recipes++

Kale, taleggio and hot honey pizza

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the chilli honey

  • ½ tsp chilli flakes
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp runny honey
  • Fine sea salt and black pepper

For the kale and basil sauce

  • 150g kale, stems removed and discarded (110g net)
  • 20g basil
  • 1 tbsp white-wine vinegar
  • 30g cream cheese
  • 60ml olive oil

For the grilled onions

  • 2 onions – a mix of 1 red and 1 brown looks great – peeled and cut into 1cm-thick rings (280g)
  • 2 tbsp olive oil

To serve

  • 20ml olive oil
  • 4 pizza dough balls
  • 300g taleggio, or another stretchy cheese such as mozzarella or scamorza, cut into ½cm-thick slices

Method

  1. First, make the honey. Put the chilli flakes and tomato paste in a small saucepan with two tablespoons of water, bring up to a simmer, then cook, stirring often, for 90 seconds, or until almost all the water has evaporated and the tomato paste is bubbling.
  2. Take off the heat, stir in the oil and leave to cool.
  3. Once cool, whisk in the honey, a teaspoon and a half of water and a quarter-teaspoon of salt and set aside until you’re ready to serve.
  4. Now for the sauce. Bring a medium saucepan of well-salted water to a boil, drop in the kale leaves, blanch for two minutes, then drain and hold under running cold water to cool and to stop them cooking further.
  5. Squeeze out the excess water, then put the kale in the small bowl of a food processor with all the remaining sauce ingredients, 60ml water, an eighth of a teaspoon salt and a few twists of black pepper. Blitz smooth, then set aside.
  6. Put a griddle pan on a medium-high heat and ventilate the kitchen. Toss the onions in the oil and a quarter-teaspoon of salt to coat, taking care that the rings stay intact, then griddle for three to four minutes on each side until charred and softened. Transfer to a large plate and season with pepper.
  7. Heat the oven to its highest setting as in the previous recipe, and ideally to 250C (230C fan)/485F/gas 9½.
  8. Lightly drizzle 20ml oil over the uncooked pizza bases, spread two-thirds of the kale sauce on top and scatter the taleggio evenly over that. Bake for 8-10 minutes, then remove from the oven. Spoon over the remaining sauce, scatter on the charred onions, drizzle over the chilli honey and serve hot.