Pizza dough, baked empty and filled after
The pockets go into the oven with nothing in them. Prosciutto has no business near that kind of heat.
At a Glance
Story
Prosciutto is cured, not cooked, and the point of it is a texture the oven ruins almost immediately. Put it in the oven and the fat renders, the slice seizes into something brittle and salty, and you have paid charcuterie prices for bacon. So the dough bakes hollow and puffs into a pocket, and everything good goes in afterwards while the bread is still hot enough to slump the mozzarella and warm the pesto. The heat comes to the filling, never the other way round.
Ingredients
- 16 oz pizza doughat room temperature
- 3 oz prosciuttotorn into pieces
- 4 oz fresh mozzarellathinly sliced
- 3 tbsp basil pesto
- ½ oz pickled peppadew peppersroughly chopped
- 2 oz arugula
- 4 oz grape tomatoeshalved
- 1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp sliced roasted almonds
- olive oilsalt, pepper
Method
The dough does something rather pleasing on its own: sealed and hot, the water in it turns to steam and blows the middle apart, and you get a pocket without having made one.
- Oven to 450F, dough out of the fridge for 30 minutes or it will fight you. A sheet pan, oiled.
- Halve the dough and stretch each piece into a round about ¼ inch thick. If it springs back, leave it alone for five minutes and try again. It is not being difficult, it is being elastic.
- Onto the oiled pan, brushed with more oil, salt and pepper. 12 to 15 minutes, until they have puffed and gone golden and sound hollow.
- Meanwhile, arugula, tomatoes, vinegar and a slug of olive oil in a bowl. Season.
- Split each pocket along one side, minding the steam. Pesto in first so it melts down the inside, then the mozzarella, the prosciutto and the peppadews. Close them.
- Salad alongside with the almonds over it. Eat while the cheese is still going.
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