Nothing quite like having a slice of pizza pie and a nice cold glass of beer after a long day. It's so fucking American. It's kismet that 4th o' July is right around the corner. But I also love pizza because there are so many ways you can improvise with it. The dough, the sauce, the cheese, the toppings; hell, even how you cook the damn thing!
This time I decided to get a little inventive. I had some potatoes that I really needed to dip into and what I like to do with them is slice them into thin oval slices and dredge them in Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning. I Need To Capitalize Every Word In This Seasoning. Because I Fucking Love It.
Seriously. When my heart gives up from all the sodium I pump through it. It'll be because of this glorious bastard.
I used about three-fourths of a stick of butter in a cast iron and sauteed up half of a finely diced onion and about a teaspoon of chopped garlic. I like to layer the Chachere-coated potato slivers over the onion/garlic like a sheet. I then tossed in some sliced chinese style sausages, which tend to be dried, hard, have a high fat content (a running theme in my dishes) and are sweet in flavor. They really go well with garlic; trust me! I had it on medium heat and covered for about 8 to 10 minutes and then turned the potatoes and lowered to a simmer. I then drizzled with an italian pizza blend and just turned it every 5 minutes until it was cooked through and the potatoes were tender. If you want crispy, you'll want to have the potatoes directly touching the pan with the butter which would require you to remove the sauteed onion/garlic or push them suckers to the side. I usually crisp them, but I went for something more mushy.
So...while I was doing all that business. It's a good idea to have your oven already preheating to 425 degrees. There are obviously tons of way to do you dough, but my cheap ass does Jiffy's pizza crust which is like 50 cents a box. I use two of those mixed up thoroughly with a cup of warm water and you'll get a damn good sized medium pizza that serves 8 large slices of pizzas. Of course, I mix Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning into the dough. You can add whatever you're little heart desires. Fucking go nuts, yo! I like to keep the mixed up dough in the bowl covered with damp paper towels and let it sit on the now hot oven for 10 mins or so to let the dough rise for a spell.
When the dough is ready to roll out, I make sure to bombard an empty table with flour and flop the dough onto it and toss a retarded amount of flour onto the dough ball. Surprisingly, I've never had too much flour. There always seems to be sticky spots later on, especially when your rolling it out. I like to massage the dough really well to get all the knots out and then start playing with it until it's pretty flexible. I find it best to make it into a ball and then starting rolling it out with a pin in alternating directions to get it into an even thickness all the way across.
You can do so many things with the sauce. I usually make my own with tomato paste and tomato sauce blended with chopped basil and seasoned with sugar, salt and Tony Chachere's (of course!), but I've been working with Ragu sauce lately to mix thangs up. So I did their tomato (really, they needed to clarify that ingredient?), basil and onion sauce.
I'll spread it out with curled fingers or a large tablespoon or a spatula. Whatever you feel like rawking, y'know? Just as long as it's a decent layer throughout, really to your preference. I then added a pound of mixed cheeses: colby jack and mozzarrella. I have in the past exclusively made pizza with buffalo cheese, which is absolutely fucking phenomenal (although pricey), but if you go that route be aware that it sweats a lot and you'll be dabbing the pizza with paper towels alot. I then spread the potato/sausage goodness over the cheese and finished it off with pepperoni.
I have a convection oven, so it was done in about 10 to 15 minutes, but it depends on your oven and of course how you like it cooked. I like it golden brown on top, fairly crispy crust but fairly soft dough under the bread, but still cooked through. I haveta say, it turned out pretty sexy and the potatoes definetely added a nice mix to it. That's what I love about pizza, there really isn't a wrong ingredient so long as you accompany it with other appropriate ingredients.
As a side note, my roomie was so inspired by this cooking endeavor of mine that he's buying us fire stones
to line in our convection oven so we can cook pizzas on it. So look forward to more inventive pizza updates!
