melting your mouth

I think this is finally the end of my Christmas Eve dinner posts, at least until next year!

As you can see, my parents have a wood-fired pizza oven, which makes for a nice party centerpiece as well as some absolutely delicious pizzas, and also other dishes including breads, meat, and roasted vegetables.

These are not so much recipes as lists of some combinations of toppings we enjoy for pizzas. As I said, we served them as appetizers, but they can definitely make a good main dish instead. Most of these are based on ideas from Mugnaini, the company where my parents bought their oven and where they recently went to cooking school. The last one is based on something we had at Myth, a restaurant in San Francisco.

Sometime I promise to share my parents’ delicious new recipe for pizza dough as well (assuming they’ll share it with me first!).

What are some of your favorite pizza toppings? I’d love to hear more suggestions in the comments section!

Creme Fraiche and Smoked Salmon

(or as my uncle David nicknamed it, “The Stinky Frenchman”)
adapted from Mugnaini

Top pizza with creme fraiche, lemon zest, and dill; bake.
As soon as it comes out of the oven, top with smoked salmon, cut into strips. (It’s much tastier than it looks in the photo, I promise!)

Wilted Spinach, Fontina, and Truffle Oil

adapted from Mugnaini

Top pizza with barely wilted spinach and fontina. After baking, drizzle with truffle oil.

Blue Cheese and Caramelized Onion

adapted from Mugnaini

Caramelize onions by slicing them and cooking them over pretty low heat until they turn golden and sweet. Top pizza with chopped thyme, caramelized onions, and maytag blue cheese.

Prosciutto and Roasted Red Pepper

adapted from Myth, San Francisco

I know honey sounds kind of strange to put on a pizza, but don’t be too sparing. It nicely cuts the saltiness of the prosciutto and gorgonzola.

Make a sauce by roasting red pepper and then pureeing it. You can mix this with a bit of creme fraiche for a creamier texture. (We are not on agreement over which was more like the one at Myth.) Top this with prosciutto, crumbled gorgonzola, chopped chives, parmesan cheese, and a generous drizzle of honey.

Tags: cheese, pizza, prosciutto, smoked salmon

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Appetizers, Family Recipe, Main Dish, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.