Pissaladière | Southern French "Pizza" Niçoise | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with pizza ladier. That's right. I consider this southern French classic the most delicious pizza that doesn't contain cheese. Although the pizza people would prefer we call this a flatbread. But anyway, I'm going to show you how to make that and also how not to poison yourself with salt, which I almost did. And to get started, we'll begin with the star of the show, which is a whole bunch of caramelized onions. And for this, I think some nice big yellow onions are the best choice. And what we'll do is cut off both ends. And then we'll make one slice straight down. And then peel off the skin. And once that's been removed, what we're going to do is cut this onion in half. And then we'll lay those halves down on their flat side. And then we'll see which way the fibers or those lines on the onions are running. Since for this recipe, we have to slice across those. Okay. When you slice across the fibers of an onion, as you cook them, they will totally break down into almost like a jam. And once we've done that to about four or five big onions, we will transfer those into a nice big pot in which we've melted some butter in olive oil set over mediumigh heat. And we will also toss in a nice big pinch of salt. And then we'll take a spatula and we will give these a stir so that salt gets mixed in which is going to draw out some moisture and these onions will start to soften and slump down. And once they do and they kind of look like this, we will lower our heat to medium and we will cover this and we will let it cook for 10 minutes. At which point your onions are probably going to be looking something like this. And then what we'll do from this point on is cook these uncovered, stirring occasionally until they turn a very light golden brown. And we should probably also reduce our heat to about medium low since according to caramelized onion experts. And yes, that is a thing. But anyway, according to them, the longer and slower we cook the onions, the more delicious and savory they get. But if you want to cheat, you can do this on medium heat and just stir it more often and they will finish a little quicker. But either way, what we want to end up with is something that looks like this. And at this stage, the onions are going to be very soft and sweet. But we're not quite done yet because to finish these off, what we'll do is toss in some fresh time that I've tied together for easier extraction. Then we'll also toss in some freshly ground black pepper along with the optional addition of two or three anchovi fillets. And then last but not least, we'll add a couple tablespoons of cherry vinegar, which helps us balance all the sweetness and richness. And that's it. We'll simply cook that, stirring for another 10 minutes or so, or until it looks something like this. And if we're just making caramelized onions, we probably go a little bit darker. But we're going to be baking this in a hot oven, so the onions are going to darken up even more then. And that's it. We'll simply turn off our heat and reserve those until we need them. And then besides the onions, the other things we need for this pizza are some olives, which are supposed to be nisswas, but I can't easily find those. And if I can't find those easily, you probably can't either. So, what we'll use instead are some pitted colamada olives that we will slice in half. And that's going to give us something very close. And then the other main component will be our anchovies, which we want to drain and transfer into a bowl first so that we can cover those with a whole bunch of nice fresh cold water. And what we'll do is go ahead and swish those around so they sort of separate. And we will let those soak for about an hour, which is going to leech out some of the salt. And you can, if you want, change the water halfway through. And by the way, I'm filming this after the fact since I did not do this on the one I'm showing you how to make. But trust me, you really do want to do this step. And once they soak for about an hour, you can go ahead and drain them and dry them off on some paper towels. And those are now ready to use. And once our onions, olives, and anchovies are set, we can move on to the crust. And for that, I'm going to take some prepared pizza dough and place it on some oiled parchment paper. And then top it with another piece of oil parchment paper. And then sort of press it down. And then what we'll do is grab a rolling pin and we'll use that to roll the dough out between the two layers of parchment. And yes, this is a new technique I'm showing you that I've developed for beginners who tend to have a tough time working with sticky doughs. And what they do is use way too much flour when they're rolling it. And by the time they're done, they end up with a very dry, dense, tough crust. But with this method, as you can see, we're able to get something nice and thin and nice and even and just about the size we want without adding any extra flour. So, if you're one of these always add too much flour kind of people, I think this technique might be perfect for you. And that's it. Once we get it to this