Pizza topped with sliced portobello mushrooms and parmesan

We owe this recipe (and the following 3 pizza-topping recipes we plan to post) to an amazing friend who knows just how to birthday gift the two cooks!  She donned Z with personally-designed Two Cooks apron and she lavished A with a… (drum roll)… pizza stone!  We’ve been wanting one for a while, but we kept putting off the purchase.  Now, pizza it is!

We have been making (and eating) pizza and thought we’d share some of our experiments (we’ve made four kinds so far).  Z is still trying to perfect hone a good crust, but the recipe below represents some initial modifications on one from Mark Bittman.

This topping on the one we’re writing about this time is the least work-intensive of the four, so we thought we’d start with it.

Mark Bittman’s Pizza Crust Recipe

(Makes 4 thin 8″ inch pizza crusts, or two thicker 10″ ones)

3 cups flour

2 tsp instant yeast

1 cup water

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp sea salt

Put the flour, yeast, water, sea salt and 2 tbsp of olive oil in a food processor.  Process for 30 seconds, then check the consistency.  If it has formed a ball and is slightly sticky to the touch then you are done.  (This is all it took for us.)  If not, then add 1-2 tbsp of water and process again for a few seconds.  We read that you can do that for up to 1 1/4 cups of water, but not more.  We were good with 1 cup.

Put the final tbsp of olive oil in a bowl.  Knead the dough on a well-floured surface for a few seconds, getting it good and round.  Then plop it in the bowl, coat it fully with the olive oil, cover and refrigerate.  This dough will be ready to go within an hour, but if you have all the time in the world, Bittman says it can rise for up to eight hours in the fridge.

When you are ready to make your pizza, the first thing we’d do is preheat the oven. We preheated ours to 500°.

Next, roll the dough out on a well floured surface (we rolled it super thin).

Sauceless Portobello Pizza

(for 1 8″ pie or 1/2 of the larger ones, which are pictured below)

1 medium-sized Portabella Cap

6 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp sea salt (heaping)

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup parmesan

1/2 tsp finely chopped rosemary (or less)

The only real prep here is slicing the mushroom.  Slice it length wise super thinly.  Sautee in the 3 tbsp of olive oil with the salt and pepper.

Before layering the mushrooms, spread 2 tbsp of olive oil over the uncooked, rolled out dough.  Then lay out as many mushroom slices as you desire onto your sauceless crust.  Sprinkle with finely chopped rosemary and some parmesan.  Then drizzle the remaining tbsp of olive oil over the top of it.  Confirm that your oven is preheated and bake for 10 minutes.

The right side of this is a ricotta, mozzarella, caramelized onion and garlic pizza (which we later topped with pea shoots).  More on that later.  The Portobello pizza is a little reminiscent of a mushroom-topped focaccia.  Thanks again to Rose for knowing just how to warm our hearts (and our stomachs).

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