Prawn and Salsa Verde Pizza

First of all, I would like to apologize. This looks horrifying, I know. I realize that this looks like a pizza with some sort of alien sea monster resting on it, or maybe like the baby bezoars on Buffy, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

It's kind of growing on me though! Maybe that's just because I ate it, and it definitely doesn't taste like sea monster. Unless you think of shrimp that way, in which case then yes, yes it does, with a lovely grace note of cilantro and chile. 

Am I underselling this?

I hope not, because what this really is, all appearances aside, is a wonderful pizza with spicy salsa verde, heirloom tomatoes, chiles, and the hugest prawns I could find. It tastes fresh and sweet and vegetal, and if you decide to make this yourself and you happen to own a grill, I want you to promise me you will grill it because the only thing I can think would make this taste better would be a lovely smoky flavor. My oven, limping to 500 degrees, can't quite accomplish that, so please, let me live vicariously.

This pizza was inspired by my recent trip to Sydney, where I returned to a restaurant in Manly beach for their pizza and sunset views, only to realize neither was as good as I remembered. The sunset I'll allow was ruined by the weather; for the pizza, there wasn't really any excuse, except maybe my own expectations. I saw a prawn pizza with salsa verde on the menu and assumed I would get something a little more exciting than tiny shrimp scattered over tomato sauce and striped with what tasted like cilantro oil. Maybe they were going for more of a chimichurri, but even so, it was nothing like the vision in my head of crispy flatbread topped with king prawns nestled in a pool of tomatillo salsa. 

Though, my best attempt to match the vision in my head led to something fit for the Sea Witch's table, so maybe I should go easier on them? 

You may actually find smaller shrimp to be easier to manage here, since it was a little awkward to bite through the giant shrimp and the pizza dough, and not have the entire prawn come away in the first bite. But I'm still calling for large shrimp below, because I have a vision, you know.

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Prawn and Salsa Verde Pizza

Salsa Verde adapted from Skinny Taste. The recipe makes more than enough for one pizza, so you can double everything else and make 2 pizzas, or grab some chips and dig in!

• pizza dough (enough for 1 pie, homemade or use your favorite store bought dough)
• 2 serrano peppers
• 1 poblano pepper
• 1/2 small onion
• 3/4 lb tomatillos
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 lime
• 1/4 cup cilantro
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 lb large prawns, peeled and deveined
• 2 small tomatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 cherry pepper, thinly sliced (or other red pepper, such as fresno)

1. Make salsa: Cut poblano pepper in half lengthwise and remove seeds, and husk and rinse tomatillos, then cut in half. On a greased, foil-lined baking sheet, place poblano halves, serranos, onion, garlic, and tomatillos. Broil 10-15 minutes until charred and softened through. Place peppers in a sealed plastic bag or wrap in foil to steam for 10 minutes, then peel peppers. Remove seeds from serranos if you want the salsa less spicy. Peel garlic. Add all to the bowl of a food processor or blender, and pulse to combine. Add lime juice, salt and pepper, and cilantro. Blend until mixture is combined but a little chunky. Taste for salt and pepper and add more if needed. 
2. Heat oven to 500 degrees, preheat a pizza stone or steel if using. Roll out dough into a large, thin round. Spread a thin layer of the salsa verde across the pizza, leaving a 1/2 inch border. Layer slices of tomatoes and peppers across the surface. Transfer pizza to baking stone or steel or bake on a sheet pan in the oven. Cook for 10 minutes. 
3. While pizza is cooking, this is a good time to prep your shrimp if you want them to cook without curling, like in the photos above. Cut a few slits in the inside curl of each shrimp and gently straighten. This will allow the shrimp to cook straight, which is probably only important if you plan on replicating the horror of my pizza above.
4. After pizza has baked for 10 minutes, remove from oven and arrange shrimp on top as desired, either scattered across or arranged into a twelve-legged starfish if you're into that. Return pizza to oven and bake for 5 minutes more. Garnish finished pizza with cilantro and serve hot. I like to cut so that each slice gets at least 2 shrimp.

Chocolate Chile Cookie & Lime Ice Cream Sandwiches

Christmas came early this year! At least to my cookie jar. 

Well, I don’t own a cookie jar, but it definitely came early to my stomach. Or my freezer. Or both, really, but not in that order. 

If you’re wondering what Christmas possibly has to do with these ice cream sandwiches, well, nothing, actually, except that the cookies I used to sandwich my lime ice cream are the chocolate chile cookies I request, or uh, demand, whenever I go to my friend Ginny’s family for Christmas, when she, her sister and I all usually spend an entire day (or two) baking up about eleven billion trazillion gamillion cookies or so (not an exaggeration). The problem is that everyone has their favorite, and there really isn’t a lot of overlap. 

For me, these are nonnegotiable. Deeply chocolate cookie dough get rolled in a chile sugar before baking into soft, sweet and spicy rounds that I’m incapable of keeping in my house through December 27th (sometimes they don’t even make it out of the car). Last year, there was talk of removing them from the rotation, which I thought was highly unfair, especially given the email, text, and IM’s Ginny bombarded me with after I had the nerve to post these cookies and not include them in the list (in my defense, I thought they were too similar to the chocolate chip cookies all ready included, but I was apparently incorrect about that). So we compromised, and just made both. I’m waiting for the year we all decide we are just ridiculous, but that hasn’t happened yet. I certainly won’t be making that call, because 1) I am a guest in their home and I would never rule on someone’s family traditions, and 2) cookies are among my favorite foods on earth and I don’t believe in my heart that you can ever truly have too many.

