Grew Roma, cherry, and san marzano tomatoes in the garden, decided to make a pizza sauce with them and of course a pizza to accompany the sauce.
Sauce Method: I scored an X on the fresh tomatoes at the tips, dropped them into boiling water for three mins. Immediately placed them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. The skins peeled right off from there. I cut the cores out of the tomatoes and processed them until it was a smooth consistency I jarred half the tomato puree with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic, fresh basil. This would become my pizza sauce. I let it sit overnight in the fridge for the flavors to meld. I did not cook this sauce down as I wanted it to have a bright fresh flavor (also knowing it would cook some in the oven) and it delivered! The other half of the tomato puree I did cook down and made a marinara sauce, but that’s for another post.
Pizza: I could have gone with a standard Margherita to highlight just the sauce, but I wanted something a bit different, don’t ask me why, a marg would have been fine, just wasn’t feeling it today. I still wanted to go on the lighter flavors side to make the sauce stand out, so I opted for spinach, fresh tomato slice, hand grated mozzarella cheese, salami, and red onion, and sliced mozzarella. Hand tossed pizza dough (dough came from Trader Joe’s) in a mix of flour and cornmeal. I par baked the dough for 5 mins in a conventional oven at 475F. After par baking, brought all ingredients together and baked for 15 mins. While baking, I tossed arugula in lemon juice and olive oil. After baking, I topped the pie with the lemon arugula.
The bite: the pizza sauce definitely came through and was the highlight of pizza, it was bright and full of flavor, could absolutely tell the difference between a canned sauce and something that had life in it. The rest of the ingredients came together well to support the sauce, the lemon arugula add a nice touch of citrus and pepper that was very welcomed. Overall, just a nice afternoon pizza. Cheers
by runs_with_airplanes