Sourdough Pizza

by jenjenk on March 11, 2011

Last month, I received some sourdough starter from my friend from High School, Sari.  Some of you  may have seen some clips of Sari’s 4 year old daughter teaching us various cooking skills [via delicioustings.com].  This sourdough starter actually comes from Germany over 50 years ago and [if I got my story straight] was gifted to the Berkeley School District Garden & Cooking program.  This starter produces some wonderfully tangy bread and I’m excited about all the options that I have before me with this starter!

 

My other friends from High School/Junior High respectively, Todd & Emiko, recently asked for some starter to use for their wonderful breads! I happily obliged since they promised me a loaf of bread to take home.  [My momma didn’t raise a fool.]  The last time I went to their house, Emiko had mentioned her recent acquisition of 3 hens.  I had laughed because we live in Los Angeles.  I didn’t know anyone who actually had hens in Los Angeles…until that moment.  Emiko had the last laugh when she produced [and gifted me with] these beautiful eggs.  The shells were much harder than what you would buy in the stores.  As I was leaving, Emiko’s only request was that I use the eggs as the main star of whatever dish I made.

I thought about various recipes that I could use the egg in.  Egi Gohan – eggs & rice was at the top of my list but seemed too boring for these beautiful treasures.  I remembered a lunch I had at Pizzeria Mozza and how much I enjoyed it.  That was it.  What was more perfect was that I’ve been trying to find a time to try out a sourdough pizza dough recipe that I wanted to try out.

I love sourdough.  It’s one of my favorite breads.  I had no idea when I first started that it would take a day to get any finished product from the starter.  I started and stopped so often that I never thought I’d get a chance to actually TASTE the product.  Pizza was the perfect thing and so easy to make

! Mixing the ingredients together and letting proof for 18 hours was the most challenging part!  After that point, I rolled it out into a “rustic” form.

Then I baked it at 500 degrees on a pizza stone for a few minutes, just to pre-bake it a bit.  I’m not a big fan of sauces so I w

as determined to keep my pizza from being laden with thick cheese and red/white goopy sauce.  So after removing the the crust from the oven, I lightly drizzled olive oil and sprinkled finely diced garlic on the crust.  I layered on small chunks of goat cheese and topped it with a huge handful of arugula.  I took some fine slices of Prosciutto di Parma and placed it on the arugula.

 

In the little hole that I made in the Prosciutto I gently and carefully placed the slippery raw egg…only to see it fall off to the side.  I battled the egg for a bit and eventually, I won.  I baked it off for another 10 – 15 minutes, still at 500 degrees.

I was ready to eat this.  All. By. Myself.  It was an amazing pizza – tangy sourdough, salty Prosciutto, with the rich moist egg yolk delightfully [and LIGHTLY] coating my pizza.

 

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Todd March 11, 2011 at 5:06 am

Glad to see the eggs went to good use! We will let you know when we have more for you because the Almond Tea Cake was delicious! We can exchange anytime…

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Jeremy Pepper May 16, 2011 at 1:53 am

I tried – tried being the key word here – to make sourdough bread in high school. Couldn’t get the starter to, well, start and the author of the recipe in the local paper offered me a bit of his starter … which was more than 150 years old.

I shoulda taken it.

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jenjenk May 16, 2011 at 5:50 am

oh MAN!! 150 year old starter??? yeah….you should’ve taken it! that would’ve been so fantastic! would kill for something that active…

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