Pizza with Figs & Prosciutto Crudo and Monte Cristallo, Italy

Pizza bianca (white pizza) often graces my breakfast plate and it can also maintain a strong grip on my unlimited snacks during the day.  In other words, when I have the craving for it, I can get quite obsessed with it.  I love its slightly salty, thick, soft bread with crunchy outer layer, leaving my fingers damp with extra virgin olive oil.   And when it's freshly baked in the morning straight from the pizzeria's oven to my plate, it's another completely wonderful story of how good this simple pizza is. 

Pizza bianca can be eaten as is or you can put a plethora of delicious ingredients in it after you slice it in the middle, making it like a sandwich. I enjoy my pizza bianca as is but once a year, during the fig season, I fill it up with fresh figs and prosciutto crudo. 

Some years ago, while coversing with our neighbor through the kitchen window, I learned about this classic Roman way of eating pizza bianca with figs and prosciutto crudo. We just shared a good harvest of fresh figs from the tree that stood right in the middle of our garage doors and my neighbor was telling me how good it is when the pizza bianca is freshly baked. Her gesticulation and explanation of it with half-closed eyes made me want to run immediately to the breadshop or pizzeria to get a big slice of white pizza. When food is explained like that, it has got to be that good!

So, as soon as we returned home from our vacation of two weeks without a single slice of pizza in our diet, we immediately had pizza for lunch the following day and white pizza for dinner that I topped with figs and prosciutto crudo.  It was a day to celebrate the Roman pizza that we missed so much at the Dolomites. 

Monte Cristallo is a part of the Dolomites and it's one of the mountains that I love revisiting.  If you watched Sylvester Stallone's Cliffhanger, then this is the mountain with the hanging bridge that was in the movie.  

There are three levels with a rifugio (mountain refuges) in each one.  At the bottom part, you can park your car in the immense parking lot.  The rifugio there is called Rifugio Rio Gere at 1,680 meters high.

Rifugio Son Forca

From there, you can climb to the next rifugio on foot or by taking the chairlift.  You should arrive at Rifugio Son Forca at 2,235 meters.  This is my favorite among the three because there is a big flat area where there is a playground and a pleasant walk towards a lake.  The food is also great so it's a good place to stop by when you have kids.  You won't get stressed out also of falling children because the area is wide. 

But if you decide to take the egg-shaped cable car towards the peak, at Rifugio Lorenzi at 3,000 meters, then hold your kids well because it only has a terrace that is quite scary with running kids.  In fact, there were no running kids there, just my son when we went there last year.  Mountain peaks and active kids make me nervous.  There was a reason.  It's because he really almost fell down a ravine when he went running towards a a very unsturdy wooden railing.  Never trust and put your weight on wooden railings anyway.  

Rifugio Lorenzi is also the departing point of rock climbers.  When we were there, there was a group of 8-year old kids who were rock climbing with their teachers.  It was amazing to see them and I wondered how I will feel like if my son develops an interest in rock climbing.  

Rifugio Lorenzi

Cliffhanger's hanging bridge can only reached by rock climbers which I heard is at the back of that rock sticking out beside the rifugio's terrace (picture above).  I am not inclined to attach myself to nails and ropes to see it so I will just rely on the internet for pictures.  My courage ends at the safety of the terrace of the rifugio. 

I hope you enjoyed this post.  Until next time again and have a good weekend!

Pizza with Figs and Prosciutto Crudo

Ingredients:

• white pizza (For the recipe, please refer to this link.)
• figs, sliced
  
• slices of prosciutto crudo

Directions:

1. For this recipe, I used the pizza bianca (white pizza) that I bought at the pizzeria serving pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice).   Pizza bianca is a type of bread using the pizza dough, topped with salt, extra virgin olive oil and sometimes rosemary sprigs.   Follow this recipe on how to make white pizza and make it thicker to attain a soft, thick pizza.
2. Cut cooked pizza in half like a sandwich. 
3. Fill up the the bottom half with slices of prosciutto crudo & figs.  Top with the upper half of the pizza and serve like a sandwich.  
4. Another way is to just top the white pizza with slices of prosciutto crudo and figs.