Asiago and prosciutto pizza

I make pizza so often, that I can’t remember all the different versions of it I make. I like deep dish, thin crust, hand tossed, stuffed and even double decker pizzas and I have made several versions of each style. 

The other day, I bought some prosciutto and a wedge of asiago cheese and this version was what I made. Fresh basil leaves would have been good in there with the prosciutto, but I didn’t have any.

2 cups flour

1 cup (approximate) slightly warm water

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. honey

1 tbs. instant yeast

2 tbs. extra virgin olive oil, plus a little more 

1 cup (more or less) Norman’s Pizza Sauce 

1/4 pound of thinly sliced prosciutto

1/2 lb. asiago cheese, shredded

Fresh ground white pepper

Corn meal

Preparation

Mix the flour, salt, honey, yeast, olive oil and water together to form a dough. Knead the dough for a few minutes and let it rise for twenty minutes. Shred the asiago cheese while that is rising and make the pizza sauce.

Using your fingers, shape out the dough into a 16” circle on a floured surface. Take a pizza pan and sprinkle a generous layer of corn meal over it. Slide the pizza dough into the pizza pan and roll up the edge to form a crust.

Layer the pizza sauce over the surface of the dough. Spread the sliced prosciutto evenly over the pizza and then sprinkle the shredded cheese evenly over that. Grind a bunch of white pepper over the surface of the pizza.

Bake the pizza in a 450º oven for about twenty minutes until the cheese starts to brown. Remove the pizza from the pizza pan to a cutting board. Sprinkle more extra virgin oil over the top of the pizza and let it sit five minutes before slicing.

Serving

The last time I made this, I served it as an appetizer before a dinner of porterhouse steaks, cauliflower in blue cheese sauce, potato skins and homemade bread. It was all washed down with a bottle of Zinfandel. There, I think I covered all the food groups.