Essentially, Khachapuri (pronounced hatch-a-pooree), is a bread canoe filled with hot bubbling cheese and topped with a runny egg. How bad could that be?
This decadent dish originated in the Republic of Georgia,. It’s been on my “must bake” list for several years now. It checks all the boxes for pandemic comfort eating, so I decided the time was right. I pulled out all the various recipes I had been collecting and started baking.
Over the past month my oven has churned out over a dozen khachapuri. I wanted to get it perfect. The first hurdle was what to use for the cheese filling. In Georgia they use a combo of imeruli and sulguni cheeses, neither of which are available in Ottawa. I tested some possible substititions and discovered that I liked a combo of mozzarella, ricotta and feta.
Once the filling was settled, I turned my attention to the dough. The more traditional recipes called for an enriched (butter and milk added) dough. While quite delicious, we found that version to be just too rich. I decided on a leaner pizza dough, enriched with just a tablespoon of olive oil. Storebought pizza dough is fine, but homemade is better.
In a desperate attempt at delusion, I added a big heaping handful of massaged kale to each khachapuri, in order to convince myself that these were healthy.
To get the classic canoe shape, the dough is rolled into an oval. Add the filling, leaving about a one inch border. Then roll up the edges, toward the centre and pinch and twist the top and bottom of the canoe to seal.
When the khachapuri are almost done, pull them from the oven to add the egg for the final few minutes of cooking. I tried it with whole eggs and just the yolk, and preferred the yolk.
In addition to finishing the dish with an egg, the traditional recipe also adds a few pats of butter once it comes out of the oven. Shockingly, this butter lover decided to omit that step of the recipe. Just too much.
The best way to eat khachapuri is with your hands. Rip off a piece of the crust and dip it in the runny egg and cheese, preferably while sitting in front of the TV watching Netflix. We’re watching Fauda right now and it makes for messy but very delicious eating.
I blame my addiction to online shopping on my late paternal grandmother, my Bubbe. I grew up in Toronto, but she lived in Philadelphia. At least twice a years would send us her special poppy seed cookies. She always packaged them in a shoe box for mailing. I was conditioned to anticipate the arrival of apparel boxes at a very early age. It’s not my fault.
If you think about it, online shopping is really just the evolution of 20th Century catalogue shopping. If you are Canadian and of a certain age, you will remember The Eaton’s Catalogue. As a child, I spent many happy hours lusting after Barbie clothes and accessories. Not much has changed.
I recently discovered an unexpected bonus of online shopping. With my Amazon Prime subscription, I have access to Amazon TV. While making these breakfast pizzas, I began binge watching Good Girls Revolt. I had been feeling a bit lost after finishing Downton Abbey, and this series is filling the void.
Feel free to use store-bought pizza dough, or make your own. I am a big fan of Jim Lahey’s no-knead pizza dough. All you do it mix flour, yeast, salt and water in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Cover it and let is sit overnight until it becomes all bubbly. I have included the recipe for it at the end of this post.
My breakfast pizzas were inspired by an episode on Cook’s Country
The first one I created starts with a ricotta and feta base and is topped with nests of sautéed leeks cradling golden eggs.Each bite delivers a perfect combination of texture and taste; crispy, bubbly crust, creamy ricotta, gooey mozzarella, tangy Gruyere and golden brown caramelized leeks. Topping this pizza off with eggs may seem like excess, but trust me, when your fork breaks the sunny yolk, and you drag the crust through that golden eggy goodness, you will thank me. My second breakfast pizza is Southwestern, featuring tomatoes, corn, jalapeño, avocado and cilantro.Thinly sliced grape tomatoes form the nests to hold the eggs. The avocado and cilantro are added after cooking.
This socca pizza is the creation of Gwyneth Paltrow. Regardless of your feelings for Gwynnie, this socca is pretty awesome! (For the record, I’m a fan) It was featured in this spring’s In Style Magazine. Bookmark this one for when you have to cook for those annoying vegan friends. (No judgement here!!)
Toss sliced carrots with olive oil, salt and za’atar. Bonus points if you can find some purple and yellow carrots to mix in with the orange ones. Roast them in a hot oven for about 20 minutes. Avocado, cilantro and lime join the party. A lemon-tahini sauce makes a fine accompaniment to drizzle on top.
Happy Canada Day! For 148 years old, the old broad’s in pretty good shape. As I survey the state of the world around me, I feel supremely grateful to be living in this beautiful country.
