Keeping the rue out of the roux

I'm thinking the next pizza I make might involve some of the ground lamb I picked up from Paulina Market last night. Strikes me the way to go here is a white sauce and caramelized onions and maybe some nice crisp bell peppers. For the white sauce, yogurt's an obvious choice to go with lamb, but I haven't made roux with yogurt. Anything special I need to know -- does it break easily? After it comes together in the saucepan, after all, it's going to be in a 500F oven for 15 minutes or so. Will a squeeze of lemon juice hurt or help? Or is it just as easy as a standard white sauce? Thanks for any tips and experiences --

Bob,

I woudn't think you would need a roux. In fact, I would probably thin the yogurt out a little.

Otherwise I might strain the yogurt overnight to give it a soft cheese like consistency. I'd then crumble this over the pizza with the crust being brushed with EVOO, lemon and dusted with a little oregano then sprinkled with your lamb. Damn! Now I'm hungry again.

Flip

The problem with the yogurt would be its tendency to be watery. So, you are right-- yogurt cheese. Trader Joe's sells a product called just that.

I found this sauce by googling: yogurt roux

Seems like a lot, but you could cut it.

5 cups low-fat yogurt
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups water
Salt and pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons clarified butter, recipe below
1 1/2 teaspoons dried mint
Cornstarch slurry (made by dissolving 1 tablespoon cornstarch in 3 tablespoons cold water)
3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

I've done exactly what Flip recommends with lavosh pizza. A cup of plain yogurt hung in some cheesecloth for a couple hours, crumbled over like feta.

I'll second the idea of just making a yogurt cheese. As long as your yogurt is relatively pure (i.e. no gelatin) you can just drain it in a cheesecloth-lined colander over night ... if you want it firmer pick up the corners of the cheesecloth, tie them togeher, and hang it from a doorknob or whatever over a bowl. And don't throw out the whey - it's great for soups and stocks.

Oh, cool, thanks for the many quick replies. (And thanks for going the extra mile, Food Nut -- I thought about a Google search but figured I'd get a few good answers here rather than a million or two random answers out in the wild.) I've always got cheesecloth around, so I'll pick up some yogurt on the way home (or, shall I say, the whey* home ) and start it tonight for tomorrow night's dinner.

*Sorry.

I've always got cheesecloth around, so I'll pick up some yogurt on the way home (or, shall I say, the whey* home ) and start it tonight for tomorrow night's dinner.

*Sorry.

You should be.

Giovanna

Out of curiosity, are you making pizza? A pizza is a crust, tomato sauce (paste, whatever), cheese, and toppings. Now, that's not to say some ground lamb is not just as valid as sausage or peperoni as a topping, but I'm not sure that when you add a white sauce (or pesto, barbeque, olive oil, penut sauce, or any of the myriad sauces I've seen on "gourmet" pizza), is it still pizza? I'm sure it tastes wonderful, but when does a pizza become a not-pizza.

Now for martinis, the line seems to be as long as it's served in a martini glass, it's a martini. When I learned to bartend, I had always thought a martini was gin with a dash of vermouth, but today, you have "chocolate martinis" with choclate liquer, vodka, and maybe schnapps, with not a hint of gin or vermouth. Ahm, yeah, I think I'm done.

Rob wrote:Out of curiosity, are you making pizza? A pizza is a crust, tomato sauce (paste, whatever), cheese, and toppings. [...]

Well, I admit I'm new to the whole pizza-making thing, but I've got a whole bunch of recipes and two or three pizza books, and they don't seem to be as worried about it. I grant that some of these books seem to go too far, even for me, in the "put it on top of something flat and bready and it's 'pizza'" direction even for me, but I still think the consensus is against anything more than the flat & bready surface as a requirement. There are plenty of folks here who know more than me and I cede to them.

Giovanna wrote:

I've always got cheesecloth around, so I'll pick up some yogurt on the way home (or, shall I say, the whey* home ) and start it tonight for tomorrow night's dinner.
*Sorry.

You should be.

Yeah, I was going to stop making jokes about food, but you know how it is... it's the end of the year and I need the dough...

Rob wrote:
but when does a pizza become a not-pizza.

For me, pizza is all about the dough and how it is prepared and baked. A proper pizza crust can be topped with just about anything and I still call it a pizza. I have no problem with white pizzas (no tomatoes), green pizzas (pesto sauce), dessert pizzas, breakfast pizzas, etc. My biggest departure from traditional pizza is my "Pizza Benedict": canadian bacon, poached eggs, covered with a Hollandaise sauce. Whatever you call it, it's good.

Now, back in the elementary school cafeteria, the half of a hamburger bun with catsup and a melted cheese-like topping was NOT pizza!

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:

Rob wrote:
but when does a pizza become a not-pizza.

For me, pizza is all about the dough and how it is prepared and baked. A proper pizza crust can be topped with just about anything and I still call it a pizza...

Yes, indeed. Certainly, from an historical standpoint -- and pizza is clearly in its proximate and even not so proximate origins a product of central-Southern Italy -- 'pizza' refers to the form of the bread. It would be silly to deny on an American chat-site status as 'pizza' to some of the things that are commonly referred to as such here in the States, but the basic and historical definition is purely linked to a form of bread.* Pizza existed in Campania for many, many centuries before the arrival of the tomato (first attestation of the word 10th cent, I believe, though obviously the dish and name could well predate that by a lot).

Note too that other regions in Italy make similar or even virtually identical dishes but call them by other names. In a sense, it would seem reasonable for us to refer to them (for convenience's sake) under the better known term in English, 'pizza', our borrowing from Neapolitan.

So then, in an historical sense and from the perspective of people who embrace the Italian and especially Campanian tradition, cheese and tomatoes a pizza do not make.

Antonius

* But such things are never simple and even in a narrowly Campanian/Neapolitan context, the term 'pizza' has a couple of distinct references, one to what we think of as Neapolitan pizza and the other to a broader category of baked goods.

I like to make yogurt cheese by putting the yogurt in a coffee filter. I have a Melitta set up, so the whey just drips into the coffee pot.

Heidi

HeidiHo wrote:I like to make yogurt cheese by putting the yogurt in a coffee filter. I have a Melitta set up, so the whey just drips into the coffee pot.

Heidi

Even more convenient. Thanks, Heidi.