point, we'll go ahead and transfer that onto a sheetpan and we'll peel that top piece off. And then, as usual, we'll do some finetuning with our fingers, right? stretching the dough here and there or wherever we think it needs to go. And no, we're not going to end up with a perfectly uniform shape, which is fine. Pizzas and flatbreads are not supposed to be perfect, right? They're supposed to look like we made them. But anyway, once we're finally done fussing, we will take a fork and prick the entire surface, which in the business we call docking, although no one's really sure why. And that's going to prevent any big air bubbles from making our dough bubble up. But don't worry, the texture is still going to be great because we're still going to have millions and millions of tiny air bubbles. And that's it. Once docked, we're going to pre-bake our crust in a 450°ree oven for 10 minutes or until it just barely starts to turn a light gold. And it looks something like this. And that's it. We'll transfer that off the pan onto a rack. And we'll let it cool all the way down before we use it. Although we could use it right away, I guess, but generally I like to make the crust ahead. But either way, once we're ready to bake, we will transfer that onto a lightly oiled piece of parchment paper, set on a sheetpan. And before we transfer on our onions, I like to paint the edge of the crust with a little bit of olive oil, which is going to help it get crisp and brown up beautifully. And once that's been accomplished, we can transfer over our onions, which we want to do in a very generous layer. Oh, and this would be the perfect time to mention there are three different kinds of crush you can use for this. Right. My favorite is a very simple pizza-like dough, but most people use puff pastry, which is easy since it's ready to use. But personally, I think that is way too rich and buttery. Oh, and the third way, which apparently is the original way, is to use a dough close to a pie crust, which again I think is too rich. But of course, suit yourself. I mean, you are, after all the ace ventura, of which base you prefer. But no matter which you use, once our onions are spread over, we can start applying our soaked anchovies, which as I mentioned is not what I'm using in this shot. Right? These are straight out of the can. But anyway, what we'll do is make diagonal lines one way. And then we'll lay some anchovies across those lines going diagonally the other way to form the classic signature pattern. Oh, and above and beyond soaking the anchovies. You can also control the saltiness of this by putting less anchovies on. which means making these lines further apart so that you're using less. And once we have those placed down, we'll take our half olives and we'll place one in each opening. And once I had the first few placed down, I did not like the angle, so I gave them a little turn so they would be going more diagonally like we did our anchovies. So just a little reminder that if something doesn't look right, always feel free to adjust. And that's it. Once olived, we'll transfer that into the upper center of a 450°ree oven for about 25 minutes or until the onions on top and the edges of our crust are beautifully browned. And it hopefully looks like this. And then as soon as we have that out of the oven, we'll grab a spatula and we'll transfer that onto a cooling rack. And we'll let it sit for a few minutes before we try to cut it up. And while I was waiting, because I have them and they're in the onion family, I snipped up some fresh chives and scattered those over the top, since I find the appearance of this very enticing and totally fascinating. But the colors are a bit drab. So, I decided to chive. And then I transferred that to a cutting board and I grabbed my pizza wheel and went ahead and cut that up. And by the way, extra credit if you can do this without touching any olives, which I wasn't able to accomplish. I think I touched all the olives, but anyway, after putting those back in place so I could take a few contractually obligated pictures, I grabbed a piece and went in for the official taste, which was beyond delicious and flavorful. Okay, like I said in the intro, if you allow me to call this a pizza, this is by far the world's tastiest pizza that does not contain cheese. And even though it might not look impressive, that very simple bread-based crust, I think, is absolutely perfect with the rich onions and the salty anchovies and those briny salty olives. So, I really was thrilled with how this came out, except for one very major thing. Since I did not soak my anchovies and I put so many on, this was so salty, it was borderline inedible. And I quickly realized I had skipped a very, very important step. So, I will make sure that soaking step is well detailed in the written recipe along with how to do the dough if you're going to make it from scratch. But whether you use your own homemade dough or not or do the richer, easier version using frozen puff pastry, this cut up into small squares is one of the greatest party foods of all time. And I really do hope you give it a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. and is always enjoy. Oh boy.