Shrimp and Portobello Pizza Splotches
by Marilyn Michael
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| With Toppings, Before the Cheese |
Pizza! Americans love pizza and my husband really loves pizza. As adventurous as we are with food, though, we had never ventured far into the yeast-involved realm of cooking, thus, we had never made homemade pizza. I’m going to tantalize you with our foray into homemade pizza, in fact, it's a gourmet pizza with multidimensional flavors and, it’s simple to make.
Many “Foodies Over 50” are paying more attention to ingredients in processed foods. We had started looking over all the unhealthier, unpronounceable stuff in the frozen pizza’s we often bought. We had also decided to cut down on processed meats in our diet. This caused a pizza problem. So it was time to step up. Given our foodie proclivities, we decided to take our pizza topping to another level adding a unique dimension of flavor between the sauce and cheese.
We had recently started incorporating Portobello’s more into our food repertoire. One-inch thick strips just sautéed in butter or marinated and then grilled offer a chewy yet creamy texture and a rich taste, a step up from traditional sides or hors d oeuvres. Another, healthier meal lead-in we’ve come to enjoy is sliced avocado topped with fresh shrimp and drizzled with sweet, tangy Catalina dressing or lighter French dressing.
Contemplating our pizza adventure, the ingredients of Portobello and shrimp came to mind. But, inventive cook that my husband is, it was going to be more than just plunking the mushroom and shrimp onto the pizza sauce. Because of my interest in Indian cuisine we keep on hand, as a staple, a Mango Ginger Chutney from Trader Joe’s (it’s available online for those of you not lucky to have a TJ’s in your neighborhood, but other sauces you may have on hand will work, as I will explain). Imagine thick chunks of Portobello and medium shrimp (we keep some frozen) sautéed in butter and brought together with the sweetness of the chutney. It’s hard not to munch down too much of this topping before getting it on the pizza. In fact, this quick and simple topping would be impressive served over rice or, even more exotically, over the Coconut Rice I offered you in an earlier post.
But, back to pizza.
But, back to pizza.
Having been yeast-challenged, we warily looked over pizza dough recipes. “Hmm”, we pondered, “what had we been afraid of, they seemed pretty similar and awfully simple to put together. Yeah, but maybe there was some trickiness in working the dough or letting it raise or something.” Well, tricky it wasn’t and easy it was. So, if you’ve made homemade pizza, you already have the dough down or buy it frozen. If, like us, you’ve never tried it, start with the easy and, so far, no fail dough recipe we offer. If there are two of you it even freezes well giving you enough for another round of what we call, Pizza Splotches.
When these babies come bubbling out of the oven, they look great and taste even better.
Ingredients:
Dough:
1 teaspoon dry yeast
½ -2/3 cup s lukewarm water
1 tablespoon olive oil
Topping:
Butter (we use no salt)
5 or 6.medium fresh shrimp per splotch (I cut each shrimp into three chunks before spooning the sauce onto the dough.)
Two Portobello caps sliced into 1” strips then cut into 1” chunks.
About 3 Tablespoons of a sweet, thick sauce as a binder (We use Mango Ginger Chutney and have used Fig jam; you could use apricot or other fruit preserves you may have on hand.)
Grated Mozzarella
Tomato-based pizza sauce of your choice (As it doesn’t take a lot, we make it easy keeping prepared pizza sauce on hand, our favorite is Classico brand.)
Instructions:
Starting with a large mixing bowl, Sift in the flour. Add the yeast, stirring it in. Pour the water and oil into the center of the flour and mix it into a soft dough. (I happened to have some disposable plastic gloves on hand that made this step slick, no sticky fingers)
On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for around ten minutes. This was kind of fun, better than one of those little stress balls, but I digress. You’ll want it smooth and elastic.
Grease a large bowl, I use metal, and place the dough in the bowl covering with plastic wrap. Put it in a warm place for about 1 hour to let it rise. It needs to double in size.
While dough is rising prepare the topping. Slice the Portobello caps into 1” strips then into 1” chunks. Begin sautéing in butter on medium heat until they start diminishing in size. Peel about 12 med. shrimp fresh or frozen. Add shrimp to mushrooms and sauté until bright pink and done. When shrimp have cooked for about a minute add the chutney and mix well. Remove topping onto a plate (I cut up the shrimp into three pieces each at this point) and set aside.
Preheat oven to 425.
Back to your lightly floured surface, with you dough now raised, knead it again for 2 to 3 minutes. There are two of us so, when done, I cut the dough ball in half then cut each smaller dough ball into four pieces. I freeze one quartered dough ball in a quart-sized bag for later use.
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| Lots of Cheese! |
On a lightly greased cookie sheet, spread each quarter into a splotch (no perfect size or shape) each is about the size of a large pizza slice.
Spoon and spread pizza sauce onto each splotch. Spoon on the shrimp and Portobello topping allowing 5 or 6 shrimp per splotch. Top with Mozzarella.
Bake for about 12 minutes until crisp.
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| The Finished Product |
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