Might Have Been the Best Pizza Ever!
You just never know where a problem will take you. I planned on making pizza last Friday night, and was going to use some pizza dough I had frozen a few weeks ago. I had pulled out the bag of dough to defrost earlier in the afternoon, and it seemed a little small, but I hoped that once it defrosted it would rise and grow to be enough for our dinner. So I proceeded with frying up the pancetta (I’ll pause for the expected oohs and aahs), grating the Robusto Gouda cheese (another pause to savor the moment), and chopped the sun dried tomatoes and olives I had scrounged out of the back of the fridge.
Then I began to attempt to roll out the dough on my usual baking tray. Push. Ugh. Stretch. Ugh. Stretch again. I barely made it across the entire sheet without tearing, but it was probably 1/2 inch shy of the edge all around. Dinner would be light. But then Louisa helped me to top with all of my planned toppings and they all distributed just about right. It came out with the thinnest crust I’ve ever made, definitely not for fans of a Sicilian pie. But the cheese just melted across it and sealed itself right to the dough so perfectly, that it almost seemed like I had created a frico pie, not a pizza pie. Let me explain, fricos are those cheesy, crispy wafers made from grated cheese that has been toasted in a skillet. They are a decadent little treat for a cheese lover. In this case, the dough was so thin that it seemed like the base of this pizza was crispy cheese, not pizza dough Not only was the texture of the pie appealing, but the flavors of the gouda and pancetta were perfect. The other toppings added just a bit of punctuation to the whole thing.
I will repeat this recipe.
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10 Responses to “Might Have Been the Best Pizza Ever!”
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Sounds like serendipity at work. The question is can you duplicate it on demand.
This one sounds like it’s a winner and one for your as yet unwritten cookbook.
What cookbook Zoogirl?
I believe that I could Mike, although it runs against my better instincts to deliberately make a crust that thin.
The Cheese…The Cheese!
The cookbook you SHOULD write. And I love thin crust pizza.
I guess the Gouda was good for you Joe?
But Zoogirl, you can only write a cookbook when you’ve mastered recipes. Mine are too fleeting.
Be innovative. No one has ever done “The Fleeting Cookbook.” You don’t think you’re getting off the hook that easily, do you??
You’re a persistent one Zoogirl! We’ll have to chat about this offline sometime.