Who should I summon with my pizza?
It’s finally here!! It’s #Witchtober, hosted by Fiction Food Café. THAT’S RIGHT WITCHES!! Check out the tag for Witchy recipes from fiction all month long.
The House of the Devil (2009), written and directed by Ti West, is a bit of a haunted house movie, a bit of a slasher, and a bit of witchy movie rolled in to one. What’s otherwise a basic tropey horror movie gets elevated by it’s full 80s style. From the titles to the soundtrack to the camerawork to the feathered hair and Satanic Panic, this movie feels like the cover of a VC Andrews novel and I loved it.
An eclipse features heavily in the film, being both the occasion for the final ritual as well as inspiration for the special of the day in the pizza parlor that our final girl Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) and her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) have lunch. “Eclipse Pie” is detailed on the chalkboard: white sauce, garlic, tomato, olives and feta. I put together such a pie using a few techniques I’ve collected over the years: those for New York pizza dough, white sauce, and deliciously slow-roasted romas that I make all the time and use for everything (you know, salads, pastas, drawing pentagrams). And voila: pizza fit for a demon.
Eclipse Pizza
For the white sauce
From Serious Eats
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 small onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 2 sprigs thyme, chopped
- salt & pepper
Heat olive oil. In a food processor, blitz together onion and garlic (alternately you can finely chop both), and cook until softened and most of the moisture has evaporated, being careful not to brown. Add heavy cream and thyme and a pinch of salt & pepper, and cook for a few minutes until reduced and thick. Remove from heat.
For the tomatoes (slices or sauce)
- 2 pounds roma tomatoes, trimmed and medium sliced lengthwise
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
Heat oven to 300°. Toss tomatoes and garlic with generous olive oil, salt and pepper, and spread in a single layer in a couple roasting pans or a couple baking sheets. Cook for 1 1/2 hours. They can be used as is, OR if you want to make a sauce for drawing symbols and such, transfer to a food processor and blend with just enough water to get a thick but squirtable consistency. Transfer to a squirt bottle.
For the pie
- One New York-style pizza dough (recipe from Serious Eats)
- white sauce & tomatoes (above)
- 4 ounces ricotta
- 4 ounces mozzarella
- salt & pepper
- palmful kalamata olives, sliced
- palmful basil, small chop
- palmful feta
Heat oven to 500°
Grease a pizza peel, stone, or baking sheet, and gently stretch the dough to a 14 inch round. Top with white sauce.
Mix ricotta and mozzarella, season with salt and pepper, and spread over the pizza. Add olives, basil, feta, and either the whole tomatoes or draw a pentagram (or heart or happy face, whatever).
Cook for about 15 minutes (start checking at 12) until golden and bubbly. Allow to cool slightly, slice and serve.
Bonus: Samantha bopping around the spooky house like an 80s music video!
