Skip to main content

This is totally not a pizza why would you say that

So I know a person or two who don't like eating carbohydrates because they hate happiness or something. I'm not sure. That's what I've been able to glean. Anyway, they like this lavash bread stuff, which is just really fucking flat bread that's low in carbs. Just for a comparison: a slice of white bread has (on average) 15g of carbs, a slice of whole wheat bread has (on average) 12g of carbs, and half of a lavash flatbread has (on average) 8g of carbs. Significantly less, right? So we're cooking with that shit.
I decided to make a chicken flatbread with it because I wanted pizza and the bread was flat, so that was a win-win. I cubed up some chicken legs, seasoned them with salt, and browned them in olive oil. I made sure not to cook it all the way through since it was going into the oven and I didn't want to dry that shit out. I decided to use olive oil since this meal was kind of Italian-ish and so is olive oil or something. I also didn't want to fuck with cutting butter, as simple of a process as that is. I was tired, it was late, just pour from the bottle and be fucking done.
After the chicken was brown, I pulled it out of the pan and dumped in some sliced mushroom and chopped pearl onions (still working my way through leftover Thanksgiving ingredients). I didn't sauté them for long; just wanted to soften the mushrooms and sweat the onions a little. I did add a little salt to draw out some moisture and give a little flavor, but the seasoning of toppings was kept to a minimum.
While the chicken, mushrooms, and onions were cooking, I also started on my sauce. I began with some minced red onion and a few minced cloves of garlic frying in olive oil, then, when the garlic was getting just a little brown and crispy, I added a palmful of red pepper flakes, mixed them in, then dumped in about 2/3 of my little can of tomato paste (also a Thanksgiving leftover). I stirred the tomato paste around until it was getting a little darker, then added in some fresh thyme leaves and chopped Italian parsley. See? This shit's totally Italian. 
Once the sauce started smelling good, I poured in a bit of red wine and cut the heat down a little bit. You've gotta add something to change the paste into sauce, and wine is (almost) always a good choice. I worked the wine into the paste pretty thoroughly, which took a bit of stirring, but it finally got all thinned out. I added a couple pinches of salt and let it simmer.
Kept at a lower heat, the sauce thickened up quite nicely. More importantly it tasted amazing - always a plus. I took it off the heat and started making my pizz-flatbread.
Look at that shit. Almost like pizza sauce, right? I may or may not have based my sauce recipe off of Clemenza's spaghetti sauce scene in The Godfather. Strike that. I did base it largely off of that scene. I really want a fucking cannoli. Anyway, I just put a piece of the flatbread down on a foil-lined cookie sheet, then scooped a couple spoonfuls of sauce into the middle and used the back of the spoon to spread it around. I left a bit of space from the edge clear because I had no idea what was going to happen if I covered it.
Next, I just covered the sauced area with chicken, sliced black olives, and the mushrooms and pearl onions, then topped it all with some grated parmesan and asiago. The last step, of course, was tossing it into the oven.
I had my oven preheated to 350 because that's the magical baking temperature for everything, right? The chicken and onion got cooked through, the unsauced edge got nice and crispy, and the cheese got all melty in about 5 minutes or so. Maybe. I don't fucking know. I just kept peeking in the oven to see how it looked. 
I probably could have gone with a higher temperature, I could definitely have added more cheese, and there are plenty of other changes that could be made, but that shit still tasted great, and it was because the sauce was just perfect. Just a hint of heat from the red pepper flakes, a rich, vibrant flavor from the tomato paste and wine, plus the thyme and parsley gave it a nice kick of freshness. Also garlic because happiness despite the lack of carbs. Even if I don't do a flatbread again (which, of course, I will, because I have two more pieces), I'm going to be making more tomato sauce like this, hopefully with homemade tomato puree/paste someday.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Restaurant week: My new Mexican restaurant

 As I mentioned the other day, my Mexican restaurant closed down. Luckily, they opened up in a new space a couple of months later. Great new look, new name ("Lopez Grill"), they've got a bar, staff is expanded, and the place is always packed. Business seems to be going great. Now, this isn't just a rehash of my post about the 'Dolo. While the menu is largely the same, there have been a few changes, plus I'm going to share a few things I've learned eating there. On my first visit to the new location (which was opening day, right when the doors opened; yes, I was standing in line outside with the other faithful), Señor Lopez brought me a bowl of their new salsa. He called it "guacamole salsa," but it's a jalapeño-based sauce. It's got an almost creamy texture, but is dairy-free (I asked for my vegan friend). Being a jalapeño salsa, it's got some heat, but not nearly as overbearing as some capsaicin-phobes may fear. It is perfectly bala...

Restaurant week: Polish food truck tasting

Due to a strange combination of circumstances, I recently found myself at a menu tasting for a soon to open Polish food truck called Halinka's Polish Eatery . I'm about 99% sure I was the only person in attendance who wasn't already personally known to the owner/chef, Magda, but it was a good time. Got to meet some nice folks and eat free food, but then I had to give feedback in public in front of other people, so that kind of sucked. Like, really fucking sucked. Pretty sure my face my was red the entire time. This is the price we pay for food sometimes. Our first course was a cabbage and mushroom pierogi with a side of beets. Apparently when the food truck gets going, the pierogis will be steamed, then finished either on a grill or in a skillet with some butter. However, due to facility constraints where we were trying the dishes, Magda had to serve them just steamed. Anyway, to the food: the cabbage and mushroom pierogis were fucking amazing. There was a tremendous depth ...

Stream recap: pseudo-bougie dinner party

 This past Sunday (1/18/2025) was my second cooking stream of the New Generation of ODG Cooking Streams. When I was trying to come up with a "theme" for the afternoon, I was thinking a lot about those fancy-ass restaurants where they serve you three bites of food on a fucking plate five or six times and, even though you're somehow full, it still doesn't seem to quite justify spending five million dollars just to eat there for two hours while everyone around you looks at you condescendingly because you didn't wear a goddamn tie. Fuck those people. Anyway, I decided I wanted to figure out a way to do that kind of fun, small plate, presentation-centric food at the house without having to break the bank. My first course, as a direct theft from The Bear , a show I absolutely love, was the mirepoix broth. I started the stream by starting a light stock, which means you don't roast the bones beforehand, using some pork and beef bones. For the mirepoix broth, I finely ...