Pizza with Fresh Figs and Goat Cheese
My fig tree gave me it's first lovely figs of the summer. For tonights dinner I made a pizza with figs, goat cheese, pine nuts and a lovely sweet thick basalmic glaze. I had some frozen pizza dough and the recipe for the dough is right on the TFL front page list of recipes or just click Here.
I stretched the dough nice and thin and thicker for the crown. It made a lovely crispy pizza crust.
I first drizzled a little extra virgin olive oil. Then a drizzle of delicious balsamic glaze, topped it with sliced fanned out figs, dollops of fresh goat cheese and a sprinkly of fresh pine nuts. All the flavors just blend so deliciously together. This pizza makes a delicious appetizer.
Baked it in a one hour pre-heated 550F convection heat oven with a pizza stone until nicely browned and a little char.
My Jack Russell 'Joey' eats the low hanging ones on the tree..He also pulls off my cucumbers he can reach and eats the whole thing!
The Pine Nuts toasted up nicely while the figs carmelized
Bottom nicely browned and crispy
The Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza made a great start with the Cucumber salad and Chicken Parmesan Dinner
Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza Submitted to Yeastspotting
Comments
As if the pizza was not enough, we get to the bottom photo of the salad, chicken parm, AND pizza! Woman! It looks delish!!!Makes me want this very meal for dinner!
Our figs are not quite ripe yet but I'll share tomatoes with you!
A
Thank you for the nice compliment. I know you have a wonderful garden. Nothing, not even a great loaf of bread thrills me more than standing in a garden full of veggies. I don't have a lot of room for planting and only managed some cucumbers, Pablano peppers this year. So off to the farmers market today, next best thing to being in a garden. I'm so sorry I didn't put in some tomatoes :( I bet your tomatoes are gorgeous!
Sylvia
After seeing this I went into the kitchen and whipped up some fresh marinara, boiled some ziti and threw together some really nice lunch. I must have been slacking because Emily asked why we were having "real food" for lunch! I'll have do better. But I still have that chicken parm on the brain, AND it's about time for another round of Sylvia's favorite meatballs (my fav) sandwiches!!! All this fresh produce...so little time!
Audra
It's getting hot and it is time for some easy 'real food' dinners..that way there's more time to put up some fresh produce : )
Sylvia
I'm a bit of a pizza snob (aren't we all) and stingy with compliments but that is one fine looking pie!
Yes, I can really pick apart a pizza...I did it today at the farmers market...an Italian resturant was selling their pizzas right outside their door. The toppings looked tasty and the crown was all I could see and well it was a good thing the chefs couldn't read my mind.
Sylvia
This is just outstanding. I adore figs and use goat cheese in everything I can think of. This pizza looks and must taste fabulous. I have to try it. Love the addition of pine nuts! Only sad thing is that I can't make it this minute!
Thanks for sharing this.
Patricia
What a very nice compliment! Wow, the pinenuts are dear! I had hurt my back so bad earlier that morning before making dinner, I had to send my husband to the store for fresh pinenuts and goat cheese..he came back with about a cup full in a bag...$31 a lb. I have to say they were very delicious and extremely fresh. They will keep in the frig for about a month or in the freezer for about 3...I don't think they will see the freezer..the pizza is a real treat and I plan on doing it again for the 4th of July.
Sylvia
Hmmmm ... I looked again, but I can't find anything that doesn't look gorgeous.
I really impressed by how well-cooked the crust is with so much on top of it.
David
I went the max with the topping because there is no sauce so to speak...only a drizzle of EVOO and a spiral drizzle of a finishing flavor that just compliments the goat cheese, figs and pine nuts perfectly. The basalmic glaze. It could be also drizzled over the top...but careful not to put to much of a good thing. It is very flavorful, sweet, rich and thick. I have seen it online. This bottle was a gift to me from my daughter. It's wonderful with a little drizzle over toasty bread crumbs topping a fresh cooked salmon.
