Pesto Pizza

I first started making dinner for my family when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. One of the first meals I made was pizza. Every Wednesday, I made two pizzas. I would come home from school, dissolve some yeast in warm water and let it sit. I added flour and kneaded it into a dough. I would simmer tomato puree with garlic, oregano, basil, and a little sugar. Mozzarella cheese was grated, and I rolled out the dough on two round metal pizza pans and assembled the pies. No fancy toppings. Every Wednesday, two pizzas.

That pizza was pretty good, if a little heavy. My mother used to make the pizza until she showed me how and I took it over. My parents had the habit of trying to sneak nutritious items – like wheat germ – into our meals, if they could. In that vein, this dough was always half whole wheat flour. They would have made it all whole wheat if I let them. While I now appreciate the health aspects, the whole wheat made the dough a little thick and tough compared to pizza parlor dough.

Over the years, my pizzas have evolved. When I make a red sauce pie today, I use high-quality, canned, crushed tomatoes with just a little salt and olive oil added and maybe some fresh basil. I top it with fresh mozzarella cheese to make it more of a Margherita pie. The metal pizza pans are only for serving; I cook the pies on a pizza stone on the oven’s highest setting. And I don’t make my own dough anymore. I live in New York so it’s much easier to buy it from a local pizza shop for a few bucks, and they don’t sell whole wheat dough.

While I do make pizza several times a year, I rarely make pies with red sauce. Instead, I make mashed potato pizza for my son. One of my favorites is topped with caramelized onions, Kalamata olives, and cherry tomatoes, with a little fresh mozzarella. And my daughter’s favorite is pesto pizza.

The pesto pizza is simple yet delicious. It has a shatteringly crisp crust because of the pizza stone. There’s a thin coating of homemade pesto made with basil from the garden picked during the great basil harvest. And it’s topped with small cubes of fresh mozzarella and grated Parmesan cheese. That’s all it needs.

I still make pizza for my family, but now it is different. They’re fancier and tastier. The dough is not as heavy. I always make more than two pies. And I don’t make them every Wednesday.

Pesto Pizza

The size of dough you can buy varies in size among different pizza parlors. Thus, this recipe is an estimation; use it as a guideline and with a little trial and error you will make an excellent pesto pizza. Of course, you can always make your own.

2 – 4 servings, about ½ hour, plus time to heat the pizza stone

¼ cup pesto, homemade or store-bought

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 pizza dough

1/2 lb. fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes

4 oz. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Place the pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven and turn oven to its highest setting, at least 500 ^oF. Pizza stones take a long time to heat up, so heating for a full hour will make the crispiest pie. (I have seen suggestions for alternatives to pizza stones, like the back of a cast iron skillet or a sheet pan. I haven’t tried them, so I have no idea how they work.)
2. Mix the pesto and olive oil in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Stretch the dough to desired size, but a thinner crust is better. As a non-professional pizza maker, it is hard to stretch a perfectly round pizza, but a misshapen pie has character. Sometimes I make mine roundish, sometimes squarish.
4. Place the stretched dough on the hot pizza stone. Check the crust after a minute or two and prick any bubbles that form with the point of a knife. Allow to cook for several minutes, until the crust just starts to get crispy.
5. Using a pizza peel or the back of a sheet pan, remove the crust and spread the pesto-olive oil mixture evenly over the dough using the back of a spoon, leaving about an inch at the edge. I find that a thin coating of pesto is best, as too much makes it too rich. Spread mozzarella cheese evenly over the pesto and top with Parmesan cheese.
6. Return the pizza to the oven to finish cooking until the crust is crispy – check the bottom to make sure it’s not burning – and the cheese is melted, about 5 – 7 minutes.
7. Remove from oven, slice, and serve hot. The pizza can be cooked ahead of time, and left whole to be reheated on the pizza stone just before serving.

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