Pizza ai Funghi

Pizza ai Funghi
This variation of pizza is for mushroom lovers. Wild mushrooms in this recipe, for our purposes, refer to crimini, shitake, button, and/or oyster mushroom varieties sold at most markets. Porcini, morel, and lobster mushrooms also work well. If you are skilled at getting real wild mushrooms from the forest, go for it – I am not. I would not suggest you do that unless you are absolutely skilled in mushroom foraging.
The combination of mushrooms, goat cheese, truffle oil and chives will detonate your taste buds and take you to the gastronomic realm of no return! This is not conventional pizza – it is the ambrosia of pizza fit for Capitoline gourmands!
Ingredients for the dough for 4 pizze:
See Pizza di Napoli: La Margherita
Ingredients for the Topping:
24 oz of goat cheese at room temperature
3 lbs of “wild” mushrooms, sliced
Two handfuls of fresh chives, chopped up
8 T of extra-virgin olive oil
1 t sea salt
1 t black pepper (optional)
4 t of truffle oil
Preparation:
See Pizza di Napoli: La Margherita, for the preparation of pizza dough.
Preheat oven to 425ºF. Take the pizza dough and divide it into four pieces. Knead the dough briefly on a floured surface. Take your pizza peel and flour the surface generously to allow for easy transfer to the oven stone. Place dough on the peel, smacking your hand against it to flatten. Then using a rolling pin, stretch the dough out, creating a round shape – get your dough rolled out thin – no thicker than ¼ - 3/8 of an inch for a pizza ai funghi.
In a medium skillet over medium heat, sauté the mushrooms in the oil for 1 minute. Turn off flame and remove pan from stove. Add truffle oil to the mushrooms and mix thoroughly.
Using 8 oz of the goat cheese per pizza, distribute the cheese over the dough. Then, spread a ¼ of the mushrooms and olive – truffle oil mixture on top of that, leaving a 1-inch border. Sprinkle on salt and [pepper]. Bake the pizza for 10 to 14 minutes or until the edges are puffed and the crust is crisp and browned. Remove from oven and shower the pizza with chopped chives. Wait 5-10 minutes, slice and serve!
Buon appetito!