A couple of weeks back, I came across this post over at The Paupered Chef and this post at Serious Eats on how a technique for making pizzeria style pizza at home – and I’d been dying to try it out ever since. I’ve actually gone to make it once or twice, but then either forgot to start the dough or something else would get in the way. However, since I recently started tweaking this technique I’ve been working with for the infamous No-Knead Bread recipe, I’ve had a very yummy dough, sitting in the fridge, waiting to go.

So when I saw the asparagus that I received in my most recent FFTY Box, and started thinking about things I wanted to do with it, I hit upon the idea for putting it on a pizza, and thus was this dish born. Because I didn’t think that the asparagus would go as well with a tomato based sauce, I decided to make something a little different. The flavor of the carmelized onion and lemon juice went perfectly with asparagus – although I imagine you could easily use this sauce on a pasta dish as well – it’s that good. The method that they use, was to cook the pizza under the broiler – on a preheated cast iron pan, which allows enough heat for that chewy crust that all great pizza’s have to form. I used the flat side of cast iron griddle, though – since I wanted a bigger pizza than my cast iron skillet could accomodate, and I thought it would be easier to get the pizza on and off of.

Although I had read the two posts from The Paupered Chef and Serious Eats a while back, it probably would have done me some good to re-read them before I made these (which I didn’t) because I did end up making a few mistakes… learning a couple of lessons on the way to this. The first and most important of which is that – parchment paper can actually catch fire under a broiler. In case you were wondering. That doesn’t mean I won’t use it, because my second lesson was – it’s really hard to transfer dough covered with toppings to a pizza peel without screwing it up. (The above picture is of the first pizza Calzone that I made. I was trying to transfer the dough to the peel, and it had decided to stick to the table, and it all just kinda ended up getting rolled in to a loaf rather than staying in pizza form. Of course, if I’d re-read the paupered chef’s article, I might have pre-baked the dough (and I might next time) which could have helped as well. However, the calzone-thingy, aside from being a little doughy in the center and getting a little burnt up under the broiler, ended up being delicious in spite of all my fail. The second pizza, I rolled out on top of the parchment paper and watched very carefully, turned out perfect. Fortunately, the sauce was much less troublesome.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Asparagus, ends trimmed, cut in to 1″ lengths, blanched
• 2 large onions, halved and sliced
• 4 cloves Garlic; finely minced
• 1 tbs Fresh Thyme, finely minced
• 1 cup White Wine
• 1 stick Butter
• 2 tbs Olive Oil
• 2 Lemons; juiced and zested
• Kosher Salt to Taste
• 4 slices Serrano Ham (optional – can leave off for veggie eaters!)
• 8 oz Manchego Cheese; shredded
• 1/2 batch rested No Knead Bread dough
• Kosher Salt
• Flour for dusting
• Cornmeal for dusting

Method:

• To prepare the dough, follow steps for baking the No Knead Bread up to resting in the flour covered towel and set aside until ready to assemble.
• Place the cast iron griddle (or skillet) under broiler and begin preheating
• In a Large, heavy skillet, melt the butter and olive oil together over medium heat.
• Add the onions, and cook until carmelized.
• Add in the White Wine, and simmer until reduced and thickened
• Stir in the Lemon Juice, Zest, Thyme and Garlic
• If neccessary, reduce just until sauce is thick enough that a line can be drawn through it
• Remove from heat
• Dived the dough in to two portions
• On a floured piece of parchment paper, roll out the dough in to desired shape (I used a rectangle, because I was using a cast iron griddle)
• Spread with Onions and sauce, then top with the serrano ham asparagus, and manchego cheese.
• Tear off as much excess of the parchment paper as you can
• Using a pizza peel, transfer the pizza to the preheated griddle
• Broil until crust is golden and cheese is bubbly