Turkey, Green Olive, and Sun-dried Tomato Pizza
I had plenty of turkey left over from Thanksgiving and a big jar of green olives from Costco, so I came up with a recipe to use them.
THE DOUGH
Start dough at 4p for dinner between 7p and 8p
1 cup warm water (90 to 110 degrees F.) [280 grams]
2 tsp instant-rise yeast
3-1/4 cup bread flour [415 grams]
1 tsp salt
6 Tbls 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, about two hours.
THE PIZZA
10 oz. cooked turkey
6 oz. pimento-stuffed green olives, sliced
4 oz. sun-dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 Tbls olive oil
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded (You can also substitute fontina, as I often do.)
1-1/2 to 2 cups thick tomato sauce seasoned with:
2 Tbls Italian seasoning
1 Tbls garlic powder
1 Tbls onion powder
1 can of anchovies (or salt to taste)
About an hour before dinner time, turn the oven up as high as it will go, preferably 500 degrees. Thirty to forty minutes before baking, 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 olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap for this second rise
Spread the tomato sauce over the dough up to the raised border. Arrange the turkey, green olives, and sun-dried tomatoes evenly over the sauce. Cover with the shredded cheese.
Bake the pizza on the bottom rack of the preheated oven for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted and speckled.
Mangia! Mangia!
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 on Amazon, 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.
I paired this pizza with this excellent Chianti Classico.