Following on from the pizza post, I could not resist making Pissaladiere with my leftover dough balls. This has to be the ultimate Autumnal lunch with a delicious roasted Prince Squash and Somerset Goats Cheese salad, or a spiced, roasted prince squash.
The French obviously invented Pizza, although I am not sure they can even lay claim to this dough of delights as many would argue that it originated in Liguria.
Wherever it laid its roots, this wonderfully bready pizza is about as good as it gets. You can make it using wholemeal flour too, for a seriously nutty flavour, and if you have no pizza dough, either make a rough Spelt Puff (See Rough Spelt Puff Blog) or use shop-bought all butter puff… as we don’t judge you… promise.
Paired with a Provençal Rose, this is just a match made in heaven.
For this recipe, using the Neapolitan Pizza dough recipe I previously gave you, you can prepare this recipe in advance and do the two-day prove. If you aren’t that patient, you can add 7g dried yeast or 17g fresh yeast to make the dough in a day.
For the top you need:
3 large Spanish onions or 15 shallots
1-2 tins of anchovies in olive oil
Pitted black olives
Fresh Thyme
Peel the onions. Slice in half. Finely slice. Heat a knob of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil in a non stick pan. Gently soften the onions. Stir from time to time. They don’t want to start crisping. Leave on a low heat for over an hour. Stirring intermittently. Add a little more oil or a drop of water if they need it. They need to soften until sweet. You need to be able to spread them over the soft dough. You can’t even really see the onion strands by the time you have sweated them down properly for long enough.
For the dough:
600g strong bread or pizza flour
350ml water
7g fast action dried yeast
8-10g salt.
Olive oil
Knead the dough by hand or in a mixer until smooth. Leave in a large bowl or tub greased with a good glug of olive oil and covered with a lid. Let it prove all day at room temperature. If it is bubbling way too much, turn it out onto a floured surface, ball and place in the fridge covered with a damp cloth until a couple of hours before you use it.
Pull out of fridge. Re-ball your dough. Leave to get to room temperature for the first hour. In the second hour the balls should relax and go soft enough to open like a pizza base. Flour a surface. Open ball and work in a circular motion from the middle outwards until you have your pizza base. Slide it on to grease proof paper to add toppings. Heat the oven to 240 degrees or get your pizza stone out. Layer your softened onions, then cross cross your anchovies, slit your black olives and scatter a little thyme. Cook for 10 minutes or until golden. You will get two large Pissaladiere pizzas from the above amount of dough.