The Have Knots

I don’t know if you have ever heard of garlic knots, but they are wonderful.  They blow “cheesy breadsticks” out of the water.  Or rather they make cement shoes for cheesy breadsticks and sink them in the bottom of a remote lake in New Jersey.  Yes, garlic knots have the mafia toughness of any decent snack or side dish in the tri-state area. 

Please let me explain my love for garlic knots. 

I am a firm believer in the after-school snack.  I used to eat a bowl of cereal every day upon returning from school when I was young.  Then when friends began driving, we were able to expand our dining options beyond the family kitchen – and I discovered the garlic knot.  My friends and I would visit various pizza places and this was always my menu item of choice.  Others got slices of pizza or even a shake or something, but I preferred a small order of garlic knots.

They are exactly what you are imagining right now.  Garlic + Something tied in a knot = boom garlic knot.  It’s like an Italian pretzel but a little more bad-ass. And they are amazingly easy to make at home.  Plus anytime you add something to a dinner that has been tossed in garlic butter, I think the entire meal gets elevated to a whole other level: French fries tossed with garlic and butter – pommes frites.  Need I say more?

It helps to serve garlic knots warm and covered in an unhealthy amount of butter and garlic.  And a side bowl of marinara sauce doesn’t hurt either.  You can make these with any kind of pizza dough you prefer, although I like fresh dough.  So the next time you make homemade pizza, pinch off a bit of dough and make a few garlic knots.  You won’t be disappointed.

Garlic Knots
This dough recipe is for one large pizza, so it will make about 12 - 16 garlic knots.  You can always make some pizza and save a little of the dough for the knots, or have a feast of garlic knots one night.

1 package yeast
1 c warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 Tb. Olive Oil, divided
2 ½ c flour
1 egg, beaten
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ c butter
Fresh chopped parsley, optional
Salt to taste

To make the dough, dissolve yeast in warm water in the bowl of a large stand mixer.  After about 5 minutes, when the mixture is a bit frothy, stir in sugar, salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Mix in the flour until well incorporated.  Move dough onto a lightly floured surface and work into a ball.  Clean out the bowl and then oil with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Place the dough back in the bowl, and toss to coat in oil.  Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.

When the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 425°.  Punch down the dough and divide into 4 pieces.  Take each piece and divide into 3 or 4 pieces.  Each piece should be the size of 1 ½ golf balls (I was going to say paddle ball from the game you play at the beach, but most people won’t get that reference).  Roll into a log and then tie into a knot, similar to making a pretzel, but pull the ends so that there is no gap.

Place onto a greased cookie sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough.  Brush each knot with beaten egg.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.  Meanwhile melt butter in a sauce pan over medium -low heat, add in the garlic and a generous pinch of salt.  Once the garlic knots are done baking, place them in a large bowl, and drizzle the garlic butter mixture over them, tossing to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and parsley, and serve immediately.

A Fig Tree Grows In Astoria

It’s been a while since I have been able to post. From visiting family around the eastern seaboard to attending bachelor and WAG parties, Joe and I have had a very busy schedule. But this does not mean that I wasn’t cooking anything. In fact we did quite a bit of cooking, but after my third cousin asked me why I was taking pictures of food, did I realize, maybe I should just enjoy and not try to document everything I was doing.

I was going to share with you a ‘Winning Cousins Competition Cake’ but a vanilla cake, with vanilla frosting, on a white plate, sitting on top of a white counter, somehow didn’t look as great as I thought it would. Or the giant greek style feast that a four year old helped me prepare could have played a role on this blog. But every time the four year old asked to help, she followed up with “Can I just eat that?”, and when a child asks to eat melon, cucumber, prosciutto, cheese, mushrooms, and peppers - you just don’t say no.  Even if it means sacrificing pictures.

And then last weekend in New York City, I managed to make a baked Challah French Toast for Joe’s birthday, but again when some hungry guests are clamoring for bacon, and you are using your gracious host’s every last plate and platter, you can’t really delay eating with trying to produce the perfect picture. But as our summer travels wind down, I did manage get into the kitchen and prepare something worthy of sharing.

Our hosts in New York have a gigantic fig tree growing in their back yard. Yes that sentence is full of combinations that don’t seem to go together – grow, New York, backyard etc. But they really all do. And when someone insists that you take fresh figs home, you just can’t say no. Plus I like to count that as the “urban foraging” I am so fond of. 

In Maine, it can be hard to find fresh figs. They are either very expensive, or very over ripe and squishy (or sometimes moldy). So I jumped at the chance to take home a container of fresh figs, and try to incorporate them into every meal. In the past, I have broiled figs, and then spread them on toast, or just eaten them raw. But these NYC figs called for something a bit more sophisticated – a pizza.

Now, I’m not claiming to have made this recipe up by any means, but I also did not follow any set guide on making this pizza. So I advise that you do the same to this, follow what you like but disregard anything you do not.

Fig, Prosciutto, and Blue Cheese Pizza

You can use just about anything as the pizza crust. If you have a favorite recipe for homemade dough, or a refrigerated dough you are familiar with. You can even use some premade flatbread tossed on the grill if you are really pressed for time. I used a refrigerated dough, this time, but if you would like my pizza dough recipe – just let me know!

1 lb pizza dough
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
8 oz. soft blue cheese (like a gorgonzola dolce)
½ lb thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into strips
10 fresh figs, sliced and/or quartered
Olive oil
Arugula, rinsed and tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper (optional)

Preheat the oven to a hot 450°F.

Roll out the pizza dough to stretch fairly thin, I have a giant rectangle baking sheet and use that as my form. If you use a pizza stone, try to get two pizzas out of the dough. Drizzle olive oil over the dough and sprinkle evenly with chopped garlic.

Then, finely crumble the blue cheese as you sprinkle it over the dough. Add the prosciutto and figs to the pizza dough. Bake pizza in the oven for about 10 minutes. If using the arugula, pull the pizza out midway through cooking, and add arugula on top. Return it to the oven and finish cooking, the arugula will melt on top.

Pull pizza from the oven and let rest a few minutes before cutting and eating.