Salt, sweet and sharp on one base. The pear is not a garnish — it is the point.
John Drummond
Mise en place
Tick each one off as it goes in.
Makes 4 serves
This is the one people do not expect, and then order again. Pecorino brings the salt and the sharpness, the pear brings sweetness and a bit of water, and the prosciutto brings the fat. Miss one of the three and it falls over.
Medium slices on the pear. Too thin and it disappears into the cheese, too thick and it steams and goes to mush.
The method
Oven as hot as it goes, and get it there early: an hour before you want to eat, with the stone or the steel already in. Domestic ovens lie about being ready. Lighting the fire instead? Floor around 400°C and a flame licking the dome. This is the whole recipe, really; the rest is assembly.
Crush the San Marzanos by hand. Salt, a dash of pepper, the garlic only if you want it. Do not cook this sauce. It gets all the cooking it needs on the base; simmer it first and it goes sweet and dull.
One ball of my pizza dough, rested: the flour, wine and oil above make one batch, four bases, as the Pizza Dough recipe says. Knuckles, not a rolling pin. A pin drives the air out of the rim and it never comes back. Middle out, outer two centimetres left alone, then pick it up and let gravity finish it. If it fights you, it is not rested: walk away for ten minutes rather than force it.
Olive oil on the bare base before the sauce goes anywhere near it. It seals the dough: a crisp base, not a sodden middle. Good Italian oil. You will taste it.
Sauce on thin, stopped short of the rim. Then grated pecorino, more than feels sensible: it is doing the mozzarella's job as well as its own. Straight onto the sauce, so it melts in rather than sitting on top.
Slice the pear medium and lay it out properly. Arranged, not thrown on, so every slice gets some. It is the thing people remember. Give it room.
Six to eight minutes at full heat in a domestic oven, ninety seconds in a fire. Pear coloured at the edges, pecorino bubbling. Pear still pale? The oven was not hot enough.
Prosciutto di Parma in strips over the top the second it leaves the oven. Never before. The heat left in it softens the fat and lifts the smell. Bake it and you have paid good money for a crisp.
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