Today´s recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza.
This interesting recipe was inspired by a pizza served at Yves Camborde´s world-famous Paris bistro "Le Comptoir" that Dorie describes as "part pissaladière, part salade Nicoise, and part pizza".
There are a number of different elements to this pizza that is best served while still warm. To make the base of this pizza, you start off by cutting circles from ready-made puff pastry and baking them in the oven for about 15 minutes with a baking sheet to weigh them down. For the topping you arrange finely chopped spring onions (previously cooked in olive oil), fresh mozzarella, basil leaves, slices of sushi-grade tuna, quartered cherry tomatoes and Kalamata olives as well as paper thin slices of radishes on top of the pizza. Just before heating the pizzas for about three minutes, drizzle with a bit of good-quality olive oil and sprinkle with French sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Considering the young age of some of my devoted taste testers, I skipped the freshly grated ginger on top - while we love ginger, the kids do not really enjoy it semi-raw. Apart from that one ingredient, I followed the recipe exactly and in order to take some of the sharp bite off the radishes, I sprinkled them with with fine sea salt, let them sit for five minutes, rinsed them under cold water and dried them off before placing them on top of the pizzas - after all, we live in a country of relentless radish lovers and that is how we usually enjoy them.
We liked the way these small appetizer-style pizzas looked like, very pretty and the taste was intriguing and liked by all - thanks also to the utterly fresh sushi-grade tuna. I do not think that I woud change any substantial element of this recipe - it seems to me that his recipe is quite harmonious and quite the taste experience as is.
To take a look at some more Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizzas prepared by the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group, please click here.
Fresh tuna? Sounds absolutely delicious! And the pizzas look gorgeous :)
ReplyDeleteTomorrow my girlfriends and I are spending the day at a house in the country, and we will be making pizzas in an firewood oven, this pictures and recipe are highly inspirational ;)
Beijinhos!
Inês
Inês, always such a pleasure hearing from you - hope you spent a wonderful day in the country with tons of delicious pizza!
DeleteLembrancas,
Andrea
I'm glad to hear the entire family enjoyed these. I selfishly made just one, for my lunch. I like the idea of these little pizzas. I like anything on crust. Yours, of course, look gorgeous, Andrea.
ReplyDeleteBetsy, well, I could not only do one - too many hungry eaters around my table and I would not have been able to just get three tiny slices of fresh tuna at the fish monger either...seriously, these were delicious and fun to put together! Thanks for the nice comment!
DeleteI probably would have skipped the fresh ginger too. Wise choice, Andrea! These look just beautiful. What wonderful little bites of flavor. I love pizzas, and I think the flavor combo here would be wonderful for a weekend meal. Hugs and love to your little ones.
ReplyDeleteMonet, this was indeed a nice flavor combination - interesting and delicious! Zhanks for stopping by!
DeleteGlad to hear the family enjoyed this dish. Only one ember of my family likes raw fish. I may try the recipe without the fish. Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteGeraldine, I am lucky to have some very eager taste testers - raw fish does not seem to be a problem for them at all. Thank you for the nice comment!
DeleteWhat an exotic mix of flavours! Gotta try this one. Thanks, Andrea doll!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Colette! Exotic is a good way to describe these!
DeleteI agree the ingredients were surprisingly harmonious. I would have never had guessed they would be. Our youngest taste tester was 8 and I was surprised that he liked them as much as he did.
ReplyDeleteDiane, children love to taste so many things - even our five year old liked these, how nice!
Deletethe combination of tuna and mozzarella is unique but will be extremely flavorful for sure....will try this new combination for pizza soon,delicious recipe :-)
ReplyDeleteKumar, thanks so much for commenting - never thought that this combination would work but it did - a nice way to start a Friday dinner!
DeleteOMGosh,
ReplyDeletewhat a lovely delicacy. This is def a treat to have w/ red wine! Xxxx LOVE.
Kim, thank you - a real treat, that´s for sure - we do not eat sushi-grade tuna too often but whe we do, it is always quite a delicacy.
