Vegetable

Cookbook author Joanne Weir is known for her flavor-packed Mediterranean-inspired food. Her book From Tapas to Meze shows the breadth of her Mediterranean influences. Here, Joanne shares a favorite pizza recipe that we adapted for grilling using a Tuscan grill that fits into the fireplace of her home in San Francisco. The bitter escarole on this pizza is balanced by the sweet pine nuts, creamy cheeses, and the salty olives. The dough for a grilled pizza needs a bit more structure from gluten to keep it from oozing through the grates of the grill, which is why this one is kneaded for a longer time than other pizza doughs.

These stuffed flatbreads are shaped much like meat-filled galettes. Lamb is the meat of choice in many Mediterranean cuisines, and here it is combined with other key ingredients of the region—eggplant and pomegranate—along with the warm aromatics often used in Turkish cuisine.

Coca is the Spanish version of pizza. Here, it is spread with my Smoky Romesco Sauce, a basic in the Spanish pantry. When topped with green onions, roasted potatoes, and sliced hard-cooked eggs, it is an edible canvas of the sunny colors and flavors of this part of the Mediterranean.

This multilayered flatbread is made by spreading the dough with the filling, then folding, rolling, and cooking quickly on both sides on a hot cast-iron griddle or stone. I love to serve them as an appetizer and often add a bit of salty crumbled cheese such as sheep’s milk feta to the filling.

This pizza could be named Umami Pizza because it features the earthy flavors of mushrooms and Gorgonzola cheese. The radicchio provides a slightly bitter flavor for contrast and adds color. Sautéing the mushrooms and garlic in the wood-fired oven adds an additional layer of flavor.

This is one of my favorite savory calzones because the filling is so delicious. The sausage and onions become smoky because they are first cooked in the wood-fired oven. Spinach is a natural with these two ingredients. The creamy, slightly nutty fontina cheese is a great companion to the toasted pine nuts. This combination would be wonderful on a pizza as well.

Focaccia is one of the easiest flatbreads to make: No shaping is needed because the dough is stretched and spread out in the sheet pan. This recipe uses a very wet dough, resulting in a moist flatbread about 3/4 inch thick. You can substitute shavings of Parmesan for the ricotta salata cheese, if you like. Focaccia is best eaten the day it is baked.

(Note that this is always called a stew but it is actually a braise, because the meat is browned.)