Underneath that deceptively simple asiago/mozzarella cheese canopy are hiding chunks of shiitake mushroom, aromatic fennel, tangy tomato, onion, and thick cuts of spicy salami.  I had complete confidence in all of these ingredients with the exception of the fennel.  I’d never used it in a pizza before, and I was worried its flavor might overwhelm.  No need to fear.  This pizza was all sorts of savory, rich, and meaty, with just pings here and there of fennel sweetness.

I snatched up this recipe from My Year on the Grill, who is in the opening weeks of his Pizza 2011 Project – 52 unique gourmet pizzas in 52 weeks.  If you’re looking for something other than the standard default pepperoni pie, this should be your first stop.   And if you see no need to deviate from the traditional, he’s also got a couple suggestions for how to gussy up the classics!

Ever heard a pizza talk?  This one had quite a bit to say (and no, for those of you who follow this blog regularly and might be wondering, it’s not Bond music in the background, but it’s close.  It’s Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack for The Incredibles).

Salami with Fennel and Asiago Pizza from Year on the Grill

For the sauce:

1 can (14 ounces) diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
4 shiitake mushroom buttons, cut into thin slivers
1/4 cup red wine
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup Pecorina Romano cheese
1/4 white onion, diced (I added this to Year on the Grill’s recipe)

Combine everything in a sauce pan and simmer for 30 minutes. Year on the Grill suggests then using hand mixer and blending to a thick paste, but I kept it as is – nice and chunky!

For the pizza:

1 stick salami of your choice. I used Columbus Brand Herb Salami
1 cup shredded Asiago cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Pre-made pizza dough (or if you have the time to make your own, click here for a recipe)
Salt and pepper for seasoning, along with any additional spices of your choice
olive oil for brushing the pizza dough

Preheat oven and pizza stone (or heavy baking sheet) to 500 degrees for at least 30 minutes.

Cut the salami into slices about 1/2 inch thick, then cut these into quarters. I halved them and left it at that.

Cut the fennel bulb into thin slices, separate the rings

Grate the asiagio cheese

Roll your crust out on parchment paper to your personal preference. Brush Olive oil around the edges. Salt and pepper the crust. Top with your sauce, fennel, salami, and both your cheeses. Add any additional seasoning and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. If you notice the side closer to the rear of your oven browning faster, turn pizza midway through the cooking.

Pull your bubbly pie out of the oven, and watch it dance and sing as it cools. Give it close to ten minutes before you cut into it. Enjoy with someone you love!

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The smell over the burners as the mushrooms and onions browned together was truly intoxicating.  The portobellos add a rich, woodsy flavor to the meat.

Mature mushrooms such as portobellos store higher levels of octenol in their gills, leading to a richer aroma when they’re cut open.   I topped them with a simple slaw made with celery, apple, sugar and cider vinegar that rendered any additional topping or condiment unnecessary

Tender buffalo that melts in your mouth, packed with aromatic mushrooms and topped with a zesty slaw.  Write your own ending to this one.  I just remembered there are two left over in the refrigerator!

Portobello Buffalo Burgers with Celery Apple Slaw From Epicurious

For burgers:

• 1 pound ground buffalo
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 10 ounces portobello mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 4 hamburger buns or kaiser rolls, split and toasted

For slaw:

• 2 celery ribs
• 1/2 Granny Smith apple, cored (left unpeeled)
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
• Rounded 1/4 teaspoon sugar

Pulse onion and mushrooms in a food processor until finely chopped. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium heat. Add mushroom mixture, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and rounded 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to brown and liquid has evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

While the mixture cools, start on the slaw: Cut celery and apple into thin julienne slices (I used my handy old potato peeler). Whisk together mayonnaise, vinegar, oil, mustard, sugar, rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl. Add celery and apple, tossing to coat. Let stand 15 minutes to develop flavors.

Mix buffalo into cooled mushroom mixture with your hands until well combined. Form into 4 (4-inch) patties. Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Cook burgers, turning once, about 8 minutes total for medium-rare.

Serve burgers, topped with slaw, on buns.

My friend Travis, better known as superior mix master DJ T-Rock brought me a gift last week in the form of a bacon recipe cookbook.  He swears he’s not in love with me.  I check with him nearly every day – sometimes five or six times before lunch – but he always pleads platonic affections only. And yet he brings me a bacon recipe cookbook.

Mixed signals?  You tell me.

Well, he must at least love bacon to have dropped this bible into my hands.  He also knows full well that eventually he’s gonna find himself invited over to sample some of the dishes included in it. And there are some seriously good happenings going on in these pages. Did I expect anything less from a book that has B-A-C-O-N in big capital letters across the cover? Hell, he could have brought me How to Cook Your Cat with Bacon and I’d have still been drooling.

