Pizza Vongole in a Skillet

I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side. – Rashida Jones 

Here’s a quickie for you today. I am in the middle of a wonderful cold that started to take hold on Monday. Today symptoms are chills and aches. Fun...

So what do you do? You can try to kill it with garlic. This recipe uses quite a lot. Of course if you wish you can cut it down.

Step 1: This is the crust and garlic.

Garlic has many purported health benefits. Garlic strengthens the immune system as well as helps to fight chest infections, coughs and congestion. That’s what I’m using it for.

Consuming garlic is also a way to boost your immune system to potentially ward off colds and flu. An old folk remedy says to eat a clove of garlic dipped in honey at the first sign of a cold.

Garlic and honey.... Reminds me of a lot of chicken wing recipes. But I digress...

I used pre-minced garlic from a jar. (I know... I know...) You could also use roasted garlic, which would be stellar. If you’re baking, throw a few heads wrapped in foil in the oven. Then refrigerate for 1 week, or pack in oil, until ready to use. 

You can mash the roasted garlic with a little cream, or even use cream with the raw garlic if you wish for this dish.

Next, Clams, pepper and salt.

Either way, this is one of my most favourite pizzas. It’s also extremely affordable. Not a whole lot of blather today. This cold has made my thinking process a bit slow.

On the down-side, you’ll smell like garlic. On the up-side, the garlic can’t hurt if you’re feeling ill! Hopefully it will give my immune system a bit of a boost and I’ll be done with this thing sooner, rather than later.

Pizza Vongole in a Skillet

Time: 2.5 h, includes rising*  |  Yield: 12” pizza

The crust:

1-1/2 cups flour

3/4 cups water

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast

Toppings:

Finally, the parsley and parmesan.

2 tbsp finely minced garlic

142 g (5 oz) canned clams, drained

salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

1/2 cup grated parmesan

Mix all the crust ingredients together. Let rise for 2 hours. It will be “smooth” feeling, but not puffy.

Rub a 14” cast iron skillet with a little olive oil. Spread out the crust.

Layer the toppings in the order given above. Bake at 425°F for 20-25 minutes, until crust is browned on top and bottom.

* if you want to speed up the rise, proof the yeast in 100°F water, then add remaining ingredients and mix well. This will cut crust rising by half, if not more.

Slide out of the pan, slice and serve!

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Recipe: The Golden Round. Pizza dough you can trust.

Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around. – Anna Quindlen 

I think this is a Quattro Fromaggio. Photo: Dawn Ashley, Flickr ccl

There’s not really that much of an art to pizza dough. The secret is in finding a recipe that delivers time after time. I’ve tried many with different results. The slightest shift in ingredients will result in a disproportional shift in your final result. I’ve finally found a crust I can trust and I return to it often. It’s become a staple. 

I’m partial to honey crusts. They seem to brown differently than unsweetened recipes. They also seem to give a crispier end result. The honey crust recipe below is one arrived at from trial and error.

Photo: cognitive evolution, Flickr ccl

A little history

Pizza has been around for a very long time. It is written that Persian soldiers under Darius the Great baked flat bread on their shields and then added cheese and dates. Cato the Elder in 3rd Century BC Rome wrote of “flat rounds of dough dressed with olive oil, honey and herbs and baked on stones.”

In the 16th Century tomatoes had made their way to Europe from the New World and quickly became incorporated into the diet of poorer Italians who often had little more than olive oil, cheese and herbs as staples. 

Within 100 years, Neopolitan pizza had achieved a popularity among visitors to Naples that they would make special trips into the poorer, and more dangerous, sections to taste this dish made by cooks called "pizzaioli."

Naturally, pizza came with Italian immigrants to the shores of their adopted homelands in North America. No doubt great debate often arose over the quality of, and differences in, their crusts.

Toppings vary as wide as imagination will take you, including “blonde” and no sauce varieties. I’ll outline a few out of the ordinary ones after the following recipe. It’s not a quick crust, but it’s a good all purpose crust and gives a great result.

