I'm going to try to keep this relatively short today since I have little time and I'm actually much more interested in posting about my awesome lentil soup, and my equally awesome stick blender.
However, since cauliflower crust seems to be a current Pinterest star, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon to make vicious unprovoked attacks on the people who have already posted about this before me - all of whom made tonight's dinner possible. For the record, I hate Pinterest. I joined it a long time ago to share my bad attitude with other people through my cruel and misanthropic "Stupid Shit People Post on Pinterest" board, which has probably made people cry. But it's okay, because it's the internet and I don't know them. Right?
Don't get me wrong, I love the taste of cauliflower and it's got all sorts of wonderful antioxidants (plus nicotine!) that make consuming it much more nutritiously rewarding than the the savory, soft, crisp yet yielding crust that usually bears my pizza toppings. However, Pinterest has two primary flaws that always draw my ire (even though I've found my favorite cookie recipe there):
1. 90% of things include cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.
2. People make bizarre substitutions for no apparent reason and people want to try it because they think it makes them foodies
These are actually just symptoms of the main problem, which is that the vast majority of the random bored people who make up the site's usership are completely devoid of taste or sense. If there is any way that the apostrophized plural becomes acceptable in standard English usage, Pinterest will be to blame.
But I digress. Actually, this whole article has been a digression.
Anyways, the origins of this recipe are apparently Weight Watchers, or some other fraudulent support organization. The aim of using cauliflower rather than flour was to cut out the carbohydrates and gluten in the recipe that make pizza crust so delicious and yet so invariably fatal in the first place. As I sympathize with the gluten free crowd, I can't knock them for wanting a nice pizza crust recipe, but my ongoing irritation with the posted recipes is that people who don't have gluten allergies insisted on cutting out the flour while complaining about second degree burns received when their crust dissolved in their hands.
Flour is a great binding agent, so I added it back to the recipe. It also makes the recipe taste wonderful, gives it a firmer texture, and absorbs the moisture of the cauliflower, which means you don't have to squeeze it in a teacloth and accidentally get water all over the young child who's always playing near your feet with glass or rusty things he found under the stove.
Also, I scaled back the amount of cheese and egg demanded by the bloggers - one person, who was clearly a jerk anyways, called for 2 goddamn cups, which her pictures show had clearly incinerated in the oven. Use flavorful, dry cheese, not tons of it.
Also, some other crank claimed you needed 2-3 eggs, which is insane since you're not making omelet pizza.
A word of warning: the operation is a two stepper.
1. Construct and bake the crust
2. Load and rebake the pizza.
Since I trust you know how to make tomato sauce, add cheese, etc., I'll just give instructions on the crust.
Apologies for lack of pictures, we immediately devoured the pizza. If you want to visualize it, take a few seconds to imagine a pizza, then continue reading.
Ingredients
1 cauliflower
1/2-2/3 cup shredded pungent cheese (I used emmental and a touch of pecorino for its sheepy sharpness)
1 egg
1 cup flour
2 tsp or more salt
pepper
1 tsp basil
THE STEPS
1. Chop up and boil your cauliflower until it smushes nicely with a potato masher. Mash it as much as you like, if it's smoother it'll have fewer protrusions to burn in the oven.
2. Preheat the oven to 425
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, saving the flour for last. Mix it in until it's a nice paste (you may need more or less than a cup, but 1 cup is a good estimate for most cauliflowers.), then spread it over a piece of baking paper in whatever crust shape you like. A thicker crust is less likely to burn or fall apart, so I'd say make it at least 1/2 inch. (Like you know what that looks like by eyeballing.) Smooth the edges and stick it in the oven when it's hot enough, perhaps making a little dam around the edge for your ingredients to make it look like your crust rose, much like McDonald's does with its wretched compressed pork product sandwich, the McRib.
4. Bake for about 12 minutes, turn, then bake another 12. The crust should be golden brown and might bulge in the middle. This is good since it means it's holding together.
5. Remove crust, add pizza ingredients, then reinsert for another 5-10 minutes.
Voila. 1 hour and you've got weird vegetarian pizza that tastes pretty good.
