When Is a Pizza Not a Pizza?

If you guessed, when it's a coca, then you hit the nail on the head. This is the Spanish tapa that has recently become the craze of foodie circles across the nation looking for the next best thing since Italian food came overseas.

The article reminded me of a recipe for coca that I have in The New Spanish Table, by Anya von Bremzen (Workman, 2005.) I was intrigued by it before the trend (my mom gave me the book for Christmas in 2006), but I was so taken with the tuna and red pepper empanada that I made from TNST, that each time I wanted to make something Spanish, I immediately returned to the empanada.

I finally called it a day and decided to try my hand at the coca. I liked the concept of using of lager-style beer as leavening in the dough. While Ms. Bremzen offers a couple different coca toppings, I went with a mix, as I didn't have four jars of roasted peppers on hand, and I didn't care to chop four onions--each of which was required for the recipes. (Instead I used just one jar of bell peppers and ended up chopping three onions. OK, it wasn't a tear-free endeavor after all.) What you see here is the coca combo: a third roasted red and yellow bell peppers, two thirds sautéed onions, pine nuts, currants and honey. And lots of olive oil. This one turned out nicely--and I won't print the recipe for fear of permissions issues, but feel free to ask me for it. It's a nice change from plain old pizza. I won't lie to you though: I have no intention of giving up the Italian version for this one!