The recipe calls for a 2 hour rise in a warm place. I sit the dough on the top of one of our hot water radiators. But I have also mixed the dough just after lunch and let it rise on the counter for the afternoon while we were out doing errands. It rises more slowly when cooler. It's then ready to use by the time you're home for dinner.

Best Pizza Crust

Time 2.5 hours  | Makes 2 pizzas

Photo: phonakins, Flickr ccl

2 tsp yeast

1 tbsp honey

1 1/2 cups water, lukewarm (110°F)

3 to 3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup olive oil

Proof the yeast in a bowl with the honey and water. Place in a warm spot, covered with saran wrap, or place the whole bowl in a tied plastic grocery bag. Let sit until bubbly. This will take about 15 minutes. If the yeast hasn’t become active start again.

Tip: You can store yeast in the freezer for far longer than than in the cupboard. We have a large container in our freezer right now. Several cups of yeast actually, bought in bulk. After more than 2 years it still proofs every time.

After the yeast has proofed, add in the remaining ingredients. Bring together in the bowl and knead briefly. The dough should be soft under your hand. If it is very wet, add a little flour. It should feel “moist” but not stick to your hands.

Cover tightly and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours. After this time the dough will have risen significantly.

Knead gently for a few minutes. If it is still too sticky, add a tiny bit more four. Divide in two and press out to prepare according to your recipe. Let rest for 15 more minutes before adding toppings. If it has risen a lot after pressing out, dimple the crust with your fingertips.

A standard baking time, with toppings, is 20-25 minutes at 425°F. It should be browned on the bottom.

Here’s a few possibilities for interesting toppings for your new favourite pizza dough:

Pizza alla Vongole (Clam Pie)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 can of baby clams, drained

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup mozarella cheese, grated

basil and oregano

1/8 cup cornmeal, for crust edge and bottom

Scatter a little cornmeal on a lightly oiled pizza pan. Press out the dough. Let rise for 15 minutes. 

Brush the dough with half the olive oil. Sprinkle the garlic and clams over top, then add the cheese and spices. Sprinkle the remaining cornmeal around the exposed crust edge. Drizzle the remaining oil on top. Bake as directed above.

Photo: Nemo's great uncle, Flickr ccl

Quattro Fromaggio

olive oil

1 container of ricotta (454 g/16 oz)

1/2 cup parmesan, grated

1/2 cup romano

1/2 cup mozzarella

2 eggs

basil and oregano

1/4 cup parsley

cornmeal for sprinkling

Lightly oil the pizza pan. Press out the crust and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Mix the ricotta, parmesan and romano with the eggs, basil and oregano. Pour into the rested crust. 

Flip then outer edge of the crust up over the filling to about 1-2 inches. This keeps the filling in place. Tear the mozzarella into small(ish) chunks and scatter on top with the parsley.

Dust the crust with the cornmeal and bake as directed above.

Provolone, Artichoke and Genoa Salami

olive oil

1 cup pizza sauce, your favourite (no meat)

1 jar artichoke hearts in oil, drained and chopped

250 g sliced Genoa salami

300 g sharp provolone, grated

Lightly oil the pizza pan. Press out the dough and let rest for 15 minutes.

Spread with the pizza sauce. Then layer on the  artichoke and salami. Sprinkle with the provolone. Bake as directed above.

From right: quattro fromaggio; vongole; andouille, red pepper, onions and mushrooms.

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Foraging 10 & Recipe: Digging for your Supper. Linguine with White Wine Clam Sauce

She ate so many clams that her stomach rose and fell with the tide. – Louis Kronenberger

Clamming at low tide beside the North Atlantic.

Have you ever gone clam digging? The season is fast approaching. There are many excellent spots for the activity throughout the low tide mud flats of Nova Scotia. Perhaps when you come to our province on vacation you could make it a family activity. If you're camping, you can steam your clams just in a pot over your campfire. That would make for some wonderful memories.

