Background🔗

This pizza is inspired by farmers market's finest. More background stories covered here. Here I will focus on the technical part.

The main novelty is the "pesto on pesto". As we know, pesto will easily discolor to darker green in high heat, and the flavor gets dulled during the process. It's not an issue when using it as pizza sauce since it's in a support role to provide some base flavor so the toppings can shine. But what if we still want to taste its bright sweet original flavor. Here is the smart part. Save some sauce, lighten it up with soft cheese or cream, wrap the mixture on some medium soft cheese (like cheese curds, Fontina) or walnut. Voila, you have a fresh pesto finish to put on pizza after it's baked. The basil taste is gonna strongly hit your tongue on the bites that have those finish toppings. Now you have both the base layer mellowed out pesto and the top layer strong finish pesto. In between are the main toppings, here are the very flavorful mushrooms.

Formula🔗

Sauce🔗

• pesto
• some acid liquid to thin out pesto, e.g. sauerkraut with its brine

Topping🔗

• maitake
• tree oyster

Finish🔗

• whipped cottage cheese
• pesto
• cheese curds
• walnut

Evaluation🔗

Double pesto elevates the flavor profile to the next level. The mellowed out base layer pesto is to create a background for mushrooms to stand out. Now the bright top layer pesto is like a super fun guest actor. It's not present in every bite. But whenever it's there, the strong hit of basil is at the same level of intensity as those very savory mushrooms that together they have interesting dynamics. The finishing pesto also introduces heterogeneity, making every bite a bit different, on taste bud it means fun.

Mushrooms really shine on their own. They are the star wherever they go.

On the look, the base layer pesto after baking turns dark green while the finishing pesto is light green. The two green tones contrast each other, just like where mushrooms grow in the forest, there is dark green moss underneath and light green tree leaves ahead.

Demo🔗