I love ramps sometimes more than people. Encounters with both can be pungent, stinging and fleetingly aggressive but unfortunately, its against the law to put humans on a pizza.

“What’s a ramp?” The well dressed man asked as he pointed at the long pizza al metro I was selling at the Athens Farmers Market last Saturday.

 This monster had 40 diagnally placed ramps atop crumbled Parmigiano Reggiano and sharp Sicilian Caciocavallo. I had also placed some fat Amish asparagus at intervals along the pizza also topped with four large islands of ramp salsa, Stanislaus Valorosso tomatoes and local Shagbark popcorn coated with Gruyere cheese. It was huge,gorgeous, greeny green.

“It’s a wild leek.” I explained loudly to counter the irritatingly tappity, tap, tap of the cold rain against the roof of my tent.

“What’s a leek.”

“A large version of a green onion.”

“So lemme get this straight, you gotta pile of large, wild onions on a pizza?”

“Yep.” I shivered as the 47 degree breeze made my damp clothes harden.

“Hmmm, I don’t know if I should take a chance on a slice of tha…whooaa now, is that popcorn?”

“Yea, it adds a wonderful textural counterpoint and its blanketed in Gruyere cheese…”

“Kinda freakish if you asked me. What’s that green stuff under the counterpoint popcorn?”

“Ramp salsa.”

“Pretty redundant, don’t you think?” He said as he popped another free bread sample in his pie hole.

“Redundancy is a state of mind sir.” I explained horribly. 

“Not when you’re dealing with stinky onions, gotta sample of that pizza?”

“No, I’m sor…” I said as the side of his mouth went up and he shook his head from side to side just before he turned to leave.

“Onion pizzas usually suck.” He mumbled as he walked away.

I looked at the pizza and smiled. It was my only friend around here.

Unlike that conversation, ramps are more predictable and much less annoying.  They sneak in quickly in the cold of spring, wave thier floppy flags under the shade of the forest and spread thier wonderous oniony stench into the wind, then they are gone.

Here’s a great ramp pizza and thanks to Shews orchard, I have some great wild watercress that grows near thier spring and some of thier fab applesauce. I will pair these ingredients with just picked asparagus, gruyere, lemon and some Prosciutto di Parma cooked till nice and crispy. This pizza, while not the one described above was devoured by me and my Jake…hence the smiles.

For the Pizza:

One seven ounce dough ball from the easy dough recipe on this blog.

Ramp salsa recipe (below)

Prosciutto di Parma crisps recipe (below)

3 ounces of Gruyere cheese

2 tablespoons of apple sauce

One small bunch of fresh watercress

 For the Ramp Salsa Preparation:

9 whole ramps, washed

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Juice from half a lemon

2 teaspoons salt or more to taste 

One stalk of spring garlic (please do not use bulb garlic if you cannot find, just use one tablespoon less oil.)

5 or 6 fresh asparagus spears

1.5 tablespoons honey

Cut the roots off of the ramps. Put all ramps and oil  in a blender or bucket with an immersion blender and blend on high until liquidy. Add the juice from the lemon half and salt.

Cut the root off of the green garlic then in long matchsticks. Cut the length of each matchstick once then twice. Turn the long ribbons and cut crossways producing a small dice. Add garlic to the ramp pesto liquid.

  Cut asparagus three quarters up the stalk from bottom. Cut down the stalk without the bud in half then turn the cut stalk and cut across to produce a small dice. Add chopped asparagus and 1.5 tablespoons of honey. Taste and add extra salt or honey to taste. This should be a fairly chunky salsa so you can always add more asparagus if needed.

For the Prosciutto di Parma Crisps Preparation:

1.5 to 2 ounces Prociutto di Parma

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 quarter cup white wine or Appalacian deglazer- (water)

reserved asparagus tips

Cut the prosciutto in strips and in a bowl, add extra virgin olive oil (add more if you have very lean prosciutto.) Place in a pan under medium heat and saute’ for 5 to 10 minutes. Turn heat down and toss frequently because the meat will stiffen and crisp up very fast. (Needless to say, do not walk away from this process.)

When the prociutto is crisp, pull from the pan on a paper towel. Keeping the medium-high heat on, add one quarter cup of white wine or water to deglaze the pan. As the liquid bubbles, scrape the pan unhinging all the gnarly bits. Add the asparagus tips to cook in this wonderful flavor bath for only three minutes. Cut each spear legnthwise and reserve with the prosciutto. Keep the liquid reducing until you have only 2-3 tablespoons. This will be brushed on the pizza crust as a

For the Pizza:

Pre-heat oven to 495. Using the easy dough recipe in this blog, take one dough ball and bang out into a round disc. Place on a pizza screen or some parchment.

Brush the reduced Prosciutto di Parma sauce directly onto the dough and then the gruyere. Add the asparagus spears in a sunburst pattern then the ramp salsa. Place in oven for 12 minutes or until done. In a seperate bowl toss the watercress in the applesauce and place on the cooked pie. Sprinkle the crispy Prosciutto di Parma on top and enjoy like mad!

Right after describing this pizza to my wife, she said “John, did you know that there are different levels of madness?” Like a good husband, I totally ignored the comment and proceeded to do the unthinkable and dumped a cup of the best aged Parmigiano Reggiano into boiling water. That’s how this all started.

  Last weekend, I was approached by one of the guys from the ‘Morel Mafia’ who stopped by my stall at the Athens Farmers Market and sold me some really great looking morel mushrooms. It was then I knew that spring was in full swing. As I looked throught the mass of market shoppers, I saw that Margie Shew had some great looking fresh watercress that she grows at Shews Orchard at this time of the year and the rusted cogs in my pizza brain started clicking away. This pizza was gonna rock the same way spring rocks!

