Pizza with Morels, Asparagus and Prosciutto

The other night after dinner, we stopped by the brand-new Mother's Market on 19th Street to check out what the new, larger store had to offer. For those of you outside Orange County, Mother's is a local grocery store that caters to special diets and healthy eating. Eat raw food only? Vegan? Gluten-Free? Looking for hard-to-find vitamins/supplements? Need a gift for your hippie friend? It's all under one roof at Mother's! Each store also contains a healthy-eating restaurant; we're looking forward to dining at the new one. While browsing the towering aisles, we found a whole section of dried exotic mushrooms. Dropping a reasonably-priced bag of morels in our cart, we talked about its journey from the bag to the plate.

I wanted a dish that would showcase this unique fungus, instead of losing it in a mushroom sauce. A bit of digging led me to this recipe (courtesy of the always amazing Zen Can Cook). Caramelized onions, thin diagonals of asparagus, torn pieces of prosciutto and, (of course) re-hydrated morels.

The result was one of the most elegant and sumptuous pizzas we've made! Slightly smoky, a touch salty, with  a balance between rich mouth-feel and a light taste, this pizza is definitely morel-worthy!

I am awful at transferring an assembled pizza to the pizza stone, so my technique below is a bit different. Feel free to get your pizza in the oven whatever way works for you!

Makes 1 pizza
INGREDIENTS:

• Pizza dough, for 1 pizza (it was a weeknight so we used Trader Joe's ready made!)
• 4 thin slices of prosciutto, torn into pieces
• 1 package dried morels, about 4 oz (about 15 mushrooms)
• 7 stalks asparagus, trimmed and sliced into thin diagonals
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 cup+ mixed Fontina and Parmesan (we used Trader Joe's Quattro Formaggio blend)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Check pizza dough instructions (or make your own)
2. Rehydrate morels by placing in a small bowl and covering with 1 cup water. Cover and allow to rehydrate 15-20 minutes. Strain and reserve liquid for another use! (Don't throw away! Make risotto, quinoa, cous cous, pasta ...)
3. Heat olive oil and 1 Tbsp butter in medium pan over high heat. Add onions and saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-high and continue to cook until golden and caramelized.
4. Remove onions from pan. Add garlic, morels and 1 Tbsp butter. Saute 5 minutes until fragrant. Remove from heat.
5. Preheat oven to 450', dust pizza stone with flour or cornmeal and place in oven.
6. Remove pizza stone and place on trivets. Quickly transfer the round of pizza dough to stone and continue to stretch out to fit the stone.
7. Quickly top with caramelized onions and oil from the onions.
8. Sprinkle with half of the cheese
9. Add asparagus, prosciutto and morels. Top with last half of cheese.
10. Bake until crust is golden brown and bubbly.
11. Remove from oven and rest 5 minutes before cutting. Enjoy!