Our dear friend Greg from Sippity Sup was recently waxing poetic about Wolfgang Puck’s original Spago restaurant in Hollywood, and we were reminded of his delicious classic Smoked Salmon Pizza, a signature dish during the restaurants heyday in the 80’s. We only had it once, at one of his restaurants in Denver, but still recall the beautiful contrast of the smokey savory salmon with the sweet caramelized red onions and dill crème fraîche. Thanks to the good people from Wolfgang Puck, we are sharing the original restaurant recipe with you today. Serve it for brunch or dinner, or cut into small slices and serve as a party appetizer. (PS: Oprah has a great video featuring the chef preparing this in a restaurant kitchen, you may view it here.)
Today is Pizza day! Why? Because I’ve been craving it since watching Stephani Izard’s video this morning! And although Top Chef Stephanie is a Chicago girl now, she grew up in the East Coast, and admits to being a diehard fan of the NY style thin crust.
Which led us to ponder the never ending NYC thin crust versus Chicago deep dish debate. Yes, it’s been played out to death, but it’s absolutely a subject many feel passionate about! I put a quick shout out on Twitter, and here is a taste of the @replies:
Our Colorado friends Abo’s pizza placed a vote for NY. Delicious food blogger Two Peas and Their Pod voted Chicago, and she gave us her favorite deep dish pizza recipe, thank you! Gera from Sweets Foods wanted to vote from another area, but we did not hear back! So we’ll count that one as neutral, Gera let us know in the comments! Susan from Culture Trek gave us this: ” Aways thin NY, because if I wanted bread, I would eat…. bread (sorry Chicago, I love most everything else about you)”. Food writer Cate OMalley from the Sweetnicks blog had this to say: “thin crust with bubbles all the way”. Teacher and writer Carrie Havranek said “NY Thin! You need to be able to walk around with the pizza while you are doing five other things. Can’t do that w/ deep dish!” Which brings us to an interesting advantage of the big apple: foldability. New Yorkers love being able to multitask and eat their slices while driving cabs, and trekking the city, an impossible feat with silverware. My vote: sorry Chicago, the NY crispy minimalism wins my heart every time. Final score: NY 5, Chicago 1. More responses are need, let us know in the comments what your preference is, we would love to hear it!
In our featured video today, Stephanie visits Spacca Napoli where they show her their secrets for an authentic Neopolitan Italian pizza. She then goes home with two cute munchkins in tow, and she makes her own version with a white wine and honey crust, and a garlic tomato sauce with apples. Read about her experience here, and her written recipe is here. If you are an ipod user, be sure to subscribe to her podcast “The Tasty Life” so that you can catch every delicious episode.
See you in Aspen Stephanie! This just in via The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen on Facebook, “Watch Top Chef Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard challenge Top Chef Season 5 winner Hosea Rosenberg at this year’s Quickfire Classic Cook-Off.” Big cheers again for our friends from Plum Tv for getting us there!
Jacques Pépin is truly one of our favorite chefs of all time. Author of 25 cookbooks and host of over 300 cooking shows on public television, his elegant recipes and detailed instructions command a deep level of respect from both home cooks and culinary experts throughout the world.
In this video from Food & Wine magazine, Jacques and his daughter Claudine prepare a 10 minute recipe of cured salmon gravlax pizza, a quick and delicious appetizer that would bring holiday cheer to your Christmas party with minimal effort!
What is gravlax you ask? Scandinavian in origin, gravlax literally translates to “salmon dug into the ground”. In the middle ages, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Estonian fisherman had a special technique to cure their freshly caught salmon. They salted it and fermented it (to preserve the fish) by burying it into the sand for several days. Modern preparation of gravlax is much simpler, thinly sliced salmon is simply cured with a dry rub of salt, sugar, and often dill.
Jacques Pépin’s recipe for salmon gravlax pizza calls for the following ingredients: thinly sliced raw salmon, kosher salt, pepper, brown sugar, sour cream, horseradish, a cooked thin pizza crust (you may use a frozen pizza dough to prepare this), thinly sliced red onion, black olives, capers, and basil.
Salmon Gravlax Pizza
Chef Jacques Pepin
For the gravlax:
½ pound skinless boneless salmon fillet
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 ½ teaspoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
A little oil
For the pizza:
1 flour tortilla
Olive oil
¼ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon horseradish, homemade or store-bought
¼ cup red onion, sliced very thin
6 black oil-cured olives, pitted and cut into pieces
7 or 8 fresh basil leaves
Fleur de sel, for garnish
Directions
For the gravlax, cut the salmon into 8 thin slices, and arrange them in a single layer on a flat plate or platter. Mix together the kosher salt, light brown sugar, and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle half of this mixture evenly over the salmon slices, turn the slices over, and sprinkle with the remaining seasoning mixture. Spread a thin coating of oil on the slices, just enough to make the salmon shiny, and press a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the salmon. Refrigerate to cure; it will be ready in an hour or less, although you can leave it overnight or even up to a day. (We are using only 4 slices of gravlax on our pizza. Make a second pizza, or enjoy the leftover gravlax with cucumber and/or sliced onion and buttered black bread.)
Preheat the oven to 500°F. Precook the tortilla for this pizza. Coat the tortilla with olive oil, using about ½ teaspoon on each side. Place the oiled tortilla on a cookie sheet and, to prevent it from curling up and bubbling in the oven without the weight of toppings to hold it down, place a rack or cake stand upside down directly on top of the tortilla. The rack will hold it flat as it cooks. Bake for about 5 minutes to brown the tortilla nicely and make it crisp. Let cool before continuing.
When the tortilla is cool, coat with the sour cream, and then spread on the horseradish. (My friend Claude has enormous and pungent horseradish in his garden that he peels, grates, and puts in a jar with a little vinegar, salt, and water.) Arrange 4 slices of gravlax on top, so the salmon covers most of the surface, although it’s attractive if a little sour cream shows through here and there. Sprinkle the sliced red onion on top, and then scatter the olives over the surface. Finally, coarsely tear the basil leaves into pieces, and top the pizza with the basil. Cut the pizza into 8 pieces. Sprinkle with fleur de sel.
Napoletana Pizza, from Naples, Italy, is traditionally cooked in a wood fired oven with a well cured oak. And the Italians take their pizza seriously! There is actually an Italian association of strict requirements found here, that pizza makers must comply with to label their pizza as “Napoletana”.
Although there is no doubt that the association would disapprove, Italian Chef Gino D’Acampo prepares a simpler oven cooked version of Napoletana pizza in this video. It’s worth watching just to see his hand gestures!
Our dear friend Greg from Sippity Sup was recently waxing poetic about Wolfgang Puck’s original Spago restaurant in Hollywood, and we were reminded of his delicious classic Smoked Salmon Pizza, a signature dish during the restaurants heyday in the 80’s. We only had it once, at one of his restaurants in Denver, but still recall the beautiful contrast of the smokey savory salmon with the sweet caramelized red onions and dill crème fraîche. Thanks to the good people from Wolfgang Puck, we are sharing the original restaurant recipe with you today. Serve it for brunch or dinner, or cut into small slices and serve as a party appetizer. (PS: Oprah has a great video featuring the chef preparing this in a restaurant kitchen, you may view it here.)