Many Canadian families commemorated the day with a 2-4 of Labatts, a Timmie’s double double or perhaps one of these awesome treats. Here at our cottage we celebrated with a pizza decorated like the Canadian flag, because that’s just how we roll. My daughter sent me this photo of an American Flag pizza and said we should make a Canadian version. I’m always up for a culinary challenge. The dough should be made at least a day or two in advance. The slow rise in the fridge allows the flavours to develop and the end result is a crust with a nutty flavour and a satisfying chewy texture. Within 10 minutes, the warm water has activated the yeast and it’s all bubbly.The sauce for this pizza couldn’t be simpler. Just blend everything together . No cooking required. Anchovy paste is the secret ingredient that gives incredible depth of flavour, but not a fishy taste.The dough gets stretched flat in a well oiled 13 x 18 inch sheet pan. If the dough refuses to stretch, and keeps springing back, wait about 10 minutes and try again. It’s like a toddler having a temper tantrum. Just walk away and come back after it’s had a chance to relax.Sauce goes next. Then a layer of shredded mozzarella and a grating of Parmesan.We used a maple leaf cookie cutter to help us form the roasted grape tomatoes into a leaf shape. Two rows of thinly sliced raw plum tomatoes made a pretty red border.Happy Cannabis Day. Sort of looks more like a cannabis leaf than a maple leaf!
It’s possible that I may never look at pizza the same way again. Last weekend we visited NYC with our friends, The Grizzlies. Now, I should tell you that “The Grizzlies” is not their real name. It is an alias I use to protect their identity. They are such fabulous travelling companions, I worry that if I reveal their identity, others will want to travel with them and they will never be free to travel with us.
We decided to go to NYC with them to celebrate my husband and Mr. Grizzly’s birthdays (just a week apart). I have given them this nickname as they share many similarities with grizzly bears. As you may know, grizzly bears hibernate for the winter. In preparation for hibernation, they must eat heavily for several weeks prior to the hibernation period as they will be living off the stored fat for several months. Apparently this was the weekend Mr. Grizzly intended to pack on his necessary pounds. (And he took us along as hostages!)
Usually when I travel, I spend many hours obsessing over what to do and where to eat. This time I left the itinerary planning up to Mr. Grizzly. We travelled to NYC with them in 2010 and Mr. Grizzly did such an outstanding job planning our itinerary on that trip that I put myself in his hands again.
The only suggestion that I made was Scott’s Greenwich Village Pizza Walking Tour that I had read about on Serious Eats and was intrigued. Plus, I figured if it was a walking tour we might burn off a few calories!
We met in the West Village at 11:30 am to begin the tour. As soon as Scott started his introduction, I knew we were in for a special treat. His enthusiasm was infectious. His knowledge of the history and culture of pizza would put wikipedia to shame. I was ready to follow Scott wherever he chose to lead us. Scott introduced us to his friend Jared (photo on the right), who would be joining us on the tour. Jared shares Scott’s passion for pizza with a fervor that only the young can sustain!
Our first stop on the tour was Kesté on Bleeker St. ” Kesté ” in the dialect of Naples translates to “this is it” which is a reference to the simplicity of the pizza here. All the hallmarks of a classic Neapolitan pizza are here – San Marzano tomatoes, Caputo double zero flour, house-made buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, olive oil and a blisteringly hot wood burning oven.
Once inside, Scott gathered us around the oven and explained the physics of the dome shaped oven at Kesté. Not being a science person, I feel ill-equipped to transfer the knowledge to you guys, but suffice it to say that Scott’s eyes lit up and he got a little flushed in his cheeks when he got close to that gorgeous copper domed oven. It is fed with wood from ash trees. The oven gets up to almost 1000°F. It needs to cool down to about 700°F before it is ready for pizza baking.
At Keste, there are two guys working in the kitchen to prepare the pizza. The first, “The Pizzaiolo”, makes the pizza. The second, “The Fornaio” operates the oven. You can see them both at work in this little video I prepared. Just click on “pizza tour.” to view.
As we waited for the pizzas to come out of the oven Scott pointed out the strangely shaped knife each of us had been given. He explained that Neapolitan style pizzas are eaten with a knife and fork and the knife has an angled serrated cutting edge that to make it easier to cut your pizza while on a plate. He gave each of us a “Pizza Journal” so that we could jot down our personal reflections of each slice we sampled. He said that we would discuss and compare our observations after we ate.
McDonalds move over! Neapolitan pizzas are the original fast food. These pies cooked in a 1 minute and 35 seconds! When it arrived at our table the first thing we noticed was that the middle of the pie was quite thin as compared to the crust, which was puffed and blistered to perfection. There was silence as we all chewed and ruminated. The underside of the crust was slightly charred. The crust had an almost english muffin like chewiness, not a crisp cracker like texture at all. It sort of reminded me of naan bread. The sauce was quite tangy and a bit acidic. The cheese was creamy and a bit salty. The fresh basil and olive oil took this pizza to the next level!