DeleteThe flavors of Provence sound nice in the little pizzas. You made me smile with the comment about the radishes. I always see them on the breakfast buffets when we are in Germany...they are very popular.
ReplyDeleteKaren, yes, those radishes, got to them love them when you live in Germany! Thank you for stopping by!
DeleteWhat an interesting combination of ingredients and the method is so intriguing, Andrea. You made them look like little works of art! I love those bake puff pastry crusts, they'd be really fun to try with other toppings too.
ReplyDeleteChris, yes, those flat-baked puff pastry rounds are fun to use - Dorie has a few ideas in her book for different toppings for these.
DeleteWhat a beauty - the ingredients worked surprisingly well together! We will be trying this again, and hopefully the pastry will work the third time!
ReplyDeleteChristy, this was a fun recipe to try, I agree, at first I had my doubts but whe I bit into them, I was glad that I gave this recipe a try after all!
DeleteThis sounds wonderful and a great combination of flavors. But so funny to me, as it doesn't seem French, doesn't really seem Italian, and definitely doesn't sounds German. But it sounds sooooo good! It is the perfect fusion first course! Love it! ~ David
ReplyDeleteDavid, this is part Italian, part French, part fusion at its best - that´s what I thought as well - liked this recipe quite a bit!
DeleteWhat a great trick for cutting the radishes' "bite". Not that I would do it for myself! :)
ReplyDeleteI have most of the ingredients in the house to make the pizza, but somehow tuna and mozzarella don't go together in my head. I know I'll get around making it soon, taking in some of the ideas from the rest of the ladies.
Adriana, the raw "bite" of the radishes did not seem to be a nice addition to these nice "Pizzas", I just did not want them to distract too much from the wonderful taste of the sushi-grade tuna. It worked this way for us, maybe others do not mind the taste of those radishes and freshly ground ginger, but I beleieve they both tend to be a bit overpowering sometimes. Thanks for the lovely comment!
DeleteWow. Really gorgeous photos! I didn't know that radish trick but for me one of the lessons of this one is that I like radishes way more than I remember. Love them buttered like grandma made.. hm....
ReplyDeleteTrevor, thank you! Glad that you enjoy the radishes so much - no butter for us on them but I know that is how some people like to eat them, I really like them when they are tender and young, not strong tasting with a somewhat sharp bite because that´s when they overpower all the other taste components in a dish.
DeleteI really like the idea of using the puff pastry as the base for the pizzas. The flavour combinations sound really interesting I am intrigued by the combination of tuna and mozzarella.
ReplyDeleteKaren, nice puff pastry base (store-bought ready made is perfectly fine here) and wonderful ingredients - we thought that this was a real intriguing appetizer.
DeleteSince I was (and am) behind in cooking this one I never made it through the recipe to learn Dorie has us all weighing down puff pastries for a uniform appearance and using cookie cutters to get lovely shapes. This actually intrigues me for future appetizers as much as the "pizza" of this week. But that is also because I am not a raw fish fan. Since hubby likes it I will indeed need to circle back and try this. Your photos and results inspire me not to miss out :)
ReplyDeleteTricia, I certainly do not have the time to be making all those FFwD assignments these days but I do not mindm there will always be time for make-up soon and usually the recipes are not that elebaoarte, so I am positive that I will manage to catch-up if I need to. Thank you for the kind comment - glad that you find these pictures inspirational!
DeleteGorgeous! I love that your kids enjoyed this one too. That is amazing.
ReplyDeleteCher, my kids have become quite the taste testers and I am pretty happy about that too! Thanks for the comment!
DeleteOMG, so cute!!! I haven't made pizza dough myself but I can pull off puff pastry any time (ahem, frozen kind. =P). Thanks for the idea. It'll be a great after school snack, actually!
ReplyDeleteNami, I do not really have the time to be making puff pastry myself these days but I do make sure to buy a good quality one when I do use it - I know that you are always using the best ingredients available as well! All that effort that goes into baking and cooking, so it is worth getting the best and freshest ingredients available. Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments, dear Nami!
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