Pizza

One of my favorite restaurants anywhere is Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles. It is so much fun to be there and all of the food is incredible. Really, with Nancy Silverton, Mario Battali, and Matt Molina, how could a pizza place in Hollywood go awry? They are renown for squash blossom pizza. So much so that Saveur offered a squash blossom pizza on the cover of it's Los Angeles edition this year. I made their recipe, exactly as published, and we LOVED it. (full disclosure: Michael would be perfectly happy if we ate pizza 365 days a year). My photograph, however, left quite a bit to be desired. You'll receive squash blossoms in your share this spring and can purchase burrata cheese from Whole Foods or at other specialty food stores. At Mozza, they use the Gioia brand. This is worth spending some energy to track down. Burrata is fresh mozzarela stuffed with cream and, for me personally, it completely redefined what fresh cheese could be.

I also tried a chard version with some of the additional dough from the recipe, which, by the way, kept perfectly in our refrigerator for three days wrapped in plastic. Since I don't have a slick magazine photo to which I can direct you, I've included mine.

1/4 dough from Saveur Recipe

1 T extra virgin olive oil

1 stem green garlic (peeled, finely sliced light and green parts only)

1 leek (finely sliced light and green parts only)

1 bunch baby chard leaves with stems

Salt and red pepper flakes

1 egg

freshly grated parmasean reggiano

Prepare pizza dough as directed by Saveur. From my experience, the use of a pizza stone, even a very inexpensive one, and the practice of heating it for an hour at 500 degrees is critical to the success of the finished product. Place the prepared dough on the heated stone and bake for 5 minutes at 500 degrees. In the meantime, saute green garlic, leeks and chard in olive oil. Season with salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Arrange the contents of the saute pan on the baking crust, crack the egg over the top, sprinkle with parmasean cheese and bake for five additional minutes. You'll want additional parmasean to garnish the cooked pie and a chiffonade of soft herbs would not be out of place. Having tried this, I advise making a little well in the center of the greens to cradle the egg while it bakes. You can see that mine ran dangerously close to the edge.

- Jet Doye