It is not summer yet. At least, not according to my own calendar, which has less to do with the hours of daylight (by that measure, we’ve peaked), only a bit to do with the number of lake and ocean dips I’ve taken (not enough, yet), and everything to do with the day I have my first BLT sandwich.
You can get a BLT any time of year; many a diner has taught me that. But a BLT is truly only great in the summer, when the T in the equation is at its juiciest, most flavorful, most abundant. Because the best part of the sandwich — aside from the plush, fine-crumbed, lightly toasted white bread, the thickly sliced bacon, the crisp stack of iceberg, and the slabs of tomato — is the alchemical sauce that forms when mayonnaise (essential to a BLT, not open for debate) mixes with the juices from the tomato, creating an ambrosial sauce that I like to call billion island dressing.
So when my colleague Molly Marzalek-Kelly asked me, as she started developing a recipe for BLT pizza (using our Recipe of the Year Flaky Puff Crust base), whether the pizza should have a mayonnaise drizzle as a finishing touch, my answer was an emphatic yes. And I was doubly excited when she suggested first salting the tomatoes (to expel excess liquid that would make the pizza soggy), then mixing those extracted tomato juices with mayonnaise. The result is a genius pizza that tastes very much like the sandwich that inspired it.
And, my kindred spirits, should you be looking for yet more ways to combine mayonnaise and tomatoes, please try my recipe for tomato pie, which I published in my 2018 cookbook, Repertoire. The custard, a mixture of mayo, buttermilk, eggs, and Parmigiano-Reggiano, is a tangy foil for a rainbow of ripe tomatoes, baked in a flaky butter crust. Like a BLT, a slice of this pie is all I need to convince me that summer has well and truly arrived.
This pretty painted poppy loaf is extra in the best way.
Our guy Martin Philip is taking The Book of Pizza to the West Coast! Come see him at San Francisco’s Omnivore Books on 7/17, and at Book Larder in Seattle on 7/18.
Summer travels mean summer snacks: Our colleague, just back from Chicago, raved about the tteokbokki croissant at Daeji Dough Co.
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