Pizza Featuring Caramelized Onions

My head is still spinning from my online gaming. Why? What? Where?

Well, if you've taken a look at my profile, it does say that one of my hobbies is online gaming - so no surprises there.

Anyhow yesterday was one of the first days in a long time that I could peacefully read food blogs without worrying about enemy attacks on my cities and the recipe that caught my eye was a pizza recipe by Justin Schwartz of Justcook NYC.

Those of you who have ever been neck deep in the culture of online gaming will know what I'm talking about, but when you are involved in an intense war, the pantry starts to empty out like the rations in your virtual cities (because you can't leave the computer for long and go buy real life rations).

Justin's recipe was perfect as we already had the ingredients: Yeast, flour, onions.

And I will be honest. Ronny made this pizza from beginning to end and I didn't do a thing! Actually this isn't true. I did the easy part, i.e. making the caramelized onions.

In fact, it was Ronny who made sure I was eating properly throughout this recent gaming escapade. I think he understands because we used to do hardcore gaming together and that's how we met.

Anyhow here's Justin's recipe for his pizza featuring caramelized onions.

Ronny used a different pizza dough recipe. The one Ronny used is from the May/June 1988 edition of 'Cook's'. I can't really reprint it here because I don't have permission, but it's a recipe by Steven Connolly who was chef at Manhattan's Mezzaluna restaurant at the time. It's a thin, crisp type of crust and Steven Connolly has modified the recipe to work in home ovens. I've been using this recipe since my twenties.

What did we do different besides the pizza dough?

Well, we made a layer of mozzarella cheese, sprinkled chunks of blue cheese instead of Fontina cheese over this, covered this with a layer of fresh thinly sliced Spanish tomatoes (make sure your knife is sharp!), then topped it off with the caramelized onions.

This combination works for me as the tomatoes add a 'freshness' that's lacking from the other ingredients. Might I add that my favorite type of pizza usually only has vegetables, cheese and herbs on it. On the other hand maybe you feel like indulging in the thrill of the pure richness of cheese and caramelized onion heaven. If this is the case, follow the original recipe!