Thursday, April 1, 2010

Venetian Rolled Pizza

Before leaving on my trip to Florida, I got a chance to see my friend Diana who came home to lovely So Cal during her spring break. What better way to hang out than to make food and chat it up :). Before we started cooking, we ventured out to the mall and saw some cute puppies at Moondoggies and checked out awesome cookware at William Sonoma and Crate and Barrel. *Sigh* I wish I had a budget just for these two amazing stores (including Sur La Table). I would probably walk out with random kitchen gadgets such as a cherry pitter, avocado slicer and other unnecessary items you could replace with a knife. I still want it!

After browsing all the cool stuff, we went to Borders and found a book by Giada De Laurentiis that had a recipe we definitely wanted to try. We are both fans of Food Network and what better way to find a recipe than by looking into one of their star's books. Diana likes Alton Brown b/c of the cool science and food integration; I really like Barefoot Contessa and Nigela Lawson. We both agree that Paula Dean puts way too much butter into everything (doesn't everyone think that?) and Sandra Lee isn't really cooking... Anyway, on to the recipe:



Total time to prep and bake: 35 minutes

Venetian Rolled Pizza
Recipe courtesy of Giada de Laurentiis
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/venetian-rolled-pizza-recipe/index.html

Ingredients

* Flour, for dusting
* 1 pound pizza dough (Trader Joe's has it for $1.39!)
* 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese (only $2.99)
* 7 ounces prosciutto, thinly sliced (probably the most expensive piece of the recipe)
* 1 cup (about 1 1/2 ounces) torn baby spinach
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* Kosher salt, for seasoning (no need for this because the prosciutto is really really salty)

Directions

Position an oven rack in the lower 1/3 of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees F.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pizza dough to a 12 to 14-inch diameter circle, about 1/4-inch thick. Sprinkle 1/2 of the mozzarella over the dough. Arrange the prosciutto over the cheese in a single layer. Sprinkle with the spinach. Top with the remaining cheese. Take 1 end of the circle and roll the dough up into a thin cylinder, gently folding in the ends. Brush the dough with the olive oil and season with the salt (or use pepper instead). Place the dough, seam side down, on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes until the top is golden brown. Allow the pizza to cool for 10 minutes. Cut the pizza into 3/4-inch pieces and serve.

Commentary:
WARNING - SALT OVERLOAD!!! We had too much prosciutto left over that we started another layer on top of the first layer. Bad idea. You should put more spinach instead of the ham because it helps get rid of the saltiness. We both had to stuff our pieces with extra spinach (uncooked) to make it less salty and more like a regular pizza. Another thing you could add is marinara sauce, raw tomatoes or mushrooms to add more veggies to the dish.





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