The last time I dabbled in homemade pizza was when I was in middle school. At the time, my mom was considering a career change to food, possibly a deli. She was taking lessons in Americana cuisine and to practice, would leave us small balls of pizza dough for us to prepare as an after school snack. My tasty creations usually consisted of mushrooms and pepperoni, along with a slightly burnt or undercooked pie (depending on how engrossed I may have been in that afternoon's television programming).
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I spent the weekend in northern Sonoma with ML. We found a pizzeria called Rosso in Santa Rosa. The pizza (thin crust) was good, and they had a fair selection of wines from local wine makers. The owner was of Italian descent and created a menu based on his heritage. We even heard one of the bartenders mix a champagne cocktail for a patron sitting next to us as he told her how this was borne out of a recent trip the owner had taken back to the homeland. We were clearly in the right place for pizza, but there wasn't anything particularly exceptional that made this establishment stand out.
And then I was blown away.
As we neared the end of our meal, the owner sat down to ML's right with his son and they were both brought out pizzas. On top of each pie rested a slightly undercooked egg. I watched in astonishment as the two devoured their pies, each bite preceded by dipping the slice into the egg yolk that had fallen to the plate. I think I might have drooled a little while I watched them eat. Our server then tells us that it is an option for all of their pizzas (thanks). It was glorious and depressing all the same; I could think about little else in the kitchen since then.
Today, ML and I endeavored to mimick that creation. I think we were fairly successful. We found some decent dough and sauce recipes on Food Tv and made a few variatiations of the Rosso masterpiece. The very best one turned out to be the first pie that we made, a beautiful mushroom pizza with sauted cremini mushrooms and an aged fontina. And the egg!
Some recipes for mushroom pizzas call for some gorgonzola cheese but the aged fontina we found was strong enough to stand on it's own. We didn't perfect the egg addition at first; we quickly discovered it only needs to sit in the oven with the pizza for a couple of minutes to get that truly stupendous, runny goodness. It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.
I'm a little sad that it took me nearly thirty years to learn of how eggs augment a pizza. What else should it go on top of? I think more pizzerias should have an egg option on the menu. Now, pizzas just look naked without them.
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