Easy Pizza Recipe - Snow Crab, Shallot, and Wine
Method for Making Gourmet Pizza with Fresh Crabmeat and White Wine
Sep 19, 2009
Entertaining with an interesting gourmet pizza is a great way to impress friends without breaking the bank. Because grocery stores now carry fresh ready made pizza dough, making pizza at home no longer involves canned dough or the laborious task of mixing dough at home. Purchasing fresh dough from the bakery of a grocery store is the fasted way to get fresh, homemade taste with minimal effort. Often, the store even offers a variety of doughs, such as whole wheat or grain.
Stretch Expensive Ingredients, Like Fresh Snow Crab
For between $2 and $4, the home cook can make any pizza the imagination spurs. Pizzas are also a great way to use up leftover vegetables and even meat entrees from earlier in the week. Leftover roasted veggies? Make a cheeseless vegetable pizza. Leftover chorizo? Chorizo and smoked cheddar pizza. Any sauce, any vegetables, any meat can be used to make tasty gourmet pizzas. The recipe below is just an example of a method of making a pizza. If there is leftover paneer masala in the refrigerator, use the sauce as a base for the pizza and the veggies and paneer as toppings.
Experiment with interesting cheeses, different sauces, and gourmet toppings. Most of all, have fun with it!
Recipe for Fresh Snow Crab, Shallot, Garlic and White Wine Pizza
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil if preferred)
- 1 large clove of garlic, minced
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 1 pound snow crab legs, precooked and shelled (can substitute lump crab meat if no fresh is available)
- 1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded or fresh mozzarella, sliced thinly
- one batch of pizza dough, purchased from bakery grocery store or mixed at home
- 1 tablespoon of corn meal
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 10 basil leaves, chiffonade (for garnish)
- 1 teaspoon flat leaf parsley, finely chopped (for garnish)
- A few wedges of lemon, for garnish
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Take the dough out of the fridge and let it rest and rise about an hour before it is time to make the pizza.
- Preheat the oven to 380ºF.
- While the pizza dough is resting, prepare the sauce by sauteing the shallot and garlic over medium heat in the butter until softened and fragrant. Make sure the heat is low enough that the garlic does not burn.
- Deglaze the saute pan with the white wine and let simmer until slightly thickened.
- Shell the crab and place in a small bowl. One set of legs should yield enough meat to top an entire pizza. Lump crab meat can also be used, but the leg meat of snow crabs is particularly sweet and mild.
- Combine the shallot, garlic and wine sauce into the bowl with the crab legs and mix.
- Sprinkle the cornmeal onto the baking sheet and spread the dough out on top.
- If the dough is springy and refuses stay on the edge of the pan, just keep working it up to the edges until it stays.
- Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the crust, just to thinly coat the dough. Spread it with the back of a spoon.
- Salt and pepper the dough to taste.
- Spread the snow crab mixture onto the crust and top with the cheese.
- Sprinkle on red onions to taste.
- Bake in the center rack of the oven for between 20 and 30 minutes, until crust is golden and cheese is bubbly and brown but not burnt.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle with basil and parsley to garnish.
Serve with lemon wedges for people to squeeze over their pizza slices.
Enjoy! This recipe can be modified very easily by switching out the type of cheese, the toppings, and the sauce, but by using the same method.
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