Perfect pizza cheeses and vegetables
Cheeses
Other wonderful cheeses are regular mozzarella for the cheesy texture, regular or aged provolone for extra flavour. Fontina cheese makes a luxurious topping (see Spinach and Fontina Pizza), while Asiago gives a little bite. Parmesan and Romano and other pecorino (sheep’s milk) cheeses can add a real boost of flavour. Lately smoked cheeses, as used in our Zucchini and Smoked Provolone Cheese Pizza, have come into favour.
Gorgonzola is one of my favourite cheeses and this classic blue cheese makes a wonderful pizza with lots of different bases. For the simplest, try just a little olive oil and garlic with black pepper; spread it over the dough (add a few pinches of chopped fresh rosemary if you like) and top with Gorgonzola cheese. It’s heaven.
You can add the cheese at the beginning or bake halfway through and add then add it just to melt and heat, not brown. Both are good. Onions make a terrific and traditional base for Grogonzola cheese dishes, as in our Onion and Gorgonzola Pizza with Arugula. For mushroom lovers, try the Mushroom and Gorgonzola Pizza.
Peppers as Sauce
Roasted peppers make a lovely base for pizza, as in the Sausage and Roasted Pepper Pizza. The puréed roasted pepper sauce can be used as a basic sauce for almost any kind of pizza; use it as you would a tomato sauce. I find it goes especially well with cured meats or eggplant.
Vegetable Pizzas
All sorts of vegetables cook well on pizza, some you might not even imagine. When I wanted to develop a fresh artichoke recipe, I thought I would have to cook the artichokes first, but I gave it a try with thinly sliced raw artichokes. It was wonderful and remains one of my favourite pizzas; try it yourself with our recipe, Artichoke and Provolone Pizza.
Asparagus can top pizza, too. Thick asparagus should be blanched first, as in our Asparagus and Lemon Ricotta Pizza, but pencil asparagus can be used raw on pizza– just put it under a nice coating of cheese and it cooks to perfection as the pizza bakes. If you don’t mind the trouble of slicing thick asparagus lengthwise, you can use it too this way.
Arugula makes a great fresh topping for pizza after it’s baked, as in Gorgonzola pizza already mentioned and in a pizza inspired by the salad of the same name, the Niçoise Arugula Pizza. Green onions form the base of the unusual Green Onion and Prosciutto Pizza.