Scott explained that the dough is made with a flour that is quite low in protein, only 11.5% protein content, as compared with bread flour that has a 14.2% protein content. At this point the eyes of several members of our group began to glaze over from too much information. I, on the other hand, got quite excited. It has been a while since I had the opportunity to debate the merits of differing protein levels of flour. The dough spends 48 hours in the fridge, slowly fermenting and developing amazing flavour.
The sauce is basically Ciao brand San Marzano canned tomatoes that are crushed and salted. That’s it! No cooking and no sugar added. While we were finishing up our pizza, Kesté’s owner, Roberto Caporuscio, showed up. Scott was positively gushing when he introduced us to Roberto. He greeted us all so warmly, explained that he got his start in the food business as a cheese maker, and then brought out some of his homemade mozzarella di bufala and burrata to try. They were outstanding! He was such a generous host and made us feel quite loved. Sadly, we had to leave once all our pizza was gone.Our second stop on the tour was just across the road from Kesté. John’s Pizzeria, an institution in the Village since 1929.The style of pie at John’s is best described as Classic New York pizza. Many have described John’s as the quintessential New Your Pizza. The pie is cooked in a coal burning oven. The oven at John’s is square, not domed shape. These pizzas are cooked at a slightly lower temperature than at Kesté. (600°f vs 700°F). They take about four minutes to cook.
When the pizza arrived at the table, Mr Grizzly eagerly reached over to grab a slice. Scott came trotting over to our table and told us to wait a minute. He reached into his backpack and pulled out… an infrared thermometer??He measured the surface temperature of our pizza and told us that it was still too hot to eat. We would blister the roof of our mouths if we ate it too soon. We needed to let it cool to 175°F before we could sample. Safety first folks! At this point, I began to think that Scott was one of the coolest people I have ever met. Man, I need one of those thermometers!
Finally the pizza reached a safe eating temperature and we dug in. The crust was quite thin and quite a bit tougher than at Kesté. I observed that the sauce was sitting on top of the cheese, so that the sweet taste of John’s sauce is what hit my tastebuds first. The cheese was quite stringy and salty, but in a good way. There was a delicious layer of oil, from the cheese that was floating on the top of the pizza. Scott explained that the cheese goes on first here, and then the sauce. They use (Polly-O), a low moisture mozzarella and it is sliced, not shredded. The crust is made with General Mills bread flour which has a 14.2% protein content, which explains the tougher crust. They allow the dough to ferment in the fridge for about 24 hours.
My first bite took me right back to my childhood. Now this was pizza! Interestingly enough, I later learned about something called Pizza Cognition Theory (PCT). Sam Sifton, former NY Times food critic posited that, “The first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes …, becomes, for him, pizza.” I grew up eating Monte Carlo Pizza in Toronto (now called Mama’s Pizza). It had that same thin crust, sweet sauce and stringy cheese with a thin layer of oil on top.
On the way to our third and final slice, Scott stopped and took a few minutes to wax poetic on the subject of pizza boxes.
As a collector of pizza boxes for the past 10 years, Scott knows his way around a pizza box. He spent a few minutes expounding on the mechanics of corrugated boxes and pointed out that if a box has no vents, the steam from a hot pie gets trapped inside and the crust can take on the smell and taste of cardboard. All of the sudden, it became crystal clear to me why the crust of Pizza Pizza always reminded me of cardboard. Scott’s book on the subject of boxes is being released on November 5!
Our final stop was Famous Ben’s Pizza at the corner of Spring and Thompson, in SOHO. There is an adorable statue of ben just outside the shop.
Ben’s specializes in Sicilian style pizza. These are thick crust square pies that take about 20 minutes to bake at 550°F in gas fuelled deck ovens. Mrs. Grizzly and I generally don’t love thick crust pizzas. We were expecting to be disappointed by this slice. After just one bite we were instantly smitten! We expected the crust to be doughy and heavy but somehow it was the exact opposite. This crust was light and bubbly with an amazing bottom crust crunch, like good focaccia.Scott explained how they make the Sicilian style pie at Ben’s. The sheet pan is heavily oiled and then the dough is stretched to fit into the pan. It gets a nice long rest, about 2 hours, and then it is topped with sauce. Then it goes into the oven for about 10 minutes to get the crust started. The cheese, lots of it, is added during the last 10 minutes of baking.
