Caramelized onion and fresh ricotta pizza

What a perfect weekend. Jungyon, Angela, and Jenny came over on Saturday night and we went to Long Branch beach on Saturday morning. We had brunch at the Turning Point (to be chronicled later) and came back to a home-cooked dinner involving fresh pizza (dough and ricotta cheese homemade), chive and cheddar biscuits, and salted caramel ice cream! Oh, and lots of wine.

A sneak peak into the salted butter caramel ice cream…

In time, everything will be blogged, but first on the list is the pizza. This is the second time I’ve made pizza dough, and I really do love this recipe. Not only does it puff up perfectly with tones of golden brown, but it gets all crispy if you reheat the pizza. I absolutely loveee mozzarella cheese, especially the way it turns into string and dangles when still bubbling and melted, but there’s something to be said about ricotta cheese on pizza. I think it’s highly under used because many don’t realize that it’s a great if not healthy substitute. It’s actually lower in fat than cottage cheese yet retains the smoothness and creaminess when heated.

When you do the math, making ricotta cheese at home is so much more economical than buying a tub at the supermarket. All it takes is milk, buttermilk, heavy cream, and some salt! The whole cooking process only takes minutes and the rest involves waiting and straining. I estimated that I could make two to three times the amount of ricotta cheese I’d get at the store using the same amount of money.

Milk + Vinegar = Buttermilk in the making

What’s even better is that you don’t have to buy buttermilk if you don’t have it at home. Just mix a tablespoon of vinegar into every cup of whole milk. The milk will start to curdle (like in the above picture). Leave it for 10 minutes and it’ll really begin to separate.

For the homemade ricotta cheese, I took a Sicilian recipe off of allrecipes. The recipe makes ALOT of ricotta cheese, like 2lb worth. I actually only made a quarter of what the original recipe yielded and it was just the perfect amount for my pizza.

Sicilian Homemade Ricotta Cheese
Allrecipes (yields 5 cups)

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon whole milk
• 1 quart buttermilk
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 18-inch squares cheesecloth

Recipe:

Line a large sieve with 4 layers of cheesecloth. Set aside. If you don’t have cheesecloth, you can use coffee filters. Most recipes will tell you to use 2-3 filters, but I found that one was more than sufficient.

Heat milk, buttermilk, heavy cream, and salt in a large  saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally for the first 10 minutes. Continue heating, without stirring, until the temperature reaches 190 degrees F. Remove from heat and let stand for 1 hour. The mixture will be separated into white curds and clear whey.

If you don’t have a thermometer, you can tell when it reaches 190F by when the curds begin to separate from the whey. However, at 190F, the milk is not yet bubbling (like it does when water boils). Don’t let it sit too long on the fire or else it’ll bubble and foam and create this huge mess.

Using a slotted spoon, ladle approximately 1/4 of the curds into the cheesecloth/filter-lined sieve. Gather up the corners of the top cheesecloth/filter and secure closed with a zip tie. Repeat with the rest of the curds, cheesecloth/filter, and zip ties. Use the last zip tie to thread all of the cheeses together. Suspend the cheeses over a large wooden spoon over a large bowl, and let drain for 2 hours.

Place the four cheeses, still in cloth, in a bowl in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, cut zip ties, and transfer cheese to an airtight container.

I got the idea for this pizza from Deb of Smitten Kitchen. She made this fresh ricotta and red onion pizza topped with prosciutto that looked absolutely divine. I actually made it a couple of weeks back, but opted for pepperoni since prosciutto shrivels up in the oven and is like 5x more expensive than pepperoni. I’d like to think that my version of this pizza turned out to be a hit and I think it was confirmed when the four of us polished off the whole thing. It also looked dang good- orderly enough to look like it came from a pizzeria, but rustic enough to look homemade.

The “really simple pizza dough” recipe is also taken from Smitten Kitchen. Like making fresh ricotta, fresh pizza dough takes literally takes 2 minutes to prepare and the rest of the time involves waiting, then punching the dough down, and then waiting. This particular dough works really well on thin pizzas, although if you make it thick, the edges get so crispy when you reheat it. All in all, it’s a surprisingly flavorful dough with tones of olive oil.

Once you actually start working with yeast, you never want to go back to store brought dough or bread. It’s just so simple to make and so much better tasting. I’ve also noticed that I don’t feel as weighed down with homemade carb products than I do with those I buy from the store.

Really simple pizza dough
taken from Smitten Kitchen (makes one small, thin crust pizza)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Recipe:

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (four, salt, yeast). Add the water and olive oil, stirring the mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Then, on a lightly floured surface, knead everything into one ball. If the dough is too sticky, your best bet is to actually take a break. Leave the dough on a floured surface and put an empty bowl upside-down on top of it. Come back in five minutes and the dough will be much easier to manipulate.

Knead the dough for a minute and lightly oil the bowl where you will leave it in. Dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover in plastic wrap, and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until the dough has doubled in size. I like to boil some water in a cup in the microwave and then leave the dough in there so that the steam from the water will activate the yeast. This is really only necessary in the fall and winter.

Now on a floured counter, punch down the flour so that the air dissipates out of the dough. Fold the piece into a ball and let it sit under the plastic wrap for another 20 more minutes.

Here’s the fun part. Now you’re ready to work and stretch your dough. Using a rolling pin is futile and what I find most useful is just stretching it with your fingers while rotating the dough. Make sure that it’s even and level or else you’re going to have some lumpy pizza. The dough bakes at 400F, although I kept it at 350F for 15 minutes and then turned it up to 400F in the last five minutes.

Caramelized onion and fresh ricotta pizza

Ingredients:

• Ricotta
• 1 onion
• Pepperoni
• Pizza dough
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt & pepper

Recipe:

Chop the onions so that you get half rings. For a large pizza, one large onion will suffice but for a smaller pizza, one medium onion will do. In an oiled skillet, sautee the onion for 15-20 minutes until they become golden brown and sweet. Add a pinch of salt to the onions. Set aside the onions.

With your pizza dough stretched out to the shape that you want (make sure you create a crust by pressing your fingers into the dough where you want the crust to be), rub the olive oil on the surface of the dough. Layer the caramelized onions on top and then scatter the ricotta. The ricotta may be lumpy and creamy, but spread it all out. Then, add the pepperoni. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes on 350F for the first 15 minutes and then 400 degrees for the last five minutes. You can keep it at 350F for the whole duration if the crust begins to brown, but I found that the crust only browned and maintained its crunch at 400F for a few minutes.

And the best part about this pizza is that it can serve alot of people with minimal amount of work! It’s great for entertaining.

You should also check out:

1. How to make pizza (dough)
2. Pizza Gruppo (93 Plates)
3. Pizza Hut
4. Easy Way Out Jumbo Dumplings
5. How to make Mascarpone Cheese!

Posted in Cooking Recipes, Dinner, Favorites