Pizza #11: Pizza Fungi after Lahey with Smokey Tomato Sauce

Pizza Fungi

I made a couple of these Lahey-dough pizzas, both with portobello mushrooms and some red onions, shaved thin on my mandoline, and fresh thyme from our garden.  One pizza had some dried tomatoes, the other had some fresh diced tomatoes, and a few olives.  Both had some mozzarella cheese, but each one had its own, unique cheese too:

• Italian Pecorino Cheese
• Portuguese Sao Jorge Cheese (Lorais)

The dough takes 2 hours to rise, and then you have enough for 2 pizzas

I liked the one with the Portuguese cheese.  To me, it has a mild flavour, but a taste that is subtle and clean.  This pizza just worked better.

Both pizzas were cooked without tomato sauce, but we had our own homemade smokey tomato sauce for dipping and spreading on top.  The first pizza didn't need it, but when eaten together, the taste was nice.  The second pizza definitely required the extra taste.

The pizzas were baked at very hot temperatures (>700 degrees F) on our barbecue, using firebrick and pizza stones.  By now, this is pretty standard for us, as it works fairly well: you heat up the barbecue on max to get the stones hot, until the gauge reads over 700 degrees.  The pizza stone is slathered with olive oil, and the pizza is built right on top of it, while cold.  When all the fixings are in place, it bakes at the barbecue's highest temperature for 14-15 minutes.  The stone is then removed, and the pizza goes to the table like that.  Some more baking of the crust occurs on the hot stone, during the time it takes to cut the pizza and serve it.  There is no hurry, it will stay hot.  The second piece is often the best, and the very thin crust gets nice and crispy.

 

Best Pizza Fungi today: 

The baking stone was a teensy bit too big and the barbecue cover tore a hunk off it (that was my piece)

The barbecue takes a tiny piece of cheese skyward because the pizza stone is 1/8" too big

Leftovers

I'd like to explain here how we made our smokey tomato sauce, because it is really special and nice, but my wife will not allow me to divulge the recipe.  I guess, for now, it is a secret.  Even though I believe she adapted it from a couple of recipes found on the Internet.

Smokey tomato sauce on top

Notes to Myself

• I really want to move to a whole wheat pizza dough, and have a recipe ready to try. But it won't be when company is here, like today.