I went with Alfredo Bacon Mushroom Pizza first over such other raptures as Bacon Spinach Strata, Bacon Onion Quiche, Asian Pork Burgers and (don’t let your arteries hear this)… Bacon Cheese Fries!  The recipe gave me a chance to perfect my pizza dough making (for the first time ever, I actually managed to roll it out in the shape of a circle and not a sideways capital D), get my hands on a couple of deliciously earthy portobellos and try out a new method of getting the unbaked pie to the heated pizza stone as suggested by Smitten Kitchen.

“…I slide the pizza dough, prepped with toppings, onto a piece of cornmeal-dusted parchment paper that’s been placed on the back of a baking sheet. With a little shove-and-yank, I slide the parchment paper with the pizza right onto the pizza stone in the oven. It bakes right on the parchment paper, which I use to yank the pizza out to the oven when it’s done.

This proved to be a brilliant solution to my newly snapped-in-half pizza paddle… one of those kitchen do-hickeys I thought I couldn’t live without before I learned the art of kitchen improvisation.  The shove-and-yank proved a little problematic at first, but after a few minutes of focus, I got the hang of it.  Insert your own sexual punch line here.

The finished pie scored me a definite thumbs up from MG.  His half was nowhere to be seen within fifteen minutes of extracting it from the oven.  Looking over the ingredient list, was there even a chance this was going to disappoint?

Thanks for the gift, T-Rock.  Come on over soon.  Me and MG have a “Festive Feta Bacon Ball” we want you sample.

Alfredo Bacon Mushroom Pizza modified from Taste of Home Digest Bacon Recipes

• 1 round of pizza dough, thawed
• 1/2 pound back strips
• 1 1/2 cups roasted garlic Alfredo sauce
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 large portobello mushrooms, stems removed
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Roll out dough if you haven’t yet.  Cook the bacon until just done.  Drain on paper towels and cut into 1 inch pieces

Apread Alfredo sauce over crust, sprinkle with both cheeses.  Cut mushrooms into 1/2 inch strips; place over cheese so they resemble spokes of a wheel.  Sprinkle with bacon and pepper.  Bake for 10-15 minutes at 500 F or until heated through and cheese is melted.

Were these NOT the same things that occasionally grew on the corners of our front lawn? Were these NOT the same things dad warned me away from because of their possibly poisonous nature?

Was my mother out to kill me?

Well no, in fact, they were NOT the same things as the possibly toxic (but probably not) varieties making homes out front the house. And I quickly understood that. But divorcing myself from a distatse, an almost irrational fear of the mushroom, has taken me decades.

I pick them off pizza. I fish them out of salads. And pack anything you damn well want into the caps, heat them up and drop them in front of me. I’ll suck on my sneaker instead.

And yet… I could not get this recipe out of my head. Maybe a mushroom on its own didn’t sound all that hot, but mushrooms with wine, pasta, cheese, and onions? This is something a spore-bearing fungus hater might be able to get behind.

Mom has often told me I was missing the boat on mushrooms. This patsa dish looked and sounded so rewarding that maybe, I thought to myself, just maybe, this would be the meal that could lead me to welcoming mushrooms into my kitchen on a regular basis.

And it was! Moms always know.

Mushroom Marsala with Artichoke Hearts  From Smitten Kitchen

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 pound mushrooms, trimmed, cleaned and finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 tablespoon of same for pasta water
• 1 cup Marsala wine (dry)
• 1 pound pasta of your choice
• 1/2 pound artichoke hearts
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 cup cream (doubling Smitten’s measurement)
• 1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsely
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

If you’re not as unfamiliar with mushroom preparation as I am, you can skip this part. I had no idea how to prep them. Never run them under water, as they will just soak it right up and turn to mush. Various stops on the web produced two methods – a slightly damp cloth or paper towel, or simply brushing any dirt off with a pastry brush, which was the option I took.
Stemming is easy. Hold the cap in one hand and with the other yank the stem up and down a few times, then give it a slight twist. It will pop right off. Between these beauties and the onion, I got in some good chopping time. Always a highlight to an evening for me.

Once everthing is cut, start boiling your pasta water (add the 1 tablespoon of kosher salt). Heat your oil on medium in a heavy skillet. Smitten recommends the onions go in first and cook solo for one minute before you add the shrooms, but I missed that step and threw both in at the same time. Didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

Let the mixture cook for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, or until all the moisture has evaporated and the mushrooms have cooked down. The aroma at this point will be heavenly, but don’t invite the neighbors over yet because it gets even better once you add the wine!

Add in the Marsala and let it cook until almost all the wine has evaporated. Marsala is made with Sicilian grapes and fortified with brandy that converts the sugar into a higher alcohol content. This step took me about eight minutes.

Drop your pasta into the boiling water and cook until tender – about ten minutes. Drain and add into the mushroom-onion mixture along with the parmesan, the cream and the artichoke hearts. Mix well and cook for another 5 minutes. Season with parsley and pepper (I chopped the parsley but forgot to throw it in). Makes 4-6 servings.