Sylvia
No doubt like many here, I'm a home-baked pizza freakazoid and like to think I've got it down to a fine art with my sourdough pizza...but I have to say, that crust of yours is a cracker! The crumb is so open and airy! I've stopped making dry-yeasted pizza doughs after developing my SD pizza base to a stage that almost satisfied my demands. Last dry yeast pizza dough I tried was Reinhart's acclaimed version, which frankly I do not rate next to my SD one... but looking at yours, I think I might try your recipe. Why not, I ask, and when I look at your pics the answer that comes back is 'why not, indeed!?' :)
Cheers!
Ross
PS: Like your balsamic drizzle touch, also. Must try that. BTW, my current favourite Colavita balsamic vinegar has must of figs in its ingredients list, and I imagine that would go particularly well with your toppings.
Thank you, rossnroller! I have enjoyed sourdough pizza's too...but my favorite is the yeasted version...it can have a ton of flavor, open crumb, chewy and crispy if given it's proper fermenting time. Much like a great tasting baguette. The crust needs a really, really hot oven stone. That's one of the reasons why the WFO pizza's are so great.
Convection heating is hotter and faster than conventional heating...hotter by maybe 25 degrees in my oven...so when pre-heated for at least one hour, maybe my oven and stone are reaching about 575F....I'll have to stick my lazer at it the next go round.
The Balsamic Glaze "my current favourite Colavita balsamic vinegar has must of figs in its ingredients list" don't get the 'vinegar' or even the extra sweet vinegar...it's the reduction of the balsamic vinegar you want..reduction, syrup, sauce, glaze...it has infinite applications from fish to ice cream and can elevate a dish to another level. You can make your own by reducing the balsamic vinegar yourself..but there are some really tasty ones already made and since you use it sparingly it's well worth the price.
Sylvia
Thanks for the clarification on the balsamic glaze, Sylvia. I should have realised that you were referring to a balsamic reduction rather than the vinegar. Don't think I've seen anything like that pre-prepared here, but as you say, I can easily do the reduction myself. I'm aware of the multiple applications of balsamic reduction. Delicious stuff.
Yeah, I've been baking pizzas just about weekly for quite a while now...approaching 2 years, or thereabouts. I know about the heat requirements, the need to use a pizza stone or tile, and of course, the incomparable results you get from a WFO (my first experience of a WFO pizza was about as good as it gets...a famous old traditional pizza place near the Trevi Fountain in Rome back in the mid-80s!). You might recall Yozza gave me the opportunity to try baking my SD pizzas in a WFO. That high heat really makes the base nice and light, but I've never managed to get it quite as light using my oven, which I always max out an hour or so before baking, with the stone inside.
I have tried many yeasted pizza doughs, BTW, including some using poolishes or otherwise given extended fermentation periods. Once I happened upon SD pizza dough, though, I found the flavour I'd been after - I'm in the Jeff Varasano camp in preferring SD pizza to others (it was his site that alerted me to SD pizzas, and his SD formula that I first used, although my version has been tweaked over multiple bakes). But of course, tastes vary. A good pizza is a thing of joy, whether it's SD or made with commercial yeast.
I'm always open to new recipes and feel like a change, so next pizzas I bake will be using your recipe. Will be v pleased if mine end up with a crumb like yours. Looking forward to it!
Cheers
R
That looks fabulous!! How I envy you your fig tree and am so pleased that you're putting it to good use.
-Elizabeth
(Booking my flight now. I'm coming over!)
Plenty of figs here to go around ;)
Sylvia
Wow, gorgeous!
Sylvia
We live in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. We'll be lucky to harvest our figs by late August! Ahh!..you've given us something to look forward to, your awesome fig, goat cheese and pinenut pizza...Thanks!
Betty
double post
Thank you, Betty! I have picked my first early ones and have a much larger crop I can see all about the size of large marbles..hopefully they will be ready for about August. Do you use anything to protect yours from the birds..I only lost a few to the birds..but I don't think they will be so well hidden next crop. I'm thinking about putting a net over the tree. Oh yes, do try the glaze. It blends so perfect with the flavors of the figs, cheese and pinenuts.
Sylvia
There isn't much we can do about sharing the bounty with them. Our tree is really too big to net. Drives my husband crazy that they only peck at them a couple times and move on to another. We do harvest alot of figs, so there's plenty to share with our feathered friends : )
Betty