Long-Cooked Broccoli, Caciocavallo, and Peperoncino

Long-cooked broccoli is one of my all-time favorite vegetable preparations, so I had to find a way to work it onto a pizza. Normally I don’t like broccoli on pizza because whenever I’ve seen it, it’s just been dropped onto the pizza raw, and often with a whole mix of other uncooked vegetables that don’t go with each other or with pizza. Here, the broccoli is cooked until it has a buttery texture, so it works with the crust instead of just sitting on top of it. We use a mix of mozzarella and caciocavallo cheese, a Sicilian cheese similar to mozzarella that has been dried and aged for a few weeks, so it has a funky aged flavor that goes well with the broccoli. If you can’t find caciocavallo cheese, look for scamorza, or use all mozzarella in its place.