This Asparagus and Morel Pizza with Garlic Confit is the perfect way to use your spring produce! Garlicky and cheesey, packed full of flavor and vegetarian!
Prep Time45 minutesmins
Cook Time10 minutesmins
Total Time55 minutesmins
Course: Dinners
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Game Day, Spring Recipes, Summer Recipes, Vegetarian recipes, Weekend Meals
1teaspoonred pepper flakesplus more for topping (or to taste)
truffle salt*can use plain kosher salt if you don't have truffle salt
Garlic Confitsee below
cornmealfor pizza peel
For The Garlic Confit:
1headof garliccloves separated and peeled (about 24 whole garlic cloves
1/4cupolive oilor more, enough to cover garlic
Instructions
To Make The Garlic Confit:
Place garlic cloves in a small saucepan and cover with olive oil. Garlic cloves should be submerged.
Bring oil to a simmer over medium heat but do not boil. As soon as it comes to a simmer, reduce heat as low as possible and cook for about 45 minutes, until garlic is soft and tender.
Remove garlic with a slotted spoon and set aside. Save oil for use on the pizza.
To Make The Pizza:
Place oven rack in the very top position of the oven and place pizza stone on it. Heat oven to 550°F.
If refrigerated, set pizza dough on the counter for at least half an hour.
Take one tablespoon of the oil from the garlic confit and place in a large sauté pan with the 4 cloves of minced garlic and the red pepper flakes. Heat until fragrant, then add the morel mushrooms and a good dash of the truffle salt and sauté for a few minutes. Add the asparagus and another dash of salt and cook for 3-4 more minutes, until bright green and still crisp.
Remove from heat and taste mixture, adjust seasoning if needed.
Spread cornmeal on to pizza peel. Use your hands to work the pizza dough ball into a disc, when it gets to be 6-8 inches across, place on the pizza peel and continue to spread into a 12 inch disc. If the dough starts to spring back and gets to difficult to work with, let it sit for 10-15 minutes and it should relax. When pizza dough has been shaped into a 12 inch flat disc, give the pizza peel a shake to make sure the dough is not sticking to it.
Use a pastry brush to brush one tablespoon of the garlic confit oil all over the crust. Spread the shredded cheese all over the dough, leaving about an inch of space all around the outside edge of the crust. Cover with the morel/asparagus mixture. Arrange the garlic confit cloves on top. Sprinkle with a little more truffle salt and pinch of red pepper flakes.
Give the pizza peel another shake to make sure the dough is not sticking in any places.
Now comes the tricky part! Transferring the pizza from the peel to the hot pizza stone. This is why you want to make sure your dough isn't sticking to the peel. Open the oven and pull the rack out about halfway so that you have easier access to the hot stone. Quickly, carefully and deliberately, shake the pizza from the peel onto the hot stone, then close the oven. It helps to have two people involved, and for the second person to have a spatula or other heat proof utensil to help guide the pizza onto the stone it needed.
Cook for 8-10 minutes, until crust is golden and cheese is bubbly. Carefully transfer pizza back to pizza peel to remove from oven (again, the second person standing nearby with a spatula is helpful for this).
Notes
*Use truffle salt if at all possible, the flavor is amazing! But if you can't find it, regular kosher salt will work.