The ultimate pizza

 

GOING GREEN

The past eighteen months have changed the world.  Provided lessons for governments, health services, wider society.  We learned who the really valuable members of society are (hint : it's not bankers and hedge fund managers), who the selfish people are (the weird Fox of the family somehow comes to mind...), and a lot about ourselves.  The world has changed and so have we as individuals.

Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into one of those profound personal epiphanies about how my experience of lockdown has helped me discover some deeply buried truths from my inner being.  None of that bollocks.  For although I do think I have discovered some things about myself, and my relationship, in lockdown times, it's a very different discovery that feels like the most important personal revelation of covid times.

Roast brussel sprouts.  How did I not know about these before?  Much as I've been one of those people who always liked their sprouts, the roasting of these wee tight packed bundles of leaves makes them into something else.  It came about by luck really, when I put a few into a tray of roasting vegetables and they emerged as the star of the show.  Then, having been introduced to this culinary delight, I began to wonder what more elaborate uses they might be put to.

Google turned up sprout and stilton risotto.  Some will turn away at this point, the dry boke their only reaction.  For those willing to continue let me tell you this is wonderful.  You shred half the sprouts and cook them in with the arborio, half roast the others to be added to the mix at the end.  Wonderful, one of the best risottos I've ever made.

But there's one more step to this story.  If stilton and sprouts work so well together in risotto, where else could the combo be successful?  What works well with cheese and veg?  What needs high temperatures to cook at it's best?  Pizza...

And that's my lockdown discovery.  Roast sprouts are delicious in their own right.  Sprout and stilton risotto is to become a Crawford winter staple.  And there is no better pizza than brussels and blue.  Trust me.