Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza With Poached Pears, Gorgonzola and Onion Confit

Photo: Eva Taylor

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface (needs about ½ cup more!)

Coarse salt

1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast

4 ounces Gorgonzola broken into small bits

2 pears, pealed and seeded

2 cups red wine

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup onion confit (http://kitcheninspirations.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/sweet-onion-confit/)

Handful of spinach and arugula, washed

Preparation

In a large bowl, combine flour, 1/8 teaspoon salt, yeast, and 1/2 cup water. Stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and rough. Let dough rest in a warm place (about 72 degrees) until doubled in volume, about 3 hours.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and cover with a clean, damp kitchen towel. Let stand until doubled in size, 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Peel and seed pears, cut in half. Place into a small saucepan and cover with red wine and the balsamic vinegar and poach until soft. Cool completely and thinly slice. Reserve.

Place a pizza stone (we use our trusty Chicago-land cast iron pizza pan) on the lowest rack of oven and preheat to 550 degrees for 25 minutes.

Flatten dough into a disk that is thicker in the center than at the edges. Using your fingers, gently pull on the edges of the dough to form a 6- to 8-inch circle; dough should still be thicker in the center. Drape dough over both hands, and using your knuckles, work dough out from the center into a 18-inch circle. Or you can roll it out with a rolling pin.

Roll dough onto the rolling pin and carefully unroll the dough to hot pizza stone.

Working quickly, spread the onion confit on first, add thinly sliced poached pears and bake for 9 minutes. Add the cheese and bake an additional minute so the cheese does not completely melt.

Remove from oven and add a handful of spinach and arugula.

Enjoy!

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About

The pizza had incredible taste, but one thing I would do differently is to add the cheese nearer to the end (I have amended my recipe here), with only about one minute remaining for baking, that way, the cheese doesn't break down entirely. It still had great taste.