Pizza Marengo
Chicken Marengo was created by Napoleon’s cook, Dundand, at Marengo, a small town in the Piedmont region of Italy. Napoléon had just defeated the Austrians on June 14, 1800, and, so the story goes, was famished. Dundand, however, had very little to work with, the commissary having been left behind because Napoléon was in hot pursuit. So he foraged around and came up with some chicken, tomatoes, garlic , and crayfish–some fried eggs got in the picture somewhere, too.
Well, the contemporary version of chicken (and veal) Marengo does not include either crayfish or eggs but rather onions, mushrooms, and olives. Here it is in pizza form.
THE DOUGH
THE DOUGH
Start dough at 4p for dinner between 7p and 8p
1 cup warm water (90 to 110 degrees F.)
2 tsp instant-rise yeast
3-1/4 cup bread flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil (extra virgin not necessary)
Combine ingredients and knead by hand for 10 minutes or machine
for two to five minutes. Coat dough ball in a thin film of olive oil or cooking spray, cover in plastic wrap, and let rise in warm place until doubled in size.
THE PIZZA
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 pound skinless, boneless chicken thigh, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/4 pound shrimp, cut into thirds
1 poblano pepper, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
16 to 20 oil-cured or brine-cured olives, such as Kalamata, pitted and chopped
1-1/2 to 2 cups marinara sauce
1/2 pound mozzarella (or fontina) cheese, shredded
In a large skillet or sauté pan, warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat for 1 minute. Add the chicken, poblano, onion, and garlic. Cook and stir for about 4 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook for another 4 minutes or until the proteins are cooked through and the the pepper begins to soften. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fold in the olives.
An hour before dinner time, turn the oven up as high as it will go, preferably 500 degrees. Next, roll dough out to 15” circle. [Or divide dough if you want to make two smaller pizzas.] Place on pizza screen if available, being careful not to press the dough into the mesh. With your fingers, press and form a 1/2 inch border around the edge. Gently brush or rub the dough with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap for a second rise.
When the dough is ready, spread the marinara sauce over the dough up to the raised border. Spread the chicken/shrimp mixture evenly over the sauce. Cover with the shredded cheese.
Bake the pizza on the bottom rack of the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted.
I paired this pizza with Garzon Tannat Reserva 2022 from Uruguay.
Serves 4 to 6.
The dough for this recipe came from James McNair’s excellent New Pizza. Don’t be discouraged by the one-star reviews, they are bogus, imho. One dweeb complained that McNair didn’t cover such arcane techniques as cold fermentation. Geez. If you want a cold ferment, use room temperature water and let the dough rise in the refrigerator for 24 hours. But, you’re not going to have pizza tonight, and you won’t taste the subtleties a cold ferment brings to dough under all those toppings.
The Marengo recipe itself is derived from one in The Ultimate Pizza by Pasquale Bruno, Jr., another quite reliable pizza book.
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