Smoked Trout Pizza

I made this pizza for Valentine’s Day. My husband and I both thought it was one of the best pizzas we had ever eaten. There’s not much of a recipe to it, but I can give the basic assembly instructions.

First, I used my home made pizza crust that I have been making for a while. I have it posted here. I now use a combination of brown and white rice flours instead of all white rice flour. I think it gives it a better, less sweet taste.

Once the crust was partially cooked, I spread on the sauce. I used a white sauce made of olive oil, crushed garlic and basil. Actually, I did not have any fresh basil, so I added in a little pesto I had in the freezer.

I topped that with slices of fresh mozzarella, slices of smoked trout (smoked salmon would be very nice too), and green onion.

I baked that on my pizza stone at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes.

It was very garlicy, but that balanced the smoke flavor from the fish nicely. And I like garlic.

 

Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!

 Some people who are gluten free are perfectly happy never eating things like bread and pasta and pizza (and I’m speaking of the GF versions, of course). Others, like me, like some of that comfort food every once in a while. I’ve always liked home made pizza and have now tried making this several times since becoming GF. Sometimes it works better than others. I found a great recipe on Naomi Poe’s site “Gluten Free, not Gluten-Freaky.” The first time I made it, it was a great consistency and -almost- perfect. I found it just a little too sweet. So I started tinkering, changing amounts of sugar, changing types of flour, etc. I think this was my mistake. I probably should have just added a bit more salt to the original recipe and left the rest alone. What follows is her original recipe (which can be found here). My recommendation would be to add just a bit more salt.

However, as I think about it, one other problem may have been the amount of time I let it rise. I’m not sure I gave it enough time to rise (thus giving the yeast time to “eat” the sugar).

Obviously, you can top this with what ever you choose. Mine is topped with sauce (Classico spaghetti sauce); mixed italian cheese; italian sausage; and herbs.

PIZZA DOUGH

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups Rice flour (brown rice flour works really well here)
1 1/4 cups tapioca flour
1 Tbsp xanthan gum
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp dry milk powder (or nondairy substitute)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
4 egg whites
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp vinegar
1 ½ c warm water

Directions:

Put the egg whites, oil, vinegar, and water in the bowl of your mixer and blend. In a medium bowl, whisk together the other ingredients. With mixer turned to low, add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Turn beater to high and beat for 3 minutes. It will be the consistency of thick cake batter.

   

Line cookie sheets/baking stones with parchment paper. Spoon out the pizza crust batter and spread to desired thickness and size on parchment paper.

(I just put the parchment paper on the counter because I have one of those big pizza paddles for transferring it to the pizza stone which I pre-heat in the oven.)

   

 (The batter is enough to make about three 12″ pizzas, but you might want to make different sizes. They are great for partially baking and then freezing.)

  

  

   

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Slide your pizza crusts onto a baking sheet. Let the crust rise about 10 minutes. Place in the oven for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and spread with sauce. Place back into the oven for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and Top with toppings and cheese. Reduce heat to 350 degrees. Place back into the oven for about 5 minutes. Remove from oven, slice, and serve!

*watch the times - I’ve found that they really don’t take this long.

Freezing extra crusts:

If you want to freeze crusts for future use, bake crust at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool completely, then wrap individually in plastic wrap. To cook after it has been frozen, put pizza crust on baking sheet. Top with sauce. Bake for 10 minutes. Add cheese and toppings. Bake 5 to 10 more minutes. Again, it may won’t take this long to cook - check frequently.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do! It’s great fresh, but it’s even better to have a crust in the freezer for those nights when you just don’t really feel like cooking. On nights like that, you can still have a great dinner ready in about 20 minutes with very little effort.