Another Pizza Party: Various and Varied Pies

After work, my pal Melanie and I decided to make pizza for dinner. We got some dough from Whole Foods (more on that later) and picked up a bunch of toppings, to add to things I already had in the house, as well as a healthy amount of wine. Talia and Ryan came by and we had a veritable party of pizza on our hands.

So, we originally planned on making 4 medium sized pies, but the dough from Whole Foods was way too cold to work with, so Talia (she's a professional, y'all!) broke the dough balls up into smaller pieces and put them on top of the oven so they'd proof faster (she also taught me the term "proof"). After a while they were warm enough to roll out, stretch, top and finally bake.

I've made the dough myself before, and I've also bought it from my local pizza place. This was the first time I tried the dough at Whole Foods. It's the same stuff they use for their prepared pizza in the store, and it's very good. But it was more expensive (only by a dollar or so but still), and it was not immediately ready to work with, a huge problem as we were just off work and really starting to get hungry. When you go to a pizza place, their dough is proofed and totally ready to go. And it's cheaper. And it's probably more convenient than Whole Foods. Win-win-win! Glad I tried the Whole Foods dough, but probably not going to do it again.

So, on to the pies. First up, we had Caramelized Onions and Vinegar (which I've made before). For this, you make Bitty's (can I call him Bitty? I saw Mario Batali do it on that terrible show they were on together and I kind of love it, but I'm not Mario Batali, so...) recipe for caramelized onions, and then stir in a tablespoon or so of good balsamic vinegar. This goes on the pizza, and the pizza goes in the oven. Do not underestimate this simple topping--it's addictive.

Next was a more traditional pizza, at least by my provincial New York thinking. I had some tomato sauce with turkey sausage in it leftover from pasta dinner the night before, so we put that on the dough along with some smoked mozzarella. This was good. Very good. The smoked mozzarella was something I was not certain about, but it's now going to be a fixture at every pizza party.

Then, a pesto pie. Once again, having pesto in the freezer ready to go is a godsend.

I just defrosted it, spread it on the dough, and then topped it with some sweet yellow grape tomatoes from the market. And some more smoked mozzarella. Again, delicious. What's not to like?

The last pie was olives and rosemary and a bit of olive oil. It was good, but certainly not the favorite of the night. Following that one, we started experimenting, making one with just olive oil, and another with a bit of parmesan and the leftover smoked mozz. Really, the main thing here is that you can't really go too wrong, and you should try anything that suits your fancy. There's about 30 variations in How to Cook Anything, and many more than that if you're feeling creative. Have a pizza party today. If you buy the dough pre-made, it's actually a pretty quick meal, and you don't need all the crap everyone tells you that you MUST have, like a peel and pizza stone.

Oy Vey: Gefilte Fish

"Don't learn to make gefilte fish," Grandma Ruth told me when she heard of my plans. "It's not worth it. Learn to make something that you'll eat more than once a year." Grandma' always right, and this was no exception, as it turned out. But still, I had to do it! For the project!

You know, I never really liked gefilte fish. At this moment, though, I truly hate it. This week I finally hit my first true, flat-out, nothing doing, face down failure of the project. Sure, there have been some things that didn't come out perfect so far, but nothing that took up hours of time and more money than I'd like to admit only to leave me with nothing usable. Other than some fish stock, which I guess counts for something.

Let's start at the start. I took the day off for Passover, as my parents were hosting the seder at their place on Thursday and it seemed like as good a time as any to take a crack at How to Cook Everything's recipe for Gefilte Fish, definitely an all day affair. Now, for the uninitiated out there, gefilte fish is a processed fish that you eat at passover seders. It tastes pretty much exactly how it looks, mild and benign and a little weird, but sort of familiar and nice at the same time. It was never my favorite thing in the world, but once a year I eat half a piece and call it a day. It never actually occurred to me until I saw it in HTCE that you might think of making it from scratch.

The main ingredient here is 3 lbs. of whitefish fillets (carp or pike will do as well) and 3 lbs. of scraps (head, skeletons, etc.). You put the scraps in a pot with celery, bay leaf, peppercorns, and an onion and essentially make a stock from it. Then you take the fillets, throw 'em in the food processor with another onion, chop it up together pretty fine, add some eggs and matzoh meal, and form egg shaped balls out of this mixture. You put those in the pot with the stock and scraps and about 3 cups of carrots, and let these balls cook for about an hour and a half. Gross, right? But I bet it tastes pretty good all in all, despite the fact that 90 minutes seems like a terribly long time to cook fish. Who am I to argue with tradition, though.

So, around 10 in the morning I went the Whole Foods Theme Park, a.k.a. Whole Foods Bowery (seriously that place is unreal). The fish guy there was incredibly helpful in helping me pick out a couple whitefish, which he then filleted, skinned, and left me with the scraps in addition to the fillets. Boondoggle number one occurred when I left with just the fillets but no scraps. OK, so, cab ride back to the Bowery and then another cab home with scraps in hand (I was in a bit of a time crunch). So those go into the pot, and I turn my attention to making the fish/onion mixture. Oh, what's this! It's hundreds of pin bones still in the fillets. Trying to get them out was frustrating, I don't think I had the right tools and I'm not really very experienced with these things.

Alright, I've already been in three cabs today, what's the hurt in two more? So, back out to Whole Foods (this time the Union Square one).

"Do you have whitefish fillets? Boneless? I really need them without bones."
"Yes."
"Okay, great, I'll take three pounds. Can you take the skin off?"
"Sure."
"Awesome. And you're sure there's no bones?"
"Yes."
"Great. I'll take it."

I don't want to tell you how much I paid for those three pounds of boneless skinless filets, but suffice it to say it was in keeping with the usual Whole Foods range. So imagine my surprise when I got home to find even more pin bones than in the first batch of fillets! And for what it's worth, he also left on a fair amount of the skin. Way to half ass it, Whole Foods Union Square! It wasn't even crowded; I was the only customer at the fish counter at the time.

That's it. End of story. Pretty anticlimactic, I know. I do have a few quarts of delicious fish stock to show for my troubles, and I did think it was kind of fun preparing that fish head for the pot. I'll have to work with whole fish more often. That's a plus, one more thing I'm feeling confident about in the kitchen. Thanks for nothing, Whole Foods. You're gonna have a really angry guy returning a lot of fish fillets tomorrow morning, FYI.

Next year, in Jerusalem! Or at least in NYC, with homemade gefilte fish. You gotta be reasonable, know what I mean?