Do you remember two weeks ago we made Wine-Braised Beef Shanks (which, by the way, was freakin’ delicious)? And then that weekend, Jessica turned the left-overs into great Left-Over Pockets? Well, that meal had another life as well… I baked off one of FreshDirect’s delicious par-baked ciabatta rolls, and then stuffed it with the beef, sauce, some sauteed onions, and then topped it with the gremolata. Oh, and of course, there was the mayo. It was awesome.
It’s kind of nice re-using wonderful dishes into new recipes. So tonight, we did it again. Yesterday, we had Lamb Pizzaiola over Grilled Polenta Cakes. The flavors of the dish made me think it would make a distinctive pizza.
Also, we had some Perfect Pizza flour blend from King Arthur in the pantry. We had been itching to try it out. This was just the chance.
I followed the recipe on the bag and in the spot where it said “dough seasonings” I added 1/2 tbsp. of Parsley and 1/2 tbsp. of Garlic Powder. Surprisingly the dough, which includes baking powder, takes two full teaspoons of active yeast. My typical recipe (that I love) only uses the more common 1.25 teaspoon. Just as King Arthur advertises, the dough was very roll-able and baked off quite chewy. However, in part, that is because I slightly undercooked it.
To pull the recipe together, I sauced the dough with the Pizzaiola sauce. Then I sliced up pieces of the lamb and black olives to top the sauce. I also added sauteed red onion slices, corn niblets, plenty of finely shredded Parmesano-Reggiano, and shredded Fontina cheese (an Italian cheese that brought a distinctive taste and worked as a perfect alternative to Mozzarella). I baked it in a pre-heated 475 deg F. oven for just over 10 minutes.
The flavors worked really well! I added the corn and red onions to bring back the flavors that the polenta cake added in the original dish.
The black olives added a great dynamic by highlighting the olive oil flavors. Yum!
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oh wow. lamb pizza? can you get anymore gourmet? 🙂
Jessica, I have fallen so far behind, but my nose detected something delicious brewing in your kitchen.
And I think I’d be happy with any of these dishes.
And you called these mouthwatering offerings ‘leftovers.’ That’s just plain WRONG!
Pearl and Marysol, Lon gets all the credit for this one! It was fabulous!
Do we need to get ourselves some King Arthur? He’s obviously doing it up! Everybody’s using him…Lamb pizza is totally snazzily gourmet.
Oh oh oh, that sounds wonderful. A great use of leftovers! Pizza is one of those great things that can easily be lowbrow or highbrow.
I love that you’re using leftovers in entirely different creations with each of these meals. I always have a hard time with this because the spices or other components of the original dish seem to linger along with the leftovers. How do you counteract this? Or do you go with the prevailing tastes of the leftover meat?
EMC- When using left-overs I wouldn’t try to counter-act the original flavors, unless those flavors were bad. Rather I try to heighten them and/or complement them. As I mentioned in this pizza, the original dish was paired with a polenta cake, which had carmelized onions in it. So for the pizza, I included corn niblets and carmelized onions on it.
While I got carried away, often, just a little fresh salt and pepper can pep left-overs right back up!