But these? They really are my favorite. And I didn’t wait until Christmas this year to make them, but I still felt like they needed a little something to summer-ize them, so I churned up some lime ice cream and smooshed it in between pairs of cookies. The result is a lovely sandwich of the sweet/spicy chocolatey cookies I love, plus a zippy, refreshing, cold blast from the citrusy ice cream. To me, they are the perfect treat to celebrate the last official weekend of summer. 

Just maybe make them and invite some friends over, ok? These are proving to be just as hard to pace myself with as the cookies are at Christmas. I stress ate three before the Game of Thrones finale on Sunday, and the resulting heartburn brought on by my rapidly beating heart and “who’s going to die” nerves is not recommended.

But you should be fine, assuming you share, or you *spoiler alert* aren't #teamlittlefinger and totally think romantic relationships should happen between close family members.

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Chocolate Chile Cookie & Lime Ice Cream Sandwiches

Chocolate cookies adapted from Martha, lime ice cream adapted from David Lebovitz. This makes enough for 10 sandwiches and some leftover cookies for the cook or for insurance.

For the Lime Ice Cream:

• zest from 3 limes, (preferably organic or well rinsed if not)
• 3/8 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (use the same limes you zested plus any extra needed, I used 4 limes total)
• 2 cups half and half
• pinch salt

1. In a blender, combine lime zest and sugar and blend until zest is very fine. Add the lime juice and blend until sugar is dissolved completely. Add half and half and salt and blend until all is well combined. Chill mixture for 1 hour, then freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. Transfer to freezer-safe container and freeze until firm.

Notes:

• I adapted the ice cream recipe from one originally calling for lemons, so I decreased the sugar on the assumption that limes are sweeter and that I wouldn't want an overly sweet ice cream between layers of cookies that had been rolled in extra sugar. However, the finished ice cream was a bit icier and less compact than I expected, which could be from using half and half and no eggs in the base, but also I suspect may be partly due to lowering the sugar content, so feel free to add an extra 1/8 cup sugar if you like.

For the Chocolate Chile Cookies:

• 1 cup flour
• 3/8 cup dutch process cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick plus 2 tbs unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar + 1/8 cup for rolling
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 cup turbinado sugar
• 1/4 tsp chile powder
• 2 dried thai bird chiles

1. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, or sift together if especially clumpy.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the 1 cup of granulated sugar, the butter, and the egg until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Scrape down sides of bowl, add vanilla and beat to combine. Gradually beat in the dry ingredients on low speed. Cover bowl and chill for at least 1 hour.
3. Make the chile sugar: combine 1/8 cup granulated sugar and the turbinado sugar with the chile powder. Grind up the thai bird chiles and add to the sugar mix, stir to combine.
4. When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment. Scoop 1 oz spoonfulls of dough onto prepared cookie sheets and roll into balls. Roll balls in the chile sugar and place about 1 inch apart on the baking sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes until set, rotating sheets halfway through. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
5. To assemble sandwiches: Scoop ice cream and press gently between 2 cookies. The cookies should be soft enough not to break but be gentle and you should be fine. 

Decadent Olive Oil Eggs

I almost can’t believe I’m posting these eggs.

Look in my About page. I believe included in a list of foods you will not find on this site are “runny eggs.” These scrambled eggs may actually qualify under that descriptor, because they hardly turn opaque and you really need a spoon to eat them. So maybe that means my food tastes are changing? 

I mean technically these eggs aren’t running anywhere, exactly, but the low-heat, slow-eat method I used to make them doesn’t so much cook the eggs as thicken them, into what could best be described as more of an egg pudding than scrambled eggs. Or maybe something like a custard without the sugar or dairy. Honestly if I really stop and think too much about it I probably wouldn’t eat them again, so I don’t really want to. 

The important things to focus on are the texture - a creamy, decadent-seeming mess of egg that has just formed into small curds (seriously, where did other Allie go?) and the taste, which, thanks to a healthy (don’t be shy with it) amount of good olive oil, has a pleasant, fruity undertone. The olive oil is key here, inspired by happy accident during a weekend trip to Tahoe where none of us thought to buy butter for our morning eggs.

Together, taste and texture announce that these are not some Wednesday morning eggs.  If I’m honest, these are Sunday morning eggs, but only if you’re staring down a really lazy Sunday with nowhere to go and nothing to do except sip your morning caffeine and slowly stir your eggs into a luscious mass. 

Add a little sour cream or creme fraiche if you miss the dairy, and a little chile flake and lemon zest for zip. Share if you must, but you just stood for 20 minutes so you definitely deserve every decadent bite if you don’t.

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Decadent Olive Oil Eggs

Adapted from Geoffrey Zakarian

• 3 eggs plus 1 yolk
• 2 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tbs creme fraiche or sour cream
• herbs, chile flake, lemon zest, etc. (for garnish)

1. Beat the eggs and yolk until smooth and all whites are incorporated with the yolks.
2. Add the eggs and olive oil together in a small pot over medium-low heat. Stir constantly with a rubber spatula or spoon. As the eggs thicken, take the pot on and off the heat as needed to control the temperature. You want to keep the heat low enough for soft and creamy eggs.
3. When the mixture gets thick and soupy, season with salt and pepper, return to the heat, and cook to desired doneness. The entire process could take 15-20 minutes. Have patience.
4. To serve, mix in creme fraiche or sour cream, and garnish with herbs, chile flake, or lemon zest as desired.