Posts Tagged ‘pizza blog’

Daikon Wonderland

Winter is certainly the time of year for beautiful radishes. The colors of the wonderful daikon are tremendous, especially on pizza. Yes, that might sound like heresy in some tradionalists circles but I think the beautiful crunch of cured daikon like tha pizza above are brilliant. This “Super Radish Pie” I made with a 50-hour cold-fermented sourdough with natural starter and dressed with a celeriac, (celery root) and purple kholrabi pudding with roasted garlic. I then topped it with Gruyere, Manchego and aged mozzarella. Just out of the oven I dressed it with organic, salt-sugar-cured “Green Meat” diakon (aka- Chinese “tsingato or luobo green” and Japanese “minowase”) from Primatera Farms and the fat organic purple daikon I get from Shade River Organics. The highlight of every bite is the sriracha mayonnaise on top.

 

Unlike many root vegetables I put on pizzas and breads, daikon doesn’t de-colorize if you don’t add to much acid like lemon or vinegar. The Turkish-style Pide, (pee-DAY) above with Peruvian Purple potato and turmeric-garlic roasted celeriac took alot longer to roast before pairing them with the simple combination of Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma.

This summer, the fine folks at Shade River Organics have supplied me with purple daikon. I just love the purple color and have shredded it for an after-oven topping on to striking effect on this Kimchi-Bacon roulade with provolone, Barbari Spice, King Family bacon ends, cilantro, sesame and some kimchi made with Cowdery farms napa cabbage, gochujang and ferment mother.

The taste of daikon varies from year to year as hotter temperatures make for spicier daikon. Farmers are using large daikon to replace lost nitrogen in soil and even at Ohio State University, they are experimenting with daikon growing in between rows of corn. I love to combine the different colors of daikon in cubes for our Vegan Boxes that we sell alot of.

These boxes (above) consist of local cabbages and greens, cured and roasted root vegetables as well as any other vegetable that doesn’t fit those descriptions. I also add a salsa verde or asian-flavored dipping sauce and some za’atar manoushe.

My new favorite this winter is the Green Meat daikon. I just love the flavor and that beautiful round of green is gently acidic and gets spicier as you gobble your way down into the white part of this root.

This week, I am combining two kimchi/pickling techniques with cubes of the tri-colored daikon. First I cubed them like traditional Kkakdugi then cured in salt and sugar, ginger and garlic and added some Calabrian Chilies for a nice heat and kept it for four days. Tomorrow I will add some scallion and water to the mix and wait for fermentation to occur like a classic Dongchimi or Korean Radish Water Kimchi. This will make a great vegan side…or maybe I could add some bacon…ha!

 

“Burr” Bread Sculpture 2.0

 

 

It’s been a very busy summer and fall here in Athens, Ohio. I’ve finally got the Kernza Mojo going after a few years of research, sourcing and frustration. We now have a perennial wheat grass pizza as a menu item. Besides that project, I’ve also been trying to manipulate dough, bread and pizza in a myriad ways. Here are some cool breads and pizzas that we’ve produced as a result of our on-going mantra, “If it ain’t bat-shit crazy, it’s boring.”

This “Quattro Nodi has Parmigiano Reggiano, Fior di Latte mozzarella, Shade River organic cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and Corto, California extra-virgin oil. 50 hour cold-fermented sourdough with natural starter- Manitoba wheat.

 

here are some large “Big Balls” (Grande Palle) sourdough. Nice loaf but very hard to bake due to the size.

Speaking of puff, here is some peach puff pastry we did with a cherry compote, almond granola and local Cherry Orchard seedless grapes. Bombshell!!

 

“The rain in Spain falls mainly on the…” Spanish-style Coca with French Vadouval Curried spinach and green pepper, Parmigiano Reggiano, Tumeric-braised Cowdery Farms “Confetti” eggplant, roasted sweet “Toro” peppers and aged mozzarella.

These fun spelt “Draguettes” are really cool but getting poked by one leads to may “F” bombs…Never heard from customers how they ate them. haha

Zucchini Pizza al Metro with Integration Acres Goat Gouda, Gruyere, Cowdery Farms broccoli, Shade River Farms tumeric-dashi-poached Tokyo turnips. This was a blast and looks like stained glass.

 

here is an example of some cool cuts we make in our sourdough. I just love that fiery

Anyway, here is our Kernza, Kracker Krust pizza with Oliver Farms pork belly.

 

“So what about the bread sculpture Dumbass?” you say.

“Okay, here is the giant” I say.

This took almost four months of constantly producing pieces and I really didn’t know if it would all come together. Thank god, my excellent baker Torrey Evans and good friend Keith Wilde stepped in to help out along with all my managers. So here’s the history if you care.

A few years ago, I drove my wife crazy by constructing a four-foot high bread snake in my living room. I then did a “john move” and stored the bread in boxes in the basement to ferment and rot. Well, since that time, we have had the house remodeled and our kids don’t wear diapers anymore, but my lovely wife still doesn’t trust me.

We started by baking individual pieces. I put holes in each piece to put a rope through with the top of a marker and transported them in small boxes so the tips wouldn’t break. When I had enough, I sprayed them with a clear, matte coating in my driveway.

  

Then, I used an old whiskey barrel I had laying around and attached some wire fencing that Kieth had. I then sprayed the whole damn thing black. You can spot my house now with a large round black ring on the concrete driveway- a great welcome to alien visitors.

 

we transported all this stuff and wound the thousand of bread pieces around the barrel then filled in the blank spots.

Finally we had our work of art.