blue Cheese, Pear, walnut Flatbread (serves 4)
Adapted From Smitten Kitchen
The incredibly versatile old-world grape pairs with many things, but we love how the 2024 Mendocino Vermentino compliments the creamy rich cheese with its light acidity and delicate aromatics of fresh flowers, herbs, and stone fruit.
INGREDIENTS:
DOUGH:
3 c (375 g) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup water (+ 1-2 tbsp.)
3 tbsp. white wine (I used Vermentino!)
Slightly heaped 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
Cornmeal (for dusting)
TOPPINGS:
Olive oil
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1-2 pears, sliced thin
3 oz blue cheese, crumbled
1/4 c walnuts, chopped
Fresh arugula
Balsamic vinegar (or honey)
Red pepper flakes
Part 1:
In a very large bowl, mix all of the dough ingredients together with a spoon. It should look a bit rough and a tad crunchy, but if it feels excessively so, add another spoonful or two of water.
Cover bowl with plastic or a towel and keep at room temperature (on the warmer side) for at least 6 hours, until the dough has more than doubled.
(For overnight dough, approx. 22 hours, use 1/8 tsp. yeast and for 12 hours, use 1/4 tsp. says Smitten Kitchen.)
Part 2:
Preheat your oven to as hot as it goes, between 500-550 degrees F and prep your toppings: slice the pear, chop the walnuts and crumble the blue cheese.
Caramelize your onions on the stovetop with some olive oil. Slow and low is the key here, you don’t need to hover if you keep the temperature low enough.
Flour your counter very well. Scrape dough out of the bowl (it should look more loose and stretchy than when it started). Flour the dough on top and then divide into halves (or smaller if you prefer smaller pizzas).
Form them into ball-like shapes and cover them with plastic wrap or bowl to rise again for 15 additional minutes. Afterwards, work them in your hands to pull apart and knead together for a few rounds, and then stretch out the dough as best you can before placing it on the floured surface to finish with a rolling pin to (one at a time) transform the dough into roughly your desired shape. You can use just your hands like the pizzaiolos do, but it is harder than it looks.
Sprinkle cornmeal on your pizza pan or baking sheet.
Once your dough is shaped and pretty thin, then lift it onto a cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet or pizza paddle. Paint a thin layer of olive oil on the dough and distribute the pears, walnuts and blue cheese evenly.
Bake for 12(ish) minutes.
To Finish:
Drizzle the balsamic vinegar (or honey), top with arugula and slice to serve.
Notes from Our Kitchen:
Not for the faint of heart.
I read several pizza dough recipes before ending up with the one that would take me six hours in a warm-ish space (Unless it is summer, “room temperature” is too cold for a six-hour rise and you should turn your oven on to 200 to add some heat to the kitchen.
While there are many recipes out there that add the pear and Gorgonzola and red onion to a presto bought crust. I decided that I wanted to try my hand at freshly made, but you can definitely use a pre-made dough and still have a delicious meal!
I love Smitten Kitchen so I read three of her various blogs over the years about homemade pizza dough and ended up with a combination of a Lazy Pizza Dough recipe and the Pizza, updated recipe.
In order to get a nice caramelization, it is important not to rush the process, so take a few deep breaths as the onions cook if you are stressed from the dough.
In the spirit of local, as this is a Mendocino Vermentino, I purchased a blue cheese from Point Reyes farmstead cheese, a classic style blue cheese aged over 60 days.
I tried my best not to overwork the dough or add too much flour during the second half of the preparation. Those were the main warnings when I was reading recipes.
I managed to get my dough stretched into a relatively round, and relatively thin shape using my hands and a wood rolling pin. I sprinkled some cornmeal on the bottom of a round pan, which is traditional for a pizza. I also put some olive oil on the pan in hopes that the pizza does not stick.
It took at least 25 minutes, but the caramelized onions came out really really good. This pizza has no “sauce” so once I placed my dough on the pan, I painted some olive oil onto my crust. We have a kid so I’ve decided to make a traditional pizza with the second round of dough.