I'm still not a convert from real crust, but this is a nice change of pace if you're feeling pudgy.
However, since cauliflower crust seems to be a current Pinterest star, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon to make vicious unprovoked attacks on the people who have already posted about this before me - all of whom made tonight's dinner possible. For the record, I hate Pinterest. I joined it a long time ago to share my bad attitude with other people through my cruel and misanthropic "Stupid Shit People Post on Pinterest" board, which has probably made people cry. But it's okay, because it's the internet and I don't know them. Right?
Don't get me wrong, I love the taste of cauliflower and it's got all sorts of wonderful antioxidants (plus nicotine!) that make consuming it much more nutritiously rewarding than the the savory, soft, crisp yet yielding crust that usually bears my pizza toppings. However, Pinterest has two primary flaws that always draw my ire (even though I've found my favorite cookie recipe there):
1. 90% of things include cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.
2. People make bizarre substitutions for no apparent reason and people want to try it because they think it makes them foodies
These are actually just symptoms of the main problem, which is that the vast majority of the random bored people who make up the site's usership are completely devoid of taste or sense. If there is any way that the apostrophized plural becomes acceptable in standard English usage, Pinterest will be to blame.
But I digress. Actually, this whole article has been a digression.
Anyways, the origins of this recipe are apparently Weight Watchers, or some other fraudulent support organization. The aim of using cauliflower rather than flour was to cut out the carbohydrates and gluten in the recipe that make pizza crust so delicious and yet so invariably fatal in the first place. As I sympathize with the gluten free crowd, I can't knock them for wanting a nice pizza crust recipe, but my ongoing irritation with the posted recipes is that people who don't have gluten allergies insisted on cutting out the flour while complaining about second degree burns received when their crust dissolved in their hands.
Flour is a great binding agent, so I added it back to the recipe. It also makes the recipe taste wonderful, gives it a firmer texture, and absorbs the moisture of the cauliflower, which means you don't have to squeeze it in a teacloth and accidentally get water all over the young child who's always playing near your feet with glass or rusty things he found under the stove.
Also, I scaled back the amount of cheese and egg demanded by the bloggers - one person, who was clearly a jerk anyways, called for 2 goddamn cups, which her pictures show had clearly incinerated in the oven. Use flavorful, dry cheese, not tons of it.
Also, some other crank claimed you needed 2-3 eggs, which is insane since you're not making omelet pizza.
A word of warning: the operation is a two stepper.
1. Construct and bake the crust
2. Load and rebake the pizza.
Since I trust you know how to make tomato sauce, add cheese, etc., I'll just give instructions on the crust.
Apologies for lack of pictures, we immediately devoured the pizza. If you want to visualize it, take a few seconds to imagine a pizza, then continue reading.
Ingredients
1 cauliflower
1/2-2/3 cup shredded pungent cheese (I used emmental and a touch of pecorino for its sheepy sharpness)
1 egg
1 cup flour
2 tsp or more salt
pepper
1 tsp basil
THE STEPS
1. Chop up and boil your cauliflower until it smushes nicely with a potato masher. Mash it as much as you like, if it's smoother it'll have fewer protrusions to burn in the oven.
2. Preheat the oven to 425
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, saving the flour for last. Mix it in until it's a nice paste (you may need more or less than a cup, but 1 cup is a good estimate for most cauliflowers.), then spread it over a piece of baking paper in whatever crust shape you like. A thicker crust is less likely to burn or fall apart, so I'd say make it at least 1/2 inch. (Like you know what that looks like by eyeballing.) Smooth the edges and stick it in the oven when it's hot enough, perhaps making a little dam around the edge for your ingredients to make it look like your crust rose, much like McDonald's does with its wretched compressed pork product sandwich, the McRib.
4. Bake for about 12 minutes, turn, then bake another 12. The crust should be golden brown and might bulge in the middle. This is good since it means it's holding together.
5. Remove crust, add pizza ingredients, then reinsert for another 5-10 minutes.
Voila. 1 hour and you've got weird vegetarian pizza that tastes pretty good.
I'm still not a convert from real crust, but this is a nice change of pace if you're feeling pudgy.
