My marito gets really upset with someone starts talking about putting weird ingredients like pineapples and pears on a “pizza”. On a “focaccia”, however, it is totally acceptable. Apparently a “pizza” ceases to remain as such, when invaded by non-traditional topping combinations. (Sigh).
So, on Sunday, my husband prepared the focaccia base (from a recipe which he has titled “pizza”, but whatevs). And I set about the task of preparing the topping ingredients in an effort to broaden his Emilian horizons.
As I have already mentioned, we are in pear overload at the moment. In fact, I’m going to follow this post almost immediately with a round up of all the fantastic pear recipes I have stumbled across in my attempt to rubare as many pears from my suocera’s tree as I can! (Note: “rubare” means “to steal” in italian, but has become one of my favorite Itanglish words that sounds hilarious when said with a sufer-dude California accent).
The result of our day’s adventure into risky focaccia-ness was stunning. I have no words to explain how INCREDIBLY good this pizza… eh hem… excuse me, focaccia was. Look –
See what I mean?
You want to know what’s on it, don’t you?
So it would probably annoy you if I put it off a little longer to make another pizza/focaccia jab at my marito?
Ok, ok.
- Onto the raw dough base, we put some cubes of fontina cheese and some purple onion ring slices. Then we cooked it a while, until the dough was almost ready and the cheese and onions looked happy.
- Then we sprinkled walnuts around and toasted them for a minute or two.
- THEN we added the pears, and again toasted it for a couple minutes so that they were warm.
- At the very end we drizzled a modest amount of honey over the top… and I’m drooling just remembering it.
I can’t tell you how good this was. You’ve got to try it and let me know how it went. I suspect it would have been fantastic with a little gorgonzola as well. And, hey, should the mood strike you (as it oft does here in Emilia), you may feel the urge to throw some prosciutto on there. And I won’t say that would be a bad idea!
Go forth! Add crazy things to Italian pizza dough (just make sure you call it “focaccia”). And report back!
________________
regarding nutritional info and #fitaly:
Thanks to a reader, I am being kept accountable on my attempts to remain fit in Italy (thank you!!). So I wanted to quickly mention some health considerations about this recipe (there’s more info in the comments below):
- this is vegetarian … no pork! (difficult feat here in Emilia!)
- we ate this whole thing in 2 separate meals between 2 people
- we used less than 100g of fontina, an un-pasteurized goat milk cheese
- we used one purple onion and 2 pears (veggie AND fruit!)
- and maybe 5-6 walnuts (whole, cracked from the shell, including skin… this makes a big difference health-wise)
- we used farina integrale instead of white flour
- rough estimates on caloric intake and nutritional info were taken from MyFitnessPal.com, where you can request my friendship if you’d like:
Married to Italy 
Ok. I am on a diet. What about fitaly????
🙂 Yeah me too. #fitaly is still going strong! Thanks for asking! Sundays, however, my husband likes to make me a focaccia. It is a sweet tradition that he started recently, and I don’t want to discourage any tendencies towards a romantic meal together. So, instead, I’m trying to steer him away from pork toppings and towards a more varied collection of ingredients! I’m making him use farina integrale, instead of white flour… which he is not thrilled with.
This particular recipe is actually not so bad on the nutritionist scale. I did a little analysis of it, and I’ll post that to the recipe. There is literally a drizzle of honey, that’s all. The rest is goodness! Fontina is an un-pasteurized goat milk cheese. Purple onions and pears are great. And the walnuts have mono-unsaturated fats. So, it could be a lot worse, you see. Of course, don’t eat the whole thing by yourself!
Thanks for bringing up the nutritional aspect – I’ll update the post!
-M
Thanks formthe reassuring answer:-) didnt mean to bother you but i am carb deprived and over sensitive to pictures and smells right now! Lol.
No prob! I think our instinct (especially when we’re on diets) is to see something that looks really good and say, “yeah, but that CAN’T be healthy!”. I need to keep reminding myself that it’s not just what I eat (I eat fairly well, really)… it’s that I’m sitting at a desk all day and I don’t get the activity levels that I should (hence the invention of the Scriviletta!)
Keep asking me about #fitaly, though – accountability is the whole reason I wrote about it!
-M
This looks super amazing! I love non-traditional “pizza”.
That looks incredible, and it sounds like it’s easy enough for me to attempt as well! And if it annoys Italians to call it pizza, even better! 😉
My favorite pizzeria is Il Campione in Ostia (just outside Rome). They’ve got an incredible list of very inventive pizzas, and any Italian who has been simply raves about the pizza. The place is PACKED with Romans every night. My favorite? A pizza called “Halloween” – pumpkin puree, pancetta and walnuts (at home I add gorgonzola). You’ll be happy to know that pears and apples make frequent appearances, and they’ve even got one with crema di pistacchio 🙂 No website, but scroll through the reviews on Trip Advisor and you’ll find some descriptions – provides great ideas for your “focaccia”! http://www.tripadvisor.it/Restaurant_Review-g799531-d2326071-Reviews-Da_Luca_Il_Campione-Lido_di_Ostia_Province_of_Rome_Lazio.html
Mmmmmm… that sounds amazing. I feel a Halloween Pizza Party coming on. Great restaurant tip, thanks!
-M
OH EM GEE! Non ho parole!
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Let me just say again. This thing was SO good. I dreamt about it last night. I think we’ll need to revisit this recipe soon. Mmmm