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Shitake Mushroom and Cambozola Pizza with Caramelized Onions

A friend who once owned a cheese shop told me the Cambozola story. That blue cheese with brie was a winning combination had been well known in cheese circles for years, but the French refused to adulterate their Camembert with blue cheese and the Italians didn’t want to tone down their gorgonzola. In 1970, a German cheesemaker melded the two flavors. Today, Cambozola is the best-selling German cheese in the world.  Some things were meant to be.

But Cambozola on a pizza? In fact, it’s surprisingly tasty; creamy and not too blue. The flavor is milder than gorgonzola and edgier than brie. We’ve tried other blue cheeses on pizzas and found them to be overbearing. 

In moderate quantities,  the Cambozola hits the right balance. It’s really good baked onto this pizza. Here, the mushrooms and onion complement thinly sliced tomatoes while the Cambozola sings harmony – it’s like a party in your mouth!

So, let’s make pizza! I’ve included a recipe for a dough that makes a thin pan pizza crust and takes 7 or 8 hours to develop. You can substitute any dough that takes your fancy. And even though I made this as a pan pizza, the toppings would be just as nice on hand-tossed dough.

When you bite in, remember those feisty Germans and the Cambozola cheese they’ve craftily brought to this party!

Shitake Mushroom and Cambozola Pizza with Caramelized Onions

Makes 1 pan pizza (12”x17”) or 2 round 12” pizzas

 

4 ounces Shitake mushrooms, caps only, sliced thinly

6 ounces sliced button or crimini mushrooms

1 teaspoon each butter and olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

 

6 ounces yellow onion, sliced thinly

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 Tablespoon salted butter

 

1 pound fresh roma tomatoes, sliced thinly

olive oil for coating pan and sprinkling on dough

¼ teaspoon salt

3 ounces Cambozola cheese, sliced and broken into ½” pieces (keep cold)

2 ounces grated Grana Padano or good parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon dried oregano

 

18 ounces pizza dough (see below or use your favorite)

 

Make the dough: This dough takes a while to develop, so make it at 11 a.m. to be ready for dinner, or make it the night before and refrigerate after 2 hours.

  • Put 1 cup + 2 tablespoons (5.5 ounces) each unbleached white flour and caputo flour (or 2 ¼ cups unbleached flour), 1¼ teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon dry yeast into a large bowl and mix together.
  • Add 7/8 cup (7 ounces) cool water and mix well with the handle of a wooden spoon until incorporated.
  • Let sit for 20 minutes, and then knead for 5 minutes on a lightly floured counter.
  • Cover and let rise in a cool place (60º environment) for 4 or 5 hours or overnight in the fridge.
  • If refrigerated overnight, let sit at room temperature for 2-3 hours before proceeding.

Cook the mushrooms: Put butter and olive oil into a small saucepan, pile thinly sliced Shitake caps and sliced white mushrooms on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover and set over low heat. In 5 minutes the mushrooms should have exuded enough moisture to simmer in. If they seem too dry at this point, add 2 tablespoons of water (or white wine). Turn the heat down as low as possible and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cook the onion: Put oil and butter into a 10” frying pan or sauté pan over medium heat. When the butter is melted and beginning to sputter, add thinly sliced onion, and turn the heat to medium-high. Cook for 1 minute, turn the onions over with a spatula and fry for another minute. Now turn the heat to low and let the onion stew in the butter and juices slowly for 20 minutes or more. Low and slow is best, which will bring out the natural sweetness of the onion.

Make the pizza blank(s): Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a floured surface. Stretch out into a rectangle with your hands, pressing lightly with your fingers. (Do not use a rolling pin, or you will press out too much air.) Let rest for 5 minutes before stretching all the way to pan size. Flour the top and flip the dough over your arm to work the other side.

(Alternate method: cut dough in half and make two dough balls. Let rest before shaping pizzas.)

Lightly oil the bottom and sides of a 12”x17” pan. Fold the dough into quarters, move it to the pan and unfold so it fits the pan. Knead lightly with your fingers to flatten the bottom uniformly and form a raised edge.

Cover the pan and put it in a warm place to rise for 25 minutes before topping.

Preheat oven to 450º, using pizza stone or quarry tiles on center rack if available.

Top the pizza: Sprinkle olive oil onto the pizza blank, cover with a single layer of sliced tomato, and lightly salt the tomatoes. Squeeze the juice out of the mushrooms and then put onto the pizza. Distribute the caramelized onion and dot with the Cambozola. Top with grated parmesan (finely shredded is best) and oregano.

Bake the pizza: Bake in pan directly on the pizza stone or quarry tiles for 15 minutes, turning midway through baking. Turn oven down in last 5 minutes if the top is browning too fast.

(Alternate method: Slip 12” pizzas, baking one at a time, directly onto the stone or tiles and bake 10 to 12 minutes.)

Let pizza cool slightly before cutting and enjoying.

A note on woodfiring this pizza: After fully developing this recipe, I made it one final time in the woodfired oven, working with a fire that was 2 hours old. High pressure was developing in the wake of a storm, and so keeping the fire active was a challenge, as sometimes happens.

Instead of heating the entire oven, I worked on creating a ‘hot spot’ on the oven floor, which means I moved the fire and coals back and forth over two side-by-side locations in the middle of the oven. This heated an elliptical section of the floor where I would be putting the panned pizza. Because a pan pizza does well cooking more intesely from the bottom than from the top, this method was effective despite the fact the fire was being a bugaboo.

Everything came out fine with this method, but in the end I tasted no noticeable difference in the pizzas made outdoor and in, and so am happy to recommend using the quarry tiles or pizza stone for this one!  

 

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A sample text widget

Etiam pulvinar consectetur dolor sed malesuada. Ut convallis euismod dolor nec pretium. Nunc ut tristique massa.

Nam sodales mi vitae dolor ullamcorper et vulputate enim accumsan. Morbi orci magna, tincidunt vitae molestie nec, molestie at mi. Nulla nulla lorem, suscipit in posuere in, interdum non magna.