A Hungry Bear

Eggplant, when grilled or roasted, can be smoky, meaty and garlicky. When you combine it with salty sopressata, gooey provolone cheese, and briny green olives, you have a really great pizza. I adapted this from the original in August 2009 Gourmet - they provide instructions for how to grill the pizza outdoors if you don’t want to heat up the kitchen.

And if you’re still not sold on the idea of eggplant on pizza, let’s have another shot of the whole pie:

Ingredients: 3 garlic cloves, 1/3 cup olive oil, 6 small Japanese eggplants (about one pound), 3-4 ounce hunk of sopressata, 5-6 ounces provolone cheese, 12 large green olives, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, 1 pound prepared pizza dough.

Start by setting the pizza dough on the counter for an hour or two, to bring it to room temperature. Then prepare the garlic olive oil.

Smash the garlic cloves with a pinch of salt with a mortar and pestle (or mince the garlic).

Stir in the olive oil.

Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices. Toss with about half of the garlic oil and spread in a single layer in a rimmed baking sheet. Roast in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Turn the eggplant slices halfway through so they’ll be done evenly on both sides.

Slice the olives. Slice the sopressata and provolone into thin strips. Roughly chop the parsley.

Spread a little of the olive oil in the bottom of a large rimmed baking sheet (I think the one I used was 18 x 13), and brush it around to evenly distribute. Place the dough in the center, put a little oil on your fingertips, and begin stretching the dough out to the edges of the sheet. If it resists (springs back into the middle), let it rest for a few minutes, then try again.

Crank the heat on the oven up to the highest setting (500 or 550) for the pizza. Place the pan directly onto a baking stone (if you have a baking stone, you probably already keep it on the bottom rack of the oven all the time - just make sure you always preheat the stone). If you don’t have a baking stone, just put the pan on the bottom rack. Bake for 2 minutes.

Remove the crust from the oven, and brush the remaining garlic oil on the top. Next, add a layer of roasted eggplant, then the sliced olives, sopressata and parsley. Top with the provolone slices.

Bake for 8-10 more minutes. (After 8 minutes, use a metal spatula to lift up the edge of the pizza to see if it’s golden brown.)

Remove from the oven, and directly onto a large cutting board. Slice into 6 or 8 slices.