Pizza sin Formaggio

I got inspired to make a cheese-free pizza the other night. The twist was, it was tomato-free as well. The idea is roughly based on the Ricardo pizza at Roberto’s Zerro Otto Nove trattoria on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. ‘Zero Otto Nove’ translates as ‘Otto’s New Zero.’ (Just kidding.)

Ingredients:

1 medium Kabacho or butternut squash. A pumpkin will suffice in a pinch, and would likely be very good in fact.

5 shallots

Prosciutto 1 handful thinly-sliced and chopped 4-6 oz

brown sugar 3-4 teaspoons

minced rosemary needles 1 teaspoon

olive oil

pizza dough of any origin

Preparation:

Quarter the squash, scrape out the seeds and roast for 30 minutes until you can pierce with a fork. Purée, adding a little water and a teaspoon of brown sugar. The final consistency should be a bit thinner than tomato paste. Set aside.

Shave the shallots. You can use whatever means you prefer. I used a knife and cut them very thinly. Preheat a skillet, then add olive oil. Sauté the shallots slowly over medium heat. Continue until they are golden-brown but still soft. Add 2-3 teaspoons of brown sugar and incorporate with a spatula until the shallot mixture is glistening. Set aside.

On to the crust

One thing about pizza crust that I can prove is: the way you treat it matters more than the absolute perfection of the dough itself. Because the one thing that I do not have that Otto’s New Zero does have is a wood-fired stove that reaches a temperature of 809 degrees- yet I can still turn out a thin, crispy crust.

To make up for the lack of a pizza oven, I obsessively follow this order of steps:

1. allow the dough to come to room temperature if it has been refrigerated
2. preheat your oven to ‘all the way.’ Your smoke detector will likely go off, so be forewarned. This pizza is going to cook by eye so ‘as hot as it gets’ is the rule.
3. apply olive oil to a large cookie sheet, then cut a piece of parchment to fit and apply olive oil to that too. The first layer of oil adheres the paper to the pan and the second de-adheres the finished pizza from the paper. Ironic, isn’t it?
4. fit the dough to the pan in stages. if it is at first reluctant to comply, let it rest a bit and then come at it again. Gradually, you should be able to spread the dough to the four corners, using the ball of your fist to regrade the surface until the dough is thinly and evenly distributed.
5. using a fork, prick the crust all over.
6. place in the hot oven and check every minute or so until it just starts to turn color.
7. remove for further operations

Building the Pizza

Using a baking spatula, trowel-on the pureed squash evenly. Sprinkle the minced rosemary over the squash.

Drop on the shallots in small clumps with your fingers or tongs. You will probably want to spread them out more evenly using a pair of forks. I recommend it.

Now add the minced prosciutto, deftly apportioning it so it becomes statistically even slice-wise over the entire pie. For a precise mathematical explanation see Wolfram Research, otherwise just eyeball it.

Now into the oven. If you’ve kept your furnace blasting, it should be a matter of 5 or 6  minutes until it’s done. What is done? See the photograph and you will have read my mind on the subject.