Twizza Party: Roast Asparagus, Knockalara Sheep’s Cheese and Roasted Hazelnut Pizza

It was dough at the ready for the first Irish food bloggers Twizza Party (think Twitter plus pizza plus party) last Thursday, organised by Reindeersp of Musings of a med student. A gang of newly acquainted bloggers dementedly (or maybe that was just me!) cooked, photographed and tweeted an assortment of delicious pizzas over the course of the evening.

My recipe – for a Roast Asparagus, Knockalara Sheep’s Cheese and Roasted Hazelnut Pizza – is below, there are pizzas aplenty on the blogs of my fellow Twitter/pizza lovers and you can find us all on Twitter at Twizzaparty.

Dinner Du Jour
Babaduck Babbles
The Glutton
I Can Has Cook?
Like Mam Used To Bake
An American In Ireland
Smorgasblog

Pizza judge and jury: Lorraine from Italian Foodies, whose La Cucina deserves a special mention for winning the Best Casual Dining category at Wednesday night’s Irish Restaurant Awards. Congratulations!

Roast Asparagus, Knockalara Sheep’s Cheese and Roasted Hazelnut Pizza

You won’t need the whole bunch of asparagus, or the stems, for this pizza but it’s worth roasting the whole lot and chopping them up before adding to a salad with a zesty lemon parmesan dressing. It’s not worth making either the pizza dough or the tomato sauce in smaller quantities so the easiest thing is to divide both mixtures into thirds and freeze the extra portions for another pizza day.

Pizza dough – 1/3 of this recipe.
Tomato sauce – 1/3 of this recipe.
Asparagus tips – 8
Knockalara sheep’s cheese – 1 x round of fresh cheese
Parmesan – 25g, grated
Hazelnuts – 25g, roasted and roughly chopped
Polenta
Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 220ºC. Sprinkle a  25cm x 38cm x 4cm Swiss roll tin with some polenta.

While the oven is preheating, break off the tough ends of the aspargus, lay the stalks flat in a baking tin, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 8-10 minutes until tender. Trim as necessary to fit on the pizza.

Gently roll and stretch the dough to fit the tin. Spread the tomato sauce evenly over the base. Lay the roasted asparagus tips on the pizza, sprinkle with the Knockalara sheep’s cheese, grated parmesan and toasted hazelnuts.

Drizzle with olive oil and cook in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

Serves 2, very happily.