Potato Pizza

If you know me, you know I love Nigel Slater. The man - gah - he makes me love food and cooking more than I already do, which seems like a pretty big thing, because my baseline level of loving food is pretty high.

When I was in my first year of kindergarten, my taecher wrote on my report card:

Alyson likes making lists of food.

And not much has changed.

So yes, I adore Nigel. His recipes are reliable and accessible and he makes me wish I had a garden. He also has a great recipe for a thin crust potato pizza.

It's the perfect antidote to a cold night when your pantry is almost bare.

Potato Pizza

Adapted from Nigel Slater's Real Food

Ingredients

3 tbsp whole wheat flour
225 grams white flour
½ tsp salt
2¼ tsp yeast (or one 7g package)
1 tbsp milk
2 tbsp olive oil
½ cup warm water

5 fingerling potatoes, thinly sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, sliced
5 sprigs thyme
a hunk of cheese that you have lying around in your fridge, sliced or roughly torn up
shavings of parmesan
bonus: truffle salt

Directions

1. Stir together flours and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix in yeast. Add milk and oil and water. Mix for 5 or so minutes, until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and is smooth and elastic. (Alternatively, you can do this by hand!)

2. Remove dough from mixer bowl. Grease a new bowl. Place dough in it, tossing to coat with oil. Cover and set aside in a warm, draft-free place for 30 minutes.

3. Place potato slices in a pot of cold, salted water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.

4. Heat oil over low heat. Add onions and cook, stirring frequently, until golden.

Side note: is there anything better than the smell of frying onions?

And those golden, crispy bits? That's the stuff dreams are made of.

5. Preheat oven to 450º. If you have a pizza stone, place it in the oven now, before you start heating the darned thing up. If you don't have a pizza stone, don't worry about this step!

6. Roll out pizza dough into a 12-14" circle-ish shape. Feel free to not care about symmetry. (If you're not using a pizza stone, transfer the dough to a baking sheet here.) Top with onions, potatoes, cheeses, thyme and a healthy splattering of more olive oil. Transfer to pizza stone.

7. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until cheese is golden an bubbly. Sprinkle with truffle salt for an added element of class and denial that your cupboards are bare. (You've got truffle salt! You can take on the world!)

As an added lesson here: place the onions on the bottom. I put mine on top of everything and they got a little... overly crispy. Not so sexy, I must say.