Weekly Dish

Moving to a new city has been hard on my entertaining sensibilities. I love to have people over for dinner, but how do you do that when you don’t really know anyone? I have made friends with a girl in my program named Casey, who is from Missouri, also new to Baton Rouge, and with her sister, Christy. They were officially our first Baton Rouge dinner guests, and pizza was on the menu the night they came. I was too embarrassed to take a picture of the food while they were here, and as you can see, of the two whole pizzas I made, the four of us only left these two pieces (a successful meal, then, no?). It was lovely to have nice people to share our table with and reminded me why I enjoy entertaining so much.

Speaking of friends, I’d like to wish a happy anniversary to Jon and Hannah, who are vacationing in Yellow Stone right now, and a happy birthday to Jerrod, whose wife Jessie is being induced today! Their family will have another birth to celebrate, which I hope to report to you tomorrow.

Although I didn’t plan to invite our new friends over when I made this pizza, it turned out to be a good choice for first-time guests–not too fancy, but the pesto and homemade crust still made it dressed-up enough for company. This recipe is another one I learned at the Brick-Oven; I ate their version of this pie many, many afternoons between the lunch and dinner shifts.

The crust takes a bit of planning, but it isn’t difficult; it has to rise for an hour or so, but once it does, assembling the pizza is a snap. I used the pesto leftover from the Pesto Chicken Salad last week and the roast chicken from last night’s dinner. Here’s how it came together:

For the crust:

1 package yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 tablespoon sugar

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for kneading

1 teaspoon pesto

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 teaspoon garlic salt

In the bowl of a mixer, sprinkle the yeast over the water and sugar; stir to combine. Let it sit until the yeast dissolves, about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix on low speed until all ingredients are combined. Knead with the dough hook for about 8 minutes, until a ball forms. Knead for a few more minutes by hand, coating your hands with olive oil as you work. The dough should be smooth and stretchy. Put back in the mixer bowl, cover, and allow it to rise for about an hour or an hour and a half.

To assemble pizza:

1 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes

4 tablespoons pesto

Olive oil

Roast chicken, chopped (about 1-2 cups)

3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Separate the dough into 2 balls and let them rest while you prepare the other ingredients. Grease and flour two baking sheets. Toss the chicken with a tablespoon of the pesto and some olive oil, until coated. Stretch the dough by hand, or roll out with a rolling pin. Drizzle lightly with oil, rubbing it into the surface. Bake for about 7 minutes. Remove from the oven. Spread the rest of the pesto over the crust, diluting with oil as necessary to make it spread. Sprinkle the chicken and sun-dried tomatoes evenly over the pesto. Cover with mozzarella cheese. Bake for another 8-10 minutes, until cheese is melted and crust is brown at the edges.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 at 10:58 am and is filed under Chicken, Main Dish, Pizza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.