Welcome to the surface of the moon....... Care for some Pizza?

Purple pizza No seriously Purple pizza. Not my fault really she made me. Well that's my story anyway. But this really is a good time to post this recipe. Being as it was made recently ie in the last weekish. And it is a modification of the crust from the Lamb en Croute. I would cut and paste the recipe but that would seem to be a tad bit redundant so instead I recommend just substituting 1/3rd of the chickpea flour with purple rice flour.


Now the baking on this does take a twist. In that you want to spread it out into a round on well greased  parchment paper and bake first at 450f until it looks like the surface of the moon. Then, and this is the step I forgot (DOH!!) turn the heat down to 300f and bake until totally dry, about 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before topping.

But now the interesting part the purple sauce!!! This is so simple and yet the flavors will floor you. Start with 1cup red wine reduce it over medium high heat until you have 1/4cup then remove from the heat and work in 1/2cup fresh goat cheese and black pepper to taste.

I know I didn't format that out nice but when it is only two ingredients I don't really think of it as a recipe. So after you spread our fine purple sauce on the surface of the moon, you can then top it ny way you like. So in keeping with the purple theme.....

Temporary segway here when I was younger every thing I made was green. You can ask my parents, green paint, green mud, green cake, green ... So odd how now it is purple.... but I'm sure the next thing I post will not be purple.

Ok so back to the pizza. Eggplant!! the perfect purple vegetable. Oven roasted of course, peeled and seeded. Which by the way allowed for interesting comparisons to filleting fish. It was kind of like skinning sardines. Hold at one end , bring the blade of the knife though the flesh to the skin turn the blade horizontal and pull back on the skin. I will demo this at some point. Now lay your fine fillet of roast eggplant on the pizza. Add some shaved parm and cook until lightly browned.

Lamb En Croute

Have I mentioned that lamb is one of my favorite meats? So tasty and rich, the bold flavors let you do almost any thing to it. And of course I know you have all taken the time to check out my turduchen right? Right? so it should come as no surprise that I would take lamb make it North African spicy and hide it under a chickpea crust. I mean totally normal.

So let us start with the recipe for my
Lamb Mousse

3/4# ground lamb
4tbl quinoa (cooked)
2tbl roasted walnuts
1ea egg
2tsp orange liqueur
1 dried pepper
2tsp oregano
1tsp rosemary
1tsp salt
1tbl ground red lentils
1/2tsp cumin

For the dried pepper I used an ancho but you are welcome to play with what ever peppers you have (even minced fresh peppers won't hurt). Now the filling for this recipe is more like a mousse than a ground meat so we will be using the food processor. Place the lamb and spices into the food processor and turn it on (for the sake of this recipe the ground lentils are a spice.). Add  the egg, orange liquor, and walnuts puree until smooth remove the mixture and fold in the quinoa.Now cover the mixture set aside in a cool place and proceed to make the yummy crust.

Now about this fine crust, speaking of fine be sure to sift your chickpea flour, we don't want chunks here. OK so the crust developed out of my thought of making cream puffs. But I wanted to be gluten free so that a certain someone could eat these yummy treats. So this is a simple Pate Choux dough only we will be tagging in Chickpea flour.

Chickpea Pate Choux

1cup water
2tbl butter
1tbl coconut milk
3/4cup chickpea flour
1tsp zatar
1tsp curry powder
1tsp garam masala
4 eggs

To start place the first four ingredients in a pan on the stove and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and quickly whisk in the flour (you remembered to sift that right?). Keep stirring until it gets thick and goopy. Now place the thick mixture in a stand mixer and add the spices. (side note here after making this and tasting it I would use 2tbl of anyone of the spices instead of 1tsp of each.) While the mixer is running. on high of course, add the eggs one at a time. Let each egg be fully incorporated be fore adding the next.  We now have our dough.

To prepare the Lamb in Croute is now fairly  simple and straight forward. First though I would highly recommend a silicone muffin pan for this. Even my well greased non-stick muffin tin did not approve of  non-sticking. So preheat your oven to 425f. Place enough of the dough mixture into each muffin cup to just fill the bottom. Cook these for about 5-10 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top. Now take your meat mousse mixture and place a ball a little smaller than a golf ball in the center of each muffin. Then add a small amount of the chickpea batter over each. just enough to cover. Place these back in the oven and cook until golden brown.

These are wonderful topped with a sauce of roasted red bell peppers and eggplant. The saucy recipe will be occurring over here ----->>>