SUBLIME TOPPINGS
To preserve its lush texture and dairy flavour, really good, fresh buffalo mozzarella should never see the inside of an oven
The buffalo mozzarella pizza at Emma pizzeria in Rome wasn’t what I had expected.
Where I had envisioned puddles of melted cheese, I got raw white chunks pulled into shreds. The steam from the just-baked pizza heated the chunks but hadn’t melted them. Almost custardy in texture, they tasted tangy and milky. It was a little like eating a crostini topped with the freshest possible buffalo milk mozzarella, except with the cheese piled on a piping hot tomato-slicked pizza instead of toast. And it was utterly sublime.
The reason for this, my friend Elizabeth Minchilli (a cookbook author and an expert on Italian cuisine) explained, is that higherquality mozzarella responds differently to heat. (In fact, the better the mozzarella, she said, the less it can take the heat.) To preserve its lush texture and dairy flavour, really good, fresh buffalo mozzarella should never see the inside of an oven.
“When you get totally melted and browned ‘cheese’ on top of a pizza,” she wrote in an email, “it’s a sure sign it’s industrially made, processed cheese.”
Occupying the space between processed, shredded cheese and super fresh buffalo mozzarella are those dense white balls of fresh cows’ milk mozzarella wrapped in plastic. They’re what I usually buy: sliced over lasagna, casseroles and pizzas, they melt reliably into stretchiness. But after my Rome trip, I went for the expensive buffalo mozzarella, the kind so supple it leaks a little when you pull it apart. Adding it to the top of a roasted eggplant pizza just out of the oven was the way to go.
Although it’s not necessarily intuitive to heat a pizza stone in a 500 F oven in the middle of summer, pizza lovers know that when the craving hits, air-conditioning is your friend. Besides, as the pizza stone warms up, you can take advantage of the hot oven and roast the eggplant cubes until they caramelize and collapse. Or if you’d rather brave the
mosquitoes, make both the eggplant and the pizzas on your grill instead.
Great buffalo mozzarella can be hard to find, so if you can’t get it, substitute dollops of fresh ricotta. Or try burrata, draining its interior cream so it doesn’t make your pizza soggy. I tear the cheese over a bowl to save the cream, then season it with olive oil and salt, and drizzle it over sliced tomatoes to serve with the pizza.
It might not make for the summer meal your guests were expecting, but everyone loves a tasty surprise.
Roasted Eggplant and Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza
Makes 4, 12-inch pizzas For the dough: 1 1⁄2 teaspoons active dry yeast 1 3⁄4 cup/420 millilitres warm, not hot, water 2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowl
4 1⁄2 cups/575 grams all-purpose flour
2 tsp kosher salt For the toppings: 2 pounds eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes (2 medium, or 1 large) Extra-virgin olive oil, as needed
Kosher salt, as needed Black pepper, as needed
1⁄2 cup canned plum tomatoes, puréed
4 to 8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced, to taste Red-pepper flakes, as needed
8 ounces fresh buffalo mozzarella
Basil leaves, torn into pieces
Flaky sea salt
Total time: 90 minutes, plus rising
1. Make the dough: Mix the yeast, warm water and olive oil in the bowl of an electric stand mixer or food processor, and let the mixture sit until the yeast is foamy, about five minutes.
2. Add in flour and salt, and using the dough hook or food processor blade, beat or pulse it until a smooth, slightly elastic dough forms, two to three minutes. Lightly coat a bowl with olive oil, place dough in the bowl, and turn the dough to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl loosely with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap, place in the refrigerator and let it sit overnight.
3. Divide the dough in quarters, and shape each piece into a tight, compact ball. Place the dough balls on a lightly oiled baking sheet or plate, loosely cover with plastic wrap and let them rise in the refrigerator another one to two hours (or up to six hours).
4. When ready to bake the pizzas, place racks in the top third and bottom third of the oven. Put a pizza stone on top rack, and heat oven to 450 F.
5. Prepare the toppings: On a rimmed baking sheet, toss the eggplant generously with oil, salt and pepper. Roast eggplant on the bottom rack until caramelized and tender, 40 to 45 minutes, tossing halfway through. Remove from the oven and raise the oven heat to 500 F.
6. On a piece of parchment paper, stretch out one of the balls of dough to a 12-inch round. Spread 2 tablespoons tomato purée on top, leaving a half-inch border. Scatter on onequarter of the sliced garlic, a large pinch of red-pepper flakes and drizzle with oil to taste.
7. Arrange one-quarter of the roasted eggplant on top. Use a pizza peel or cookie sheet to slide the parchment onto the pizza stone. Bake until crispy and golden on the top and bottom, seven to 10 minutes. Use tongs to pull the pizza out of the oven and onto a wire rack to cool.
8. Immediately top with chunks of cheese, pulling it apart with your hands into bite-size pieces. Top with basil, more oil to taste and flaky sea salt. Repeat with the remaining dough and toppings.