Pizza di Scarola

In my many years of baking and cooking, there are a few culinary heroes I’ve always looked up to. There’s the OG, Deb Perelman, whose incredibly successful blog Smitten Kitchen — created all the way back in 2005 — was the first blog I ever followed and the earliest example of food writing that I was ever exposed to. There’s the legendary Julia Child, who moved to Paris and discovered cooking at the age of 36 (it’s never too late to find your passion!) and who published the anthology known as The Art of French Cooking, singlehandedly bringing French cuisine to the U.S. There’s Rome’s own Carla Tomasi, who owned her own London restaurant, Friths, in the 80s — uncommon for a woman at the time — and who taught me how to make a perfect focaccia, cook with the intimidating artichoke, and whip up ravioli from scratch. And there’s Sonia Peronaci, founder of Giallo Zafferano.

Created by Sonia in 2006, Giallo Zafferano is the go-to recipe site here in Italy. What started as a simple hub for ricette evolved into an empire complete with millions of readers, videos, and TV spots. When I first moved to Rome years ago, GZ became my point of reference for regional Italian cuisine, teaching me about everything from cannoli to canederli — all from a woman who was not only savvy enough to build her own company, but who also had the skills to back it up. Indeed: Giallo Zafferano was (and is) solid, reliable, consistently providing straightforward, spot-on recipes. As any home cook/chef knows, a site like this is a valuable resource: I’ve made more than a few disappointing recipes from (well-known) sources over the years, only to realize that the recipe is a bit of a dud that probably hasn’t been properly tested. In 2015, Sonia left Giallo Zafferano — by then a whole brand, standing on its own two feet — to focus on other projects, including cookbooks, TV shows, and a website with more recipes (phew!) I followed her throughout the years as I started my own food blog and tried my hand at food writing, ever faithful to one of my cooking idols.

In early February 2019, I was traveling back to Rome from Rhode Island, following the loss of my beloved Nonno. Exhausted (ah, grief) I found myself at London’s Heathrow airport for a brief layover. As I made my way to my gate, I recognized her, no double-take needed. Strolling through the very same terminal was the one and only Sonia Peronaci (!!!)

I had to stop her, of course. She was incredibly gracious and patient as I told her how much her recipes meant to me. We took a photo, which is this one below that you see here. Running into her took the sting off my sadness and heartache that day nearly 5 years ago.

To bring things back to today’s recipes for Neapolian pizza di scarola, the most recent Sonia recipe I’ve made. Disclaimer: this is not the sort of round pizza with tomato and cheese. Think of this more as a double-crust, savory pie of sorts —with some pizza-like traits — one that gets you your daily dose of greens (escarole!) and is just virtuous enough for those who are trying to eat a little better in the start of the new year.

The recipe for the dough is, at first glance, odd — it calls for both milk and water, and oil and butter. Fear not, of course — this is a Peronaci recipe, and will not lead you astray. Both kinds of fat/liquid unite, resulting in a cross between bready pizza and flaky pastry, crisp and golden and sturdy, the perfect vehicle for the abundant filling within. And the filling! Similar to Sicilian caponata, it plays with contrasting flavors and textures. There’s wholesome, slightly bitter escarole, which pulls ts usual shrink-and-disappear act when it hits the pan; there are sweet, plump raisins, buttery pine nuts, briny Kalamata olives, punchy anchovies, and nutty garlic, an unlikely band of characters that come together and become the best of friends. A large slab of it makes a wonderful lunch or even snack around 5pm, when lunch is a distant memory and dinner is still far away (for those of us eating at Italian-time, that is). Best of all, this pizza di scarola looks delightfully like a large pop-tart once baked — an idea I very much like, and have noted down for later.

I will be tagging Sonia Peronaci in this post, and on the off-chance she reads it: thank you for all your inspiration over the years.