Soft shell clams steamed in wine are a treat.
Photo: kthread, Flickr ccl

Clam digging can be quite a lot of fun if you find a good spot. "Clamming" is done both as recreation as well as commercially in many parts of the world. In the eastern parts of Canada and the USA it is most usually a salt water mud flats activity.

Shellfish harvesting has been a food source for the First Nations people since they first arrived on the shores of the Atlantic.

Currently in Atlantic Canada recreational shoreline harvesting is most common for the soft shelled white clam, although dulse and periwinkles are also often collected (with no digging...).

Periwinkles are also exposed at low
tide and can be harvested.
Photo: Wiki Commons

Soft shell clams (Mya Arenaria) belong to the Mollusca family, which includes bivalves, gastropods and cephalopods (shellfish, snails and octopus/squid/cuttlefish). 

They have a brittle shell of calcium carbonate, which explains their common name. They’ve also earned the nickname of “squirt clam” because they spurt water when disturbed by diggers. This mechanism is to propel them deeper into the sand to avoid capture.

All you really need to hand harvest clams is a tined digging fork and a bucket with some sea water in it to keep the clams alive. Some people use a garden hoe or shovel, but you greatly increase the chance of shattering the shells when you dig thus rendering the clam unusable. Clams must be cooked while still alive.

Dulse. Photo: Hljod.Huskona, Flickr ccl

Commercial clamming, usually for razor and quahogs, is done offshore using draggers. This damages the sea bed terribly and scoops up everything in its path—not just what the fishery is after.

Alternatively a large “clam rake” with a sort of basket attached is sometimes employed and dragged behind. Cultivated clams in comparison are hand dredged.

The legal size to harvest clams in Nova Scotia is 44mm long (1.7”). When the tide is low, or almost all the way out, you walk out on the exposed flats and look for little holes in the sand. That is the mark of a clam below the surface.

It can also be the mark of a sand worm, which are gross, but you persevere. This video shows what the holes in the sand flat look like.

After harvesting, the clams should be rinsed and placed in well salted water with some corn meal. The clams ingest the meal and excrete sand and “other particles” that you may not want to eat.

Once prepared, the clams can be steamed until they open, or shucked and collected with their juices for use in recipes. You can certainly harvest clams for the following recipe if you wish, or use canned clams. Both are written in the recipe.

A word of caution, clam beach closures due to contamination have dramatically increased over the past decade all along the Eastern seaboard. Most often it is caused by clams feeding on toxic plankton, which can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning in humans if eaten. So be certain the flats you choose are approved for clam harvesting. 

If you have any doubt at all, call the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (tel 902-426-3550). The usual clam digging season in Nova Scotia runs from the first week in May through to the end of October.

Linguine with White Wine Clam Sauce

Prep 5 min  | Total 15 min  | Serves 4

linguine for 4 people (use your own judgement)

2 tbsp olive oil

2 shallots, sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

24-36 soft shell clams in the shell, depending on the size (or 2 cans baby clams, drained)

2/3 cup white wine

2/3 cup coffee (18%) cream

1/2 tsp tarragon

1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

cracked black pepper to taste

1/3 cup chicken stock

3 tsps cornstarch

parmesan cheese, for serving

parsley, for serving (or chives)

Cook the linguine, drain and keep in warm water.

Heat the oil in a large, wide saucepan. Add the shallots and garlic and sauté on medium for a few minutes until the shallots start to soften. Add the clams and sauté for 1 minute.

Stir in the wine, cream, tarragon, salt and pepper. Cover and allow to cook for 3 minutes.

Mix together the stock and cornstarch. Add to the clams and allow to thicken. Let cook for 2 more minutes.

Drain the pasta and toss in the pan with the clam sauce. Let heat through.

Serve with parmesan and parsley (or chives) at the table.

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Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?