I love watercress and chicken so I got a few thighs together, a nice brick of Parmigiano Reggiano, the morels, garlic, lemon and some nice Bulgarian Kashkaval cheese and went to work. Oh, I love caraway seeds with morels, it’s one of those combo’s like mango and lime or cauliflower and gruyere or eggplant and mint or…don’t get me started.

But first, the Parmesan water:

This liquid is the rendered liquid essence of pure Parmigiano! I’ve used it as a sauce, a seaweed and shiitake soup by adding dashi broth, or by adding tomato water it makes a fabulous summertime chilled gazpacho broth.

Two cups water

One cup grated or chopped Parmigiano Reggiano (don’t substitute for the real stuff)

Bring the water to a boil and while it at a rolling boil add the cheese. Turn all heat off and stir with a whisk for 10 minutes until cooled down. Add to a glass bowl and cover when cool enough. Store in the refrigerator for two days.

After two days in the fridge, three levels will have formed in the bowl. The heavy milk solids will have fallen to the bottom, the light cream will have congealed on the top and in the middle will be a foggy water. Using a spoon and a deft hand, gently scrape the hardened cream off the top and reserve for later.

 Pour the water through a strainer, (for this recipe, I only strained through a regular wire strainer.) The solids can be used for grating in ricotta or as chips or even in breads.

For the Chicken:

Skin and debone the chicken leg carefully. Cut the sinew out without compromising the integrity of the meat. Rememeber you need a single piece of meat. This may be hard to do because thier usually a small muscled chunk that is not connected well. (The next anatomist or chicken I encounter, I’ll ask them.)

Take each leg meat and lay on plastic wrap. Put another piece on top and pound the crap out of it. I lost my meat mallet (probably in the sand box) so I had to use a rolling pin then the bottom of a heavy pan. Once pounded measure a 1 inch cutter height and cut the leg meat. Spray the cutter with oil and wrap the chicken around the cutter. I was tempted to use some meat glue but the twine worked just fine.

Take the round of leg meat and heat the parmesan water in a small sauce pan. Once the water comes to a boil insert the chicken. Cook for three to five minutes. It will cook fast because of the metal conduction and the hole. I found that if you tilt the pan and don’t spill the parmesan water (like I did,) the chicken will be more evenly cooked like above. Once the chicken is done, place in a covered container and refrigerate.

For the morel and sauce prep:

Two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Five to seven fresh morel mushrooms

Juice from one half of a lemon

One tablespoon caraway seeds

One half cup chicken stock

Place the morels in cool water and let sit under the water for at least 15 minutes. (NOTE) Some gregarious morel eaters use salted water but if you do this, you will kill the spores floating around in the water with the small bugs and crap that uses the morel as a New York apartment complex. Take the morels out and place on paper towels. SAVE THE WATER AND THROW AROUND A TREE IN YOUR YARD, THE SPORES HAVE A WAY OF RE-APPEARING EVERY YEAR!

Place the extra virgin olive oil in a pan under medium heat with caraway seeds and saute for five minutes. Add  chicken stock to pan and bring to a boil. Turn heat off. Add morels for ten seconds on each side. You are not cooking the mushrooms, just a quick poach that’s all. Take them out and reserve for later. 

Add two tablespoons of the parmesan cream from the top of the parm-water to the caraway stock. Reduce till it coats back of spoon.

Cut chives and add to the cooled sauce.  

For the pizza:

Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees without burning your house down.

Bang out a seven ounce dough ball from the Easy Dough Recipe on this blog to a 10-11 inch round pizza dough.

Pre-prepared caraway and chicken stock for sauce (above)

One cup Bulgarian Kashkaval cheese cut or shredded

Five pre-prepared chicken and morel rings

One bunch local watercress

Place sauce on pizza dough. Cut or tear about 1 cup of Kashkaval cheese and place on pizza. stuff the chicken rings with the morels and place on a piece of foil on a cookie sheet pour any extra parmesan water or drippings on the chicken. Place cheesed pizza in the oven. Wait for 6 minutes then put chicken and morels in the oven. Cook pizza for a total 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown. The chicken should be warmed up enough after eight to 10 minutes. (If you are worried about the chicken, it should be at an internal temp of 165.)

As I blasted through last weekend baking like a madman from nine ’till nine on Friday night into Saturday morning, I made a spectacular stuffed ciabatta that tasted like heaven. Patty Nally, my stellar baking chef was first to come up with the combination of spent grains (from beermaking,) cocoa, blueberries, honey and almonds- stuffed with almond cream.

This stuffed bread is not gonna be on the agenda during my demonstration at the Las Vegas Pizza Expo- ((insert shameless plug here… Didn’t you know that my demonstration “Calzone’s Stromboli and Beyond” is on Tuesday, March 13th at 12:30 in the Demonstration area?  Please come on down and bring the hunger for some awesome stufed grains!))

Here is the video of me making a ciabatta (or is it a batard) and again; Please forgive the loopy appearance of the Goon, it’s 4:30 in the a.m and I’m in my seventh hour of forming and burning the gluten. Oh, and I do not know where the “Ta Ta.” came from.

O.k, that was the prep, then I proofed the dough and sent them into my oven at 474 degrees for 15 minutes then shut them off and waited for another 10 minutes.

O.K., after all this baking  at Avalanche, we headed out to a fierce bread sale at the Athens Farmers Market. Fierce is the only word that you can choke out when your face is frozen. Luckily we sold out in three hours.