With the warm weather officially here, I’ve decided to do a great springtime favorite of mine.
This pizza is filled with all the alpha dogs of the vegetable world; I started by using some great purple kohlrabi, crunchy parsnips and salsify combined with the wonderful oniony springtime ramps topped with some great wild watercress picked near a spring at Shews Orchard along with some Integration acres chevre that I both used straight-up and in a sauce made with ramps, lemon and reduced chicken stock. All this is atop a pizza crust made with Shagbark Milling Company spelt crust.
Lets get started! This is all you’ll need.
2 medium parsnips
2 medium salsify roots
Juice of one half lemon
1 1/4 cup chicken stock
1 medium kohlrabi
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 and a half cups fresh chevre goat cheese
One handfull fresh spring ramps
Half handfull of fresh spring watercress
Preheat oven to 485 with an upturned heavty cookie sheet or pizza stone on the middle deck. Using the easy dough recipe for dough (and use spelt flour instead of bakers flour,) cut one, nine ounce dough ball and reserve for forming later.
Peel both the parsnips and salsify on a cutting board. You will have to place the salsify in water with the juice of one-half lemon to stop browning of the salsify flesh. (This lemon water will be used later). Cut the roots into coins.
Place the roots in a pan filled with heated one and a quarter cups chicken stock and cook for 8 to 12 minutes until just al dente. Strain the roots of the broth and reserve the broth.
Cut the kohlrabi at both ends. Remember that the “woody” side of a purple kohlrabi is on the bottom, (side where the stems are shooting away from), so cut this end thick. Turn the kohlrabi and cut through the skin with a knife with a downward mothion following the natural curve of the vegetable. (Like carving the skin off an orange.) Cut the kohlrabi into thin discs.
Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a pan under medium heat and place the kohlrabi in the pan with a pinch of salt and saute for 7 minutes or unitl browned on both sides. Place on a paper towel for topping.
Clean the ramps by cutting the root ends off and pulling down the purple collar near the bottom. Slice the ramp from the white end up into small pieces. The large leaf ends will go on top of the pizza and the small root ends in the sauce.
Pour the chicken broth into a pan and reduce until the broth is almost gone, (3 tablespoons or less). Reduce the heat and place half of the chevre and one tablespoon of the lemon-water in the pan and stir with a whisk. Add the chopped ramps and turn the heat off. The sauce will thicken. That’s okay.
Form the pizza into a disc and place on parchment. Top with the kohlrabi, then the parsnips and salsify followed by the rest of the non-sauced chevre.
Place the ramps on the pizza and into the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, always keeping an eye on the bottom crust. With spelt, you cannot tell sometimes from the cornicione, (crust). When out of the oven, place the watercress on top of the pizza, then dollop the sauce atop the pizza and enjoy the fruits of spring!
Take one seven-ounce dough ball from the Easy Dough Recipe on this blog.