It was here at Ben’s that Scott demonstrated for us what pizza aficionados like to call “cheese pull”.
This is not to be confused with the dreaded “cheese drag”, where all the cheese comes off the top of the pizza in one bite.
It so happened that Mike Kurtz, of Mike’s Hot Honey was taking Scott’s tour with us that day. Mike treated us all to a squirt of his honey to dip our pizza into. What a yummy combination with the cheese and crust. First you get the sweet and after about 2 seconds, the heat hits you in the back of your throat. Jared and I agreed that it would be so much fun to serve this honey with apples at Rosh Hashanah dinner next year. What a surprise!
If you happen to be in NYC and are looking for a really fun and unique way to spend a few hours, check out Scott’s tours. It is hard not to be swept up into his enthusiasm. I am sure his parents must be so proud of him. Really, all parents want from their children is to see them find their passion in life. If they can make a living at it, even better.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our new York Adventure with the Grizzlys, where we master the NYC subway system and make the trek the Williamsburg Brooklyn for Smorgasburg – the Woodstock of Eating!
In week #25 of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge we make pizza. When I first bought this book, in May, I was flipping through it, looking at the pictures. My heart skipped a beat when I got to page 208 and saw our bread guru, Peter Reinhart, tossing pizza dough in the air. I have always wanted to do this and was so excited to learn how.
I frequently make pizza and my go-to dough recipe comes from a little book titled, “Pizza” by James McNair. The ingredients are fairly similar to Peter Reinhart’s recipe. The main difference between the two recipes is that James McNair’s recipe follows the traditional route of dissolving the yeast in warm water, whereas Peter Reinhart has us using ice-cold water. James’ dough rises for 1 1/2 hours and then you are ready to make pizza. Peter has us refrigerate the dough overnight. This supposedly gives the dough better flavour as well as relaxing the gluten in the dough so that it is not too elastic to work with.
After my resounding success using ice water and an overnight fridge rest with Peter’s Pain a l’Ancienne, I was sold on the concept of “cold” as a method to develop flavour. Peter describes the process as “delayed fermentation.” So even though this pizza would take 2 days to make, I was excited to discover a new flavourful dough. Most people think that pizza is all about the toppings. In fact, the reverse is true. If you have a cardboard crust, even the most wonderful toppings in the world won’t save it.
This pizza dough can be made with either unbleached all-purpose flour or unbleached bread flour. The bread flour has a higher gluten content, thus making the dough a little tougher and more elastic. Peter recommends adding a bit of olive oil if you opt for the higher gluten bread flour. He says it helps to tenderize the dough. Never one to pass up the opportunity to add more fat to my diet, I opted for bread flour with olive oil!
The dough came together very quickly. The texture is silky and supple. I refrigerated it overnight and took it out the next day, about 2 hours before we were planning to have dinner. Once the dough came to room temperature I got my camera all set up on the tripod and set it to the timer mode. I was planing to have a shot of me flipping the dough into the air. The timer was set to catch the flip in the air at just the right moment. I was so excited to capture this moment on film.
I dipped both hands in flour to coat them so the dough would not stick.
I got ready to toss. I placed the disc of dough over my fists, not my fingertips, as instructed in the book. It became clear, immediately, that this dough was not going to be airborne. It was such a soft dough that it slumped over my wrists and continued to make a downward slide over my arms.
I quickly transferred the dough to my pizza peel, which I had coated with semolina flour, to facilitate sliding the pizza off the peel and onto the baking stone which I had heating in a 550 degree oven.
Using my hands, as gently as I could, I managed to spread it out into a very rustic circle.
Then I added the toppings. I decided to forgo tomato sauce. I sprinkled it with Monterey Jack, Asiago and Parmesan cheese.
Next came slices of fresh tomato.
Finally I topped it off with chunks of fresh buffalo mozzarella.
I planned to top it off with fresh basil once it came out of the oven.
It slid quite easily into the oven.
I snapped a quick picture after it had been baking for 5 minutes. Almost ready!
And then it all began to go horribly wrong. I ran into a problem when I tried to remove the pizza from the oven. I guess the dough had stretched a bit too thin in some spots, because when I tried to slide my pizza peel under it, to remove it from the oven, it wouldn’t budge. The cheese had melted through a hole in the crust and was now stuck to the baking stone. I finally wrestled it from the stone and here is what we ate for dinner.
The crust was light and crispy. It was delicious. I may try this one again as I am determined to get my dough airborne. To be honest, I didn’t notice that much difference between my usual crust and this cold fermented one. Maybe I should do a side by side comparison to see if it’s really worth the extra fermenting time for this dough.
