Hipster’s kale pizza

By: Rohan Anderson
From: A Year of Practiculture
Serves: 2
Photographer: Rohan Anderson & Kate Berry

Kale is, like, so hot right now! I’ve never tried a kale smoothie, but they appear to be all the rage this season. So much so that there’s a kale shortage! I’m not really about to eat a grassy smoothie, but I do like to come up with creative ways to eat this vegetable, as it’s one of a handful dumb enough to grow in our freezing winter conditions. One of my go-to kale (or silverbeet/Swiss chard) meals is a breakfast with smoky chorizo and egg, smothered in plenty of hot chilli sauce and maybe some cheese. It’s a brilliant start to the day, but my kids turn up their noses at the very thought. So I make them a kale pizza instead. Not so much for breakfast, more a lunch or dinner arrangement. And because I’m eating it too, I add two of humanity’s greatest culinary inventions: blue cheese and bacon.

The key with kale is to cook it down well enough to soften it. Some people like it crunchy and woody, I do not. I like it soft and delicate, like my women. I love women. I love kale. A kale woman?

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
1-2 tablespoons	olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
50g	butter
4	garlic cloves, finely chopped
2-3 cups	just-picked kale, stalks removed, chopped
1	Pizza bases
	plain flour, for dusting
90-125g	rich tomato paste
250g	mozzarella, grated
8-10 rashers	Cold-smoked bacon, (or use non-smoked bacon if you want it to be lame)
	semolina, for dusting
100g	blue cheese, sliced

Method

Preheat the oven to its highest temperature (around 250°C).
Heat a generous glug of olive oil with the butter in a large frying pan over low heat, then gently cook the garlic. Add the kale and cook until wilted, then continue to cook, adding a splash of water (or white wine) if it starts to dry out a bit. It will take 5–10 minutes to soften the kale, so test it as you cook it.
Roll out the pizza base on a floured bench. Smother it with the tomato paste, spoon over as much of the kale as seems reasonable (see note), then scatter over the mozzarella.
Lay out the bacon strips on top then drizzle the pizza with olive oil.
Dust a pizza stone or baking tray with semolina and heat in the hot oven. Add the pizza and cook for 10–15 minutes, or until the pizza is golden brown and the bacon is crispy.
Throw the blue cheese in top as soon as the pizza comes out of the oven. It will get all melty and delicious.