“This is one form of the Provencal version of pizza. It calls for tomatoes, pureed onions, anchovies, and ripe olives and is baked using a brioche dough or a plain white bread dough.”
-James Beard, Beard on Bread
“I don’t really like the anchovies…or the olives…or the onions.”
-Mike
Last Friday, I tackled a recipe that I have been dreading for a long time: Pissaladiere. I’m not particularly fond of anchovies, olives, or masses of onions, so the combination thereof failed to enthrall me.
Here are the ingredients:
Since I didn’t like the Brioche Bread recipe, I used Basic White Bread dough for my crust. Basic White Bread is the first recipe that I tried in Beard on Bread, and I felt nostalgic as I mixed up the dough. I have come a long way since I started this project almost nine months ago.
While my dough rose, I made tomato paste (I used canned tomatoes with two tablespoons of tomato paste instead of fresh tomates):
and made an onion puree:
Then I rolled my dough out into a circle, place it on my pizza pan, and topped it with Parmesan cheese, the tomato paste, the onion puree, anchovies, and olives.
It was at this point that I started to have some serious misgivings about the final product. Other than the bread dough and the Parmesan cheese, there didn’t seem to be any redeeming features to this bread. However, it was too late to turn back: this was loaf number 70 of the Brooks Bakes Bread project, and I needed to see this recipe through.
After 25 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees, dinner was ready.
The good news? I managed to complete this recipe and cross it off my list. The bad news? I thought Pissaladiere was absolutely disgusting. I tried to like it. I ate my way through two pieces as Mike somehow made his way valiantly through three pieces.
“You know what? I don’t really like this at all,” I said, as I stared down at the mess of anchovies and olives. “I mean, I really, really don’t like this. I think I’m going to throw the whole thing in the garbage.”
“It’s not too bad. But I don’t really like the anchovies…or the olives…or the onions,” said Mike.
So the Pissaladiere ended up in the garbage, and Mike went out and bought some Chardonnay, and we had wine and pretzels for dinner. It was a vast improvement over the original plan.
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Oh that saddens me to read that. Such a waste. I am the opposite and could eat a piece or two of well made pissaladiere every night. But I’ll give you ☆☆ out of ★★★ for effort.
My pissaladiere probably doesn’t qualify as well made…but it was an experience.