any super-thin crust pizza.
The secrets are: very thin dough, a very hot oven and a very short cooking time. And as all good cooks know–“mis en place”. In otherwords, get your ingredients all in place and ready to use.
So get yourself a pizza paddle and a pizza brick because there’s no pizza better than a homemade one on this crust.
The crust
· 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
· 1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees F)
· 1 envelope (1/4 oz) active dry yeast
· 3 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
· 1 teaspoon salt
· ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
· a bit of cornmeal for the paddle to prevent sticking
1. In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water that registers 110-115 degrees F. If the water is too warm, it will kill the yeast, if it’s too cold it will not activate it.
2. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir gently until it dissolves, about 1 minute. When the yeast is mixed with the water at the proper temperature, a smooth, beiger-colored mixture results. Let it stand in a warm spot until a thin layer of foam covers the surface, about 5 minutes, indicating the yeast is effective. If bubbles haven’t formed in 5 minutes, discard and start again
3. To mix the dough in a heavy-duty standing electric mixer, combine 3 cups of the flour, the salt, yeast mixture, and oil in the large mixer bowl.
4. Attach the flat beater, work up to medium speed, and beat until well mixed, about 1 minute.
5. Replace the flat beater with the dough hook and knead at medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.
6. After kneading, shape the dough into a ball and place it in a well-oiled bowl, turning to coat on all sides with the oil. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap to prevent moisture loss and set to rise in a draft-free warm place until doubled in size. This should be about 45 minutes for quick-rising yeast or 1 to 1 ½ hours for regular yeast.
7. With your fist, punch down the dough as soon as it has doubled. Shape it into a ball. I cut the ball into thirds or quarters and roll it super thin.
8. If you can’t make the pizza within 2 hours after rising, punch the dough down again, turn it in an oiled bowl again and refrigerate it up to 36 hours. Let the chilled dough come to room temperature before processing. You can also freeze the dough in a ball wrapped in plastic wrap for another time.
Onion sauce
· ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
· 6 cups thinly sliced sweet yellow onion (about 3 lbs)
· 6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
· 3 tablespoons fresh thyme or 1 tablespoon dried
· 1 bay leaf
· Salt
· Freshly ground black pepper
· 12 flat anchovy filets
· 1 cup Nicoise or other black olives
· 1 tablespoon drained capers
· 1 ½ tablespoons pinenuts
1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf and cook, stirring occasionally until most of the moisture has evaporated and the onion mixture is very soft, almost smooth, and caramelized, about 45 minutes.
2. Discard the bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.
Heat the oven and with the pizza brick in it to 475 degrees F.
Now you are ready to assemble the pizza!
1. Cut the dough into 1/3s or 1/4s and use one per pizza. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured board with a rolling pin.
2. Once it’s rolled out very thin—the thinner, the better–brush the dough lightly with olive oil.
3. Sprinkle the pizza paddle with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking. Quickly lift the dough from the board onto the pizza paddle.
4. Cover the dough with the onion sauce, arrange the anchovies and olives over the onions and sprinkle with the capers and pine nuts. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Do this quickly to reduce the chance of the dough sticking to the pizza paddle.
5. Gently slide the pizza onto the hot pizza brick.
6. Cook 3 or 4 minutes or until the edges are golden brown
Enjoy! And if you’re not an onion-anchovy-garlic person, experiment with your own pizza toppings! Please leave your comments on Pissaladière below. And share your other favorite pizzas.
