Yesterday started off like any other except at breakfast Maggy announced our friend Brian Samuels of A Thought for Food was heading down from Boston for a visit. ETA: 11:00 a.m.
As a cook, my first thought was lunch. It was one of our first warm sunny spring days, and the grill on the back deck was calling. “Let’s grill pizza,” I suggested. Maggy’s eyebrows raised. “Now you’re talking!”
I had carrots in the bin, asparagus in the fridge, and green peas in the freezer. “Pizza Primavera,” I said. She and I spent the next few minutes back and forth on the rest—mozzarella or ricotta? Red onion, scallions or chives? Parm or no? We decided to keep it light but high-flavor, adding roasted garlic to our part-skim ricotta base and pairing a more assertive cheese with our mild spring vegetables.
Brian arrived, and we all got to work. He put together the ricotta base and Maggy prepped the vegetables while I worked on the crusts. We assembled the pizzas and got them on the grill, and they turned out as perfect as the day was beautiful. As food bloggers, we needed a little photo shoot, but after that we put our phones aside and just enjoyed one another and our pizza. Brian brought macarons—pistachio, tiramisu, and chocolate-coconut—and I set out strawberries with brown sugar, and Greek yogurt.
After lunch we headed out for a walk, and as I rounded the loop along the Long Island Sound, it felt like winter was finally gone.
- 1 recipe Pizza Dough (or 2 pounds fresh pizza dough)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 12 garlic cloves
- 1½ cups part-skim ricotta
- ¼ cup snipped chives, plus extra for garnish
- Salt and ground black pepper
- 1½ cups each: thinly sliced small carrots and thin asparagus
- 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
- 2 cups grated Comté cheese
- If making pizza dough, do it now.
- In the meantime, heat garlic cloves and oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Once garlic starts to sizzle, reduce heat to low and continue to cook, turning cloves once or twice, until soft and golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from skillet and mash to a paste. Stir into ricotta along with ¼ cup of the chives; season to taste with salt and pepper
- Pour remaining garlic oil, ¼ cup of water and a sprinkling of salt in a large skillet; add carrots and asparagus; cover, turn burner on high, and cook until water evaporates and vegetables are tender crisp, about 5 minutes.
- Turn all burners of a gas grill on high. Without punching or kneading dough (which makes stretching more difficult), turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Using a dough scraper or sharp knife, cut dough into 4 pieces. Working one at a time, stretch each portion into a rustic 15- by 5 to 6-inch rectangle; transfer to one of 2 large cornmeal-coated baking sheet.
- Lift stretched pieces of dough onto grill. Cover and cook until bottoms are spotty brown, moving them around to ensure even cooking and piercing puffing dough as necessary, 3 to 4 minutes. Turn them over and continue to bake until lightly brown, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Remove pizza crusts from grill and reduce grill heat to low heat.
- With pizza crusts darker side up, top in the following order: ricotta mixture, carrots and asparagus, peas, and comté. Return pizzas to grill; cover and continue to grill until pizza bottoms are spotty brown and cheese has melted, 3 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer to a cutting board; garnish with more chives, cut and serve.
I guess we all have spring on the brain-I just did a recipe for tortellini primavera soup! This pizza looks so fresh and delicious…like all of your recipes! Thanks!
Thanks, Mary. Your primavera soup sounds very appealing. Care to share a link with all of us?
My jaw literally dropped when I saw this!!! Amazing! Can’t wait to try it and can’t wait for your cookbook to come…am counting down the days! Happy Easter!
Hey Rosa, Thanks for checking in and letting us know how much you like the pizza. Most importantly thanks for letting us know that you’re looking forward to the book. We are too!