Recipe: Kkaenip pesto pizza

I went crazy in the kitchen again. After working a 10-hour shift at work ? yes, I got paid overtime ? I was insanely hungry. My frazzled, work-worn brain decided to experiment on my dear husband again. Pizza seemed to be the simplest dinnertime option.

There was no pizza sauce in the house, and I was in the mood for traditional pesto sauce. While making my kkaenip pesto sauce, I substituted black garlic for raw, minced garlic to discover the differences between the two flavors in the same recipe.

Here's the recipe for kkaenip pesto sauce with black garlic:
3/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves black garlic
25 kkaenip leaves
1/2 cup toasted pinenuts
salt and pepper to tastePut all the ingredients into a food processor and blend everything until it is a smooth paste. The resulting paste was a much deeper green than the regular kkaenip pesto.

Once I had the pesto made, I assembled the pizza.
pizza dough
1 batch kkaenip pesto with black garlic
1/4 cup shredded cheese
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 chicken thighs, seasoned with onion powder and black pepper and grilled
I happened to have a roll of Pillsbury pizza dough on hand. I smeared the sauce on the rolled dough then added the grilled chicken, shredded cheese and chopped onion. Baked it at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes, the crust top and bottom turned golden brown. I let the freshly baked pizza sit for about 10 minutes before slicing it.

That gave my husband plenty of time to take photos.

We both really liked it. Hubby said the black garlic flavor was between miso and garlic. I'm sure this sauce would work equally well with pasta.

Pine Nuts

Black Garlic