When do you cross the line from simply enjoying a meal to actually turning into a foodie? This past week while driving to work at 6am or so, I started to think about what pizza creation I would bake with Sponge Bob. You see, when we visited Ola about a month ago, she packed a little container of Junior Sponge Bob for us to bring back to Oahu. Not the cartoon version. Basically a living and breathing sourdough starter from the King Arthur catalog that's probably older than most of us that you continually feed and propagate. Every other week or so, you remove about a cup of the starter and either make bread, pizza dough or pancakes and replace with another cup of fresh water and flour. After several hours at room temperature, the remaining starter gorge themselves on the new food and literally double in volume at which point, you place Sponge Bob in the refrigerator to slow down his gluttony until it's time to use him again. And for us, that was today. But what pizza do I make?
Then it came to me right out of the H3 tunnels... I'm making a sourdough pizza dough. Like Boudin Bakery in The City. And what's their most famous dish? Clam chowder served right in a hollowed out Boudin sourdough bread "bowl". A Sourdough Clam Chowder Pizza!!!
First I'll make a basic bechamel sauce that's mixed with reduced clam juice - almost like the base of a clam chowder. I'll also top the pizza with diced celery since that's also in clam chowder along with minced onions. I'll also brown some home fries since potatoes are in clam chowder and lastly a healthy dose of chopped clams. And of course since it's pizza, a little grated mozzarella just to hold the toppings.
So I first reduced a bottle of clam juice plus the liquid in 2 cans of chopped clams to about 1/4 cup. Then I cubed a potato, skin and all and browned it in garlic infused macadamia nut oil. Diced 1 large stalk of celery and as a bonus, diced half of a smoked onion (I used the other half for my smoked tomato mayonnaise). And lastly made a basic bechamel with about double the roux so that it had the consistency of pizza sauce - I also added some thyme and lemon thyme to the party.
Roll out my sourdough pizza dough and blind baked for 8 minutes at 450 degrees
Slathered with my "clam chowder sauce" then sprinkled with the toppings
Back in for another 10 minutes and voila!
Sourdough Clam Chowder Pizza! With a glass of vino of course... in this case a 2010 Brick House Cascadia Chardonnay from Oregon.
After sampling the first slice, I realized that the topping were packed too much. When I do re-create Clam Chowder Pizza v2, I'll slice the celery and onions and layer them so that the "clam chowder sauce" comes through with each bite. But if i must say so myself, winnah, winnah, clam chowdah pizza dinnah!
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