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Harissa Pizza with Smoked Mozzarella, Tomatoes and Prosciutto

Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time15 minutes
Pizza dough2 hours 15 minutes
Course: Dinner, lunch
Keyword: harissa, pizza, smoked cheese

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 teaspoon active dry yeast 
  • 1 ¾ cup cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • olive oil for coating dough 

Toppings 

  • 2 medium tomatoes, sliced (heirloom or Roma)
  • 4 slices prosciutto 
  • 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 tablespoon harissa paste
  • 8 oz smoked mozzarella, sliced thinly
  • ½ cup  grated parmesan cheese 
  • olive oil, for brushing crust and to coat pan 
  • ¼ cup fresh basil leaves 
  • cornmeal, for dusting pizza pan 

Instructions

  • If making the homemade dough
    1. Preparing the dough. In a 2 cup liquid measure or bowl, whisk honey, warm water and yeast to combine and let rest for 3 minutes to allow yeast to bloom. When ready, yeast should form a frothy top the surface.
    2. Add flour to a large bowl and mound it into a rounded pile. Using your fingers, make a small well in the center.
    3. Add the proofed yeast/liquid to the well little by little, combining with your hands as you go and forming new wells until a slightly sticky dough forms.
    4. Kneading. Once a dough comes together, knead the dough on a floured board by hand for 5 minutes until smooth, folding over as you knead to create air pockets.
    5. First rise. Oil a large clean, non-reactive bowl (a sturdy plastic bowl is great) with olive oil- being sure to spread the oil around with your hands to get the bowl well coated.
    6. Use your oiled hands to moisten dough on all sides, and place into the oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean, dampened dish towel or tea towel and let rest on the counted for 1 hour.
    7. Second Rise. After 1 hour, gently punch the dough down, reshape into a ball and place back into oiled bowl for 1 more hour, covered with the damp towel. After.1 hour, the dough is ready to bake. If making thin crust pizza, split dough into 2 balls for the second rise. This recipe makes one pizza- so if only making 1, store additional dough in the refrigerator up to one week, or in the freezer up to 2 months.
    Get the dough ready to bake
    1. When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Leave oven on 500 degrees for 30 minutes to ensure it is HOT. This makes for an evenly cooked, well browned and consistent pizza.
    2. Coat a 14” pizza pan with olive oil, and lightly dust it with cornmeal.
    3. Remove dough from bowl after second rise and stretch or roll to desired size- I use a 14” pizza pan. You could also stretch the full dough recipe to fit a standard sheet pan.
    4. Brush the dough evenly with 1 tablespoon oil, concentrating on the outer edges.
    Prep the Toppings
    1. In a small bowl, combine harissa paste, honey and garlic.
    2. Spread the mixture over center of pizza dough, leaving about a 1” edge around.
    3. Sprinkle parmesan over top, and layer on sliced smoked mozzarella.
    4. Top with tomato slices.
    5. Layer prosciutto in torn strips over the tomatoes.
    Bake the pizza
    1. Bake in a preheated 500 degree oven on the middle rack for 10-15 minutes, until crisp and bubbly.
    2. Sprinkle fresh basil over hot pizza
    3. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes and serve hot!