Recipe Creation: Truffle Pizza

Last night I was feeling a bit stressed out, so I decided to do something for me (not involving alcohol--well, not too much), so I got creative with cooking.  This is a simple recipe to get adventurous with.

Suggestions for the following recipe.

• Get creative with the sauce, a rustic sauce is so simple to make and so versatile, unleash your inner gourmet. The basic sauce is below, add peppers/veggies/various spices when saute-ing.
• If you don't want to make your own pizza crust, see if there's a restaurant in your area that sells raw pizza dough.  We have two in Lawrence.  I was too lazy so I used store bought and I really wished I had just hauled my ass downtown.
• Pre cook your meat to get some of the grease/fat cooked off.  I didn't last night and it wasn't bad, I liked the whole slides of pancetta, but it did require some blotting up of the pizza.
• Slice, don't shred the mozzarella, you'll thank me later.
• Truffle is an acquired taste (and pricey), but truffle is also my form of culinary heroin. Just a sniff of good truffle oil sends me into rapture.
• Throw conventionality out the door when making homemade pizza, anything goes!

Truffle/Pancetta Pizza

• Pizza dough (see note above)
• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil (or truffle oil if its rated for medium heat)
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced  (entirely to taste, I'm a garlic hound)
• 2-3 fresh tomatoes, preferably off the vine, firm to the touch
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2 teaspoons dried basil (or 1/4 c, finely chopped fresh)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• pepper to taste (FYI-I do not add additional salt to my recipes)
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Pancetta or other italian meat
• Fresh mozzarella (smoked mozz is also awesome), sliced thin
• 1/2  sweet onion, thinly sliced
• Sliced black truffle

Prepare pizza dough and heat pizza stone (if you have one) according to the directions provided.  Remove skins of tomatoes by blanching in boiling water for 15-20 seconds and cold soaking them.  Coarsely chop tomato and remove cores.

Heat oil in skillet and sweat garlic for about 5 minutes.  Add tomato to mixture and cook down, , as tomatoes start to break down add seasonings.  Continue cooking until the liquid from the tomatoes has evaporated and the tomatoes have broken down into a coarse sauce-like texture, approximately 10-15 minutes.

Cook pancetta until crispy and crumble up.

Assemble pizza, sauce, then pancetta, onion, truffles and then cheese.

Cook approximately 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and slighly browning and crust is golden brown.