Well, since I skipped the main ingredient, I couldn’t very well call it Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza, now could I?
Here’s the thing, I do my best to pay attention to where my food is coming from and how it was handled along the way. I don’t always succeed, so I’m hardly one to proselytize. And so I won’t.
But after being bombarded with all the reports of overfishing and mislabeling of bluefin tuna, I’m taking a little break. Which is sad for two reasons. First, I LOVE sushi, and tuna is among my favorites. Second, it was a rather key ingredient for this week’s recipe.
So, what to do. Not so easy to find a substitute. But reading Dorie’s description of the inspiration for this dish as being a cross between pizza and a nicoise salad, I settled on… DUM dum dum… anchovies!
Okay, okay, I know, not everyone’s favorite. But it is a common, if unloved, ingredient in both nicoise salad and pizza. I didn’t used to be a huge fan. But somewhere along the line I started to appreciate them, and now I find that there always seems to be a jar of the little fishies lurking in my refrigerator.
I decided to cook them alongside the scallions so that they melted into a bit of a sauce. Otherwise I followed Dorie’s instructions to the letter. And, if I may be permitted to pat myself on the back, delicious! Which proves either that I’m brilliant, or puff pastry is pretty tasty canvas for just about anything. I’m guessing it’s the latter.
one expat's life 
So pretty any way you interpret this one!
Maybe someday I’ll feel the anchovy love. Not holding my breath, though. The important thing is that YOU liked it, so good choice!
I actually like achovies, so this version sounds pretty good to me! Great interpretation.
Anchovies go over well in our house in many different ways. However, this time I used
sardines which I thought go with the niçoise salad. Your pizza looks delicious and tasty.
I’m a big anchovy fan myself. I like your interpretations. My favorite part was the scallion base, and anchovies melted into that must have had amazing flavor. Hope you had a great weekend.
I have most of the ingredients in the house to make the pizza, but somehow tuna and mozzarella don’t go together in my head. I think I might borrow your anchovy idea!
Hold the tuna please. And with that bottle of rose there I wouldn’t have even noticed if the tuna was missing. I adore anchovies so even though I loved this one I may end up using them in something like this quite soon.
I’m in the same boat. I love tuna but am trying to eat less of it…I wish I liked anchovies better, your pizza sounds like an excellent way to use them. I agree. Everything tastes good on puff pastry 🙂
Good point about the tuna. I really need to give anchovies a chance too. I have yet to knock out this recipe but do hope to play catch up and may well go with the Nicoise (Nana went that route too) version so I can kill two birds with one stone. A stone that has puff pastry on the bottom so can’t be all that bad 🙂
Anchovies were a great idea for a substitution, even in spirit with the original recipe. Looks quite tasty!
I could not bring myself to eat raw fish (or almost raw), so that was not going to happen. I used prosciutto and they were delicious! The anchovies were a great substitute! They look wonderful! Sorry I’m so late posting…technical difficulties!! Have a great weekend!