Pizza with Brie and Onion Confit

We´re having pizza today, topped with caramelized onions, or onion confit, dyed a wonderful purple color thanks to red wine that is added and, in my case, the red onions I used, and also creamy brie cheese and grated fontina.

The Tuesdays with Dorie group is starting this year with a savory recipe, by contributing baker Steve Sullivan of Acme Bread fame. Our host today is Paul of The Boy can Bake, and you can find the full recipe there.

I´m not a regular pizza eater, and if I make it at home I generally opt for focaccia. Proof of that are two of my favorites, one with potatoes, walnuts and blue cheese and a fantastic one with roasted tomatoes and thyme.

But caramelized onions are one of my favorite toppings for any dough that will hold it, from a quiche to a pizza or a bruschetta. On top of the sweet onions a soft goat cheese is the way I usually eat it, but here was my chance to try another pair of cheeses. 

I´m a huge fan of brie. It´s soft, creamy, melts like a dream, tangy but not so much and goes with almost anything. What could possibly go wrong if I used it here and then grated some sharp fontina on top of it? Nothing bad that´s for sure. Quite the contrary. The pizza had a bit of everything, tangy sweetness from the onions, creaminess from the cheeses and a nice drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of chopped chives at the end.

A great piece of pizza, even though the dough was not quite my favorite. It was a good, very standard homemade dough, but I still have to keep on trying other recipes. It didn´t have quite the texture I wanted. But it does work.

I usually make caramelized onions with butter, sauteeing them until they soften, then add half water and half white wine to cover them completely, and let reduce very slowly.

This recipe uses red wine, sugar and red wine vinegar, three flavors that work together and enhance one another. And the color is eye catching, which is always good in food; like a teacher said to me, half you eat with the eyes and half with your mouth.

Brie melts quickly and almost dissapears if exposed to the heat too long. It´s there holding up quite nicely and suddenly you have a pool of cheese and solitary rinds. So add it to the pizza during the last minutes.

I pre-cooked the pizza dough with half the onions I was using, and then added the other half and the cheeses.