Friday, July 20, 2012

The Arrogant Chef Onion Ring Pizza

Well I could not come up with a more inventive name for this pizza. Basically, it is a veggie pizza, onions, green pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, and a four cheese mixture I picked up at the grocery store topped with my gourmet onion rings. The crust was the latest experiment. The crust is not really all that thick but you get a nice puffiness on the edge. This is the crust recipe.



Pizza Dough
Recipe


Ingredients:


2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1.In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.

2.Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.

3.Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.

4.Preheat oven to 500F. I use a two step method. First I put the pizza in the oven on a perforated pizza pan on the lower rack with the sauce only and bake for about 5 minutes. I then take it out top it with the rest of the ingredients and bake it on the middle rack for about 10 minutes or until the crust is a nice deep golden brown.

This is the recipe for the onion rings. These are not battered. They are coated in a flour mixture with spices.


Gourmet Onion Rings
Ingredients:

3 vidalia or sweet onion
1 pint of buttermilk
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup plain flour
1tsp celery salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
oil for frying

Method:

Cut the peeled onion and seperate into rings. Soak the rings in the buttermilk mixed with the cayenne pepper. In another bowl mix together the flour, celery salt, garlic powder, and paprika. Drain the onion rings and drop them in the seasoned flour. Remove and deep fry a few rings at a time. Do not crowd the deep fryer or they will really stick together. Deep-fry until golden and crisp. Season and serve immediately.