Friday I experimented with pizza dough- after reading Cook's Illustrated's report on the crust for pissaladiere, T had reported good results with making her dough with 1/2 bread flour, 1/2 all purpose flour. I tried this and it would not come together at all. I reduced the ratio to 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour, 3/4 cups bread flour, and that worked. The pizza crust had much more of a chew than usual, as well. I churned out 4 of my usual pizzas- lemon pepper cream sauce, prosciutto and caramelized onions- for a crowd, and they went quick. Yum. (The use of onion confit sped the process up immensely.) I wonder if it was the mixer that was the problem- perhaps if I used the food processor the bread flour wouldn't have been such an issue. Regardless, the ratio worked nicely.

I used the leftover onion confit to make pissaladiere last night. I used the Dorky Yankees' all bread flour, in the food processor, crust method. It was some sticky dough, but it turned out beautifully. Jeff liked it more than any onion tart yet. My heart is still with the cream and bacon of the Alsatian onion tart, but pissaladiere is a refreshing change of pace. I had to use caramelized onions for one of the tarts, because I ran out of confit. The Dorky Yankees recommend a high heat, then medium heat method of caramelization, a method that runs counter to my low, low, low, then medium technique. I tried it their way, dubiously, but they came out super sweet and tender and light. The confit was much, much richer in flavor (almost, oddly, beefy), but the caramelized onions worked better in harmony with the olives and the anchovies.