Ramp Pesto and Potato Pizza with Burrata
Also known as, the recipe that woke up my brain from its long winter's nap.
So as you might know, last month I sort of inadvertently took off some time from posting any recipes. My creative brain was feeling pretty dull and the Long Winter had kind of taken its toll. This is the story of how it woke up. Honestly I should've known a white pizza would do the trick. They always do.
A little less than a month ago I quite literally stumbled onto a hillside of ramps on an early morning hike. Like, I stepped into the woods and BAM! Hillsides of ramps. Rubbed my eyes like a cartoon character who literally can't believe their eyes, looked again and confirmed. Yes. The hills are alive with oniony weeds!
I am a fan of ramps their early spring appearance in speciality grocers, farmers markets and on menus but I had not ever seen a whole hillside of them (Pretty important to note here that I have never TRIED to look for them). I had always been under the impression that these early spring alliums were something you really had to look for -- like a crazy morel hunter refusing to give away his locations with a trained eye and a long weird wooden basket attached to his back. Instead, thousands of ramps were pretty much just staring back at me. They are weeds after all.
If you aren't familiar with these first-signs-of-spring-edibles, let me give you a quick primer: they are a weed you eat! The best kind of weed! They are the early wild risers in a midwestern Spring and overtake the forest floor while everyone else is still hitting snooze. Before morels show their wrinkled little faces and before a single berry appears on a vine, there are ramps. They are a taste of the long awaited growing season that is welcomed with open arms by those desperate for fresh local produce. Chopped up and eaten raw like green onions, pickled, or blended into sauces, they are mildly oniony, have beautiful broad leaves, and make one hell of a pesto. I went picking.
Back at home and face to face with a giant bowl of fresh ramps and a busy schedule that didn't exactly allow me to sit around and think of what to do with them, I quickly opted for pesto knowing it would stay safely delicious in the fridge/freezer until I had more time to devote to my little surprise harvest. Gathering all my alliterative knowledge, I blitzed the chopped up ramps with roasted pistachios and salty pecorino into a beautiful bright green, allium-ey, vegetal, savory pesto. With every little ingredient that was tossed into the food processor, my food-brain woke up a little more. I started dreaming up a whole spring menu starring pesto dressed tagliatelle with bacon, or maybe some sort of savory breakfast pastry with a pesto-y cheesy center! I thought of easy things and hard things, briefly wished I could run back and get MORE ramps, and then of course I immediately thought of pizza. It was like my brain was being spring cleaned. The dust was clearing, inspiration had returned. I tasted the pesto, it was great. I did a little dance, popped it into the freezer for later. After I got back from my trip, I got to work.
If you know me at all, you know that white pizza in my book is a slam dunk every time. I am THAT person at the restaurant that perks up from the end of the table as we look at the menu, "uh hey you guys know I love a white pizza!" Give me all the olive oily, garlicky, charcuterie laden, oozy cheesy pies any day over a tomato based classic. It just felt right that this ramp pesto would be the base for a spring pizza.
In addition to eschewing traditional tomato based pizza sauces I also decided to leave the meat at home and instead put some potatoes on the pizza. Earthy salty thin potato slices on top of the fresh pesto took this simple vegetarian pizza from appetizer to main meal and when I felt like I just hadn't quite had enough, I felt like it was more than appropriate to rip up some fresh burrata after it came out of the oven. Slightly melty and drizzled with some finishing olive oil and aleppo pepper for a little heat, I took a bite, got out my notebook and got to work.
Ramp Pesto and Potato Pizza with Burrata
Makes one 12-14 inch pizza
Ingredients
For the Ramp Pesto:
Note: Makes more than enough for this recipe-- a whopping 2 cups, but can easily be halved!
10 oz fresh ramps, roughly chopped
2/3 C Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/3 Cup shelled roasted pistachios, roughly chopped
1/2 C Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
Salt, to taste
For the Pizza:
One recipe of your favorite pizza dough (I use many different pizza crusts depending on the day, how much time I have, how my hair looks that day etc. but a few faves include Jim Lahey’s, Cooks Illustrated Pizza Bianca (although that is about 2x the size of this recipe), Simply Recipes homemade pizza dough, and of course the “crap I forgot to do the dough” option {which I love and use all the time} from Trader Joe’s).
1/3 C Ramp Pesto (recipe below)
1-3 small potatoes, cut as thin as you can! I used and love fingerlings but little golden potatoes or even a red potato would work
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Two medium (4 oz) balls of fresh burrata cheese
Aleppo Pepper
2 Tbsp Italian Parsley or leftover ramp greens chopped fine to finish
Maldon Sea Salt (or other crunchy finishing salt)
Black Pepper
Method
To make pesto: In a food processor, combine ramps, pistachios and cheese and pulse until finely chopped and well combined. With processor running, slowly drizzle in extra virgin olive oil until emulsified and things are looking pesto-y. Take a little spoon out and have a bite. The onion flavor and salt from the cheese will increase flavor as it sits, but you want to make sure it's well seasoned. Taste until you're happy. This should make about 2 cups of pesto. It freezes like a dream and let me tell you it's GREAT on pasta (with bacon!).
One hour prior to baking, place oven rack on lowest position and put pizza stone on it. Preheat to 500 degrees.
Prepare your pizza peel by sprinkling with semolina flour. Gently roll and stretch pizza dough to a 12-14″ round and place on pizza peel. Take about 1/3 C of pesto and using the back of a spoon or an offset spatula, spread evenly across the base. In a small bowl, toss sliced potatoes with 1 Tbsp olive oil and a pinch of kosher salt. Sprinkle potatoes evenly across the top. Carefully transfer to hot baking stone (Sticky dough making you feel stabby? Buy this amazing pizza peel). Cook for 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are browning and edges are getting crisp, crust is golden, and your kitchen smells AMAZING.
Carefully remove the pizza and immediately rip apart the burrata into chunks and plop the pieces onto the pizza. The residual heat from the pizza will melt the cheese slightly but if you are impatient you can slide that sucker back into the (now off but still hot) oven for a min or two. When the cheese has slightly melted, drizzle with more olive oil and sprinkle with a tsp of Aleppo Pepper and crunchy sea salt.
Happy Spring!
