25 July 2010

Farmer's market pizza

Pizza

One of my favourite things about living in San Diego is the quality of the farmer's markets and the many ethnic markets in the city.  My favourite farmer's market in San Diego is the Little Italy farmer's market on Saturday mornings.  (Mrs. Dude prefers the Hillcrest one on Sunday).  The strength of the Hillcrest market is the selection of produce.  The strength of Little Italy is that it has a butcher, smoked fish vendor, Knight Salumi and a sea urchin vendor.  You can see how a bbq enthusiast would prefer Little Italy.

busker

Saturday was a lovely morning to be at the farmer's market. The sky was blue. The weather was nice, and several musicians were doing their thang.

Little Italy farmer's market

Clearly I wasn't the only one who thought so.

I picked up the pepperoni from Knight Salumi. Forgive the ragged edges, I'm still learning to use my new Sugimoto gyuto. This inspired me to make smoked pizza (I've made described this recipe before so I won't get into details here)

Knight Salumi pepperoni

And I picked up some produce and goat white cheddar (those green zebras are from our garden).

Farmer's market produce

Finally, on my way out of the market, I saw a vendor selling microgreens. When I told him of my smoked pizza plan, he pointed me towards the basil microgreens. I steered clear (seemed to obvious) and headed for the radish microgreens.

Radish microgreens

I made the pizza dough as described here. Laid it out on a screaming hot grill (prepared to have a hot area and a cool area).

Pizza dough

In just two minutes, you can brown one side of the dough. And watch it bubble up.

Pizza dough

When the bubbles get really large...

Pizza dough

And the underside is browned...

Pizza crust

You can flip it over, and bring it into the kitchen to be dressed with garlic oil and toppings.

Pizza

Put it on the cool side of the grill and close up the grill for ten minutes or so (until the cheese has melted).

Pizza

When the cheese looks good, slide the pizza over the fire to brown the underside of the crust for a minute or two. Slide off the grill, and put on any toppings that aren't heat friendly (like the microgreens, and fresh basil leaves from our garden).

Pizza

Serve.  Fresh ingredients on pizza are a huge win.  The radish microgreens added a really nice, bright crisp element to the greasy/cheesiness of this pizza.  But really, it was all win.  And if you're organized, you can have 3 of these on the go simultaneously on the grill, at various stages of cooking.

Yum.

4 comments:

Jane Eckert said...

This looks so good. To find local farmers markets near you check out ruralbounty.com

Gary House, The "Outdoor Cook" said...

Fantastic looking pizza! From market to grill is awesome. I love grilled pizza and you hit it in the spot.

Gary

* said...

That salumi pepperoni was delicious and spicy, and the grilled pizzas you make are ALWAYS excellent!
more grilled pizza!

Indirect Heat said...

Thanks all.

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