A couple of notes: If escarole isn’t your thing, you could probably substitute another type of green here (Sonia suggests spinach or chard). If you would like to use black olives in place of the kalamata olives, feel free. I have never made this with storebought pizza dough, but I imagine it could be substituted here — give it a try and let me know. To reheat this pizza, I had luck using a covered skillet over low heat; the heat kind of distributes around the skillet and breathes life back into our pizza without the harshness of a microwave. The best way to cut this pizza is with kitchen scissors; most Italians have a pair of these on hand for the sole purpose of cutting pizza. I have put all the quantities in grams as that is how the recipe was written; use a kitchen scale if you have one. If not, I have also provided quantities using the U.S system, but they may vary by a few grams. If you’d like, you can also leave out the pizza component all together and eat this escarole as a lovely side.

Looking for other pizza/bread recipes? Click here.
Looking for other recipes from GZ on this blog? You can find just a few here.

PIZZA DI SCAROLA

Recipe from Sonia Peronaci. Serves 8-10.

Ingredients for the dough:
60 grams (4 tablespoons) butter, cut into small pieces, room temperature
40 grams (3 tablespoons) olive oil
7 grams (2 teaspoons) dried yeast
10 grams (1.5 teaspoons) salt
5 grams (1 teaspoon) sugar
125 grams (1/2 cup) whole milk
125 grams (1/2 cup) water
500 grams (4 cups) all-purpose flour

Ingredients for the filling:
1 kilo (a little over 2 pounds, or 1000 grams) escarole
6 anchovies (preserved in oil)
50 grams (a little less than 2 ounces) capers
100 grams (4 ounces) kalamata or black olives, pitted
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
50 grams (2 ounces) pine nuts
1/3 cup (65 grams) raisins
Salt, pepper, olive oil as needed

To finish:
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of milk

40×30 cm rectangular pizza pan

Directions for the dough:
1.) Start with your dough! Pour the milk and tepid water into a sauce pan and heat until just warm to the touch. Pour into a medium bowl, and add the salt, sugar, and yeast. Whisk together and then set aside. In a large bowl, put the flour and the pieces of butter, and add the milk and water mixture along with the olive oil. Mix everything together well until a dough starts to form.

2.) Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface (you won’t need much flour for kneading, the butter/oil make sure it doesn’t stick) and knead the dough for 10 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic dough. Note that you can also use a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook for this. Form the dough into a ball, then put it in a large, lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise for two hours, or until its volume is doubled.

Directions for the filling:
3.) Wash the escarole and dry it well. Rip it into pieces (you don’t have to be too precise about this) and set aside. In a large frying pan over a low flame, heat some olive oil and add the garlic and anchovies. When the anchovies have melted into the oil, add the escarole in batches — there will be a lot of it, but it will magically shrink down as it cooks. Once the escarole is all in the pan, cook it until the water it releases evaporates. It will release a lot of water, and it will take some time for it to evaporate (about 20-25 min) so be patient here! Season the escarole with a little salt and pepper.

4.) Next, stir in the olives, capers, raisins, and pinenuts, and stir well. Turn off the heat and let the escarole filling cool to room temperature.

Put it all together:
5.) Once the dough has risen, divide it into two even pieces with the help of a kitchen scale, if you’d like. With a rolling pin, roll out one of the two pieces of dough, until you have something that is about .5cm thick. Brush your rectangular pan with some olive oil, and place this first piece of dough in there, making sure to cover the borders of the pan with the dough, too. Pierce it with a fork. Add the cooled filling on top of the dough, distributing it equally.

6.) Roll out the remaining piece of dough and place it carefully over the filling. Seal the edges of the dough together (you may need to cut away any extra dough with a knife) and pierce the top of the dough with a fork too. Cover your almost-pizza-di-scarola with plastic wrap and let it rise for an hour.

7.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Once the hour is up, brush the top of the pizza with the egg/milk mixture. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Let the pizza cool completely before cutting and eating. Enjoy!