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Trying Out Escarole in a Pizza

Written by foodie pam

Thursday, 08 March 2007

A little while ago, Tea, from Tea and Cookies, wrote about a bunch of interesting winter greens. Enticed by her wonderful descriptions, I decided to try a new winter green. I've also been trying various homemade pizza dough recipes and just happened to find a recipe in the most recent Gourmet for a stuffed pizza with Escarole. With two reasons to try Escarole, I made the plunge and tried the pizza.

Finding the Escarole wasn't easy. I had to goto 4 different grocery stores before finding it at Cosentino's, a wonderful South Bay independent grocery that has an amazing vegetable and fruit selection. Of course, I could have easily found Escarole at the San Fransisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, as Tea had, but an hour plus train ride is a bit much just for some winter greens.

I used Sean's (from Hedonia) favorite pizza dough recipe. This was my second homemade pizza dough in the past few weeks and I must say that Sean's recipe produced a much better result than my first attempt. But, I think my preference is for slightly more exotic doughs than a simple white pizza dough, so I'm going to try either a whole wheat or a spinach dough next.

The escarole was great. It requires more cooking than spinach but less than kale. The flavor is also somewhere in between. Spinach can be bitter and the Escarole definitely was not. In addition to the escarole, the pizza had garlic and Italian Fontina. Although I've used Danish Fontina before, I'm not sure I've ever cooked with Italian Fontina before. My understanding is that the Italian Fontina is a little milder than the Danish. Although in the pizza I'm not sure I could detect much of a difference. Overall, the stuffed pizza was really good but not quite as good as the chard based "Pizza Verdura" I made a couple of weeks ago. As much as I like my veggies, however, I think the ounce or two of prosciutto in the "Pizza Verdura" pizza really transformed it from a good pizza to a great pizza which just goes to show you that the little things, or in this case flavors, really are important.

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Last Updated ( Sunday, 11 March 2007 )

Modifications

Sean (Unregistered) 2007-03-13 21:55:15

Hey Pam -- glad you tried the dough! DPaul is really the yeast man in our house, so I can't speak too well on how to adapt the dough to your tastes, but I can say it's pretty forgiving and can take a lot of additions without going funny on you. DPaul frequently sprinkles in dried rosemary or other herbs, plus the addition of a little olive oil can give it a richer flavor and texture. Or parmigiano is nice, too.

Spinach is where it gets trickier, cuz you're introducing more moisture. But adequately floured and rested, you should do fine.

Most of all, have fun with it!

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Tea (Unregistered) 2007-03-21 20:07:39

Wow, escarole in pizza--sounds yummy. Glad you gave it a go (and if it makes you feel any better, I've had a hard time finding escarole as well--no more at the market and hard to find in stores).

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