Raw Pepperoni Pizza: That's Amore!

I made raw pepperoni. Let me repeat that: I made raw pepperoni.

While I was never a huge fan of meat anyway – steak, pork chops, chicken never really did it for me – I kind of have a lust for cured meats. I’m a slave for salty and spicy, so bacon, sausages, salami, and yes, pepperoni, are all very delicious and cravable to me.

So when my Guy and I were at Alissa Cohen’s raw restaurant Grezzo last week, in Boston’s North End, I had had HAD to try their pepperoni pizza. I might as well have just snapped into a Slim Jim and gone to heaven!

This serendipitous sampling of raw veggie parading as salumi coincided with my first attempt at sprouting wheat berries, and I knew I had to bring that North End treat to meet one other of my former dark masters…the coal-fired pepperoni pizza at Lombardi’s, on the edge of New York’s Little Italy.

Right now, unless you are already some kind of raw food god or goddess, soaking and sprouting and juicing all the live long day, you might be thinking, “I ain’t sprouting no wheat berries.” Don’t worry…I made a pizza bites version of my pepperawni pizza on slices of zucchini…JUST as tasty (and cute – see below). Which I might do next time…the wheat berry thing is not difficult, just a days-long project of soaking them overnight, and then rinsing them 3 times a day until they have given birth to long curly sprouts that could grow into something…cute little baby wheat things which left me wondering if meat is murder, are sprouts a slaying? So you can avoid the sprout guilt, and use zucchini slices.

Anyway – first, the roni. Grezzo used watermelon radishes, but having no access to artisanal radish, I picked the garden variety. Slice the whole bunch of them thin – I have a mandolin slicer thing my mom got me from Avon that works really well, or you can use the slicey blade thing on a grater, or just a sharp knife. Then marinate in the following (I gleaned from Google which spices make for roni flavor):

1 tsp of paprika

1 clove of garlic, diced up

½ tsp crushed red pepper

½ tsp fennel seeds

¼ tsp ground mustard, or ½ tsp mustard seeds

¼ tsp onion powder

½ tsp black pepper

1/8-1/4 tsp salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

Toss it around, and let it sit for a few hours. I swear, it tastes EXACTLY like pepperoni. There’s even oil left over in the bowl that looks like pepperoni grease. But it’s a freaking radish!

As for the crust: there are lots of crust recipes out there. I realized too late (after the wheat had given birth) that all my cook books use barley or buckwheat or flax for their pizza crusts. So here’s one I made up with my wheat berry babies:

In a food processor (I had to do mine in steps, darn mini chopper!), combine:

2 cups sprouted wheat berries

½ cup ground flax (I used Bob’s Red Mill, which is probably not soaked before its ground, as it should be to activate all those enzymes)

½ cup chopped red bell pepper (about half a pepper)

¼ cup chopped sundried tomato

¼ cup olive oil

½ tsp salt

1 clove of garlic

Spread it into a round shape about ½ inch high on a teflex sheet, dehydrate 2 h at 105, then flip it onto a mesh screen and dehydrate til it can be lifted up like pizza! This made enough for two hungry peeps for dinner, but it could totally serve more as an appetizer or with sides…it made about six medium Dominos-size slices.

Mozzarella:

I got a little nerdy with my mozzarella, really trying to make it as much like the melted fresh mozz on those crisp coal-fired slices, so I used cashew butter so it would be really smooth, and “melted” in dollops in the dehydrator for about an hour. You can just use cashews or pine nuts, get it as smooth as you can, spread it out on the crust, and call it a (delicious) day.

½ cup cashew butter (or about 1 cup of raw cashews or pine nuts, and a tablespoon or two of extra water to get it moving in the processor)

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (skippable if you don’t have any)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped shallot (got this idea from Matthew Kenney’s Everyday Raw)

¼ tsp salt

2 tablespoons water

Process it up! Regular nuts will come out like ricotta

Sauce:

1 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped and soaked at least an hour

1 cup fresh tomatoes, seeded

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp crushed red pepper

Again, process til it’s as smooth or chunky as you like. This is enough for the pizza. Make more to have some left over!

Grab your crust or zucchini slices, and assemble your pizza with a little shredded basil. It helps if you do the cheese first. Here’s mine – it was heavenly. I served it with a pizza-parlor style salad of romaine and tomatoes and vinaigrette. That’s amore!