Aloha! I’ve been on kind of a pizza kick lately. For instance, the other day, we made a pizza with pesto, caramelized onion, mushrooms, prosciutto, mozzarella, and arugula. That was some TASTY business. THIS pizza was also insanely awesome. How could it not be, with a name like “Pumped Up Polynesian Pig Pizza?”
This was a bit of an experiment a month or so ago, since I had pizza dough to use and I was ready to get creative with a new pie. Liz loves Hawaiian pizza probably more than any other kind, so I decided to go in that direction. When I think about the different kinds of hawaiian pizza we’ve had from different places, a lot of them seem kind of boring. A lot of times it’s literally just cheese, ham, and pineapple. Which, you know, whatever. It’s going to taste good however you slice it. But I got to thinking, there are so many more creative things I could add to this! My brainstorm took me from a simple ham and pineapple pizza to a pizza that included all kinds of trimmings:
- 1 medium onion, sliced and caramelized (see below)
- 1/2 green bell pepper, diced and sauteed
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 1/2 pre-cooked and packaged ham steak, diced
- 1 C. fresh diced pineapple
- 1/4 C. fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1-2 C. shredded Mozzarella cheese (or pizza blend, mozzarella and provolone)
- 1/4 C. crumbled Feta cheese
- 6 strips cooked, crumbled bacon
- Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning
- Olive oil
- Marinara sauce
- Butter
- 1 tsp. sugar
- Pizza dough (for dough recipe, see: Mexican Chipotle Chicken Pizza)
So here’s how this goes. There’s a good deal of prep to be done, and it’s a little time consuming, but it’s worth it, I promise. Here’s the way I would do things.
- Preheat the oven to 400. After you roll out your dough and get it onto a sheet, you’re going to need to prick it all over with a fork and brush a little olive oil on it. At this point, also season it around the edges with the Creole seasoning. You won’t be sorry– Cajun crust is awesome. Just bake the dough part-way, for about 5-8 minutes until it’s partially baked and the sauce won’t make the dough soggy. Once you take it out of the oven, crank the oven to 500 degrees. Not kidding.
- Slice your onions into ribbon-like slices. With a tablespoon or two of butter, sautee them on medium (or just under medium) until they’re soft and a little transparent. Then, add the 1 tsp. of sugar and stir. Continue cooking until they’re nice and brown all the way through (this takes quite a while, so leave them alone a little and prep your other veggies).
- Sautee green peppers with a little oil and salt. When they’re pretty tender, throw in the diced ham and minced garlic. Just let that sweat together for a minute or so. Remove that from heat and set it aside.
- Spread a layer of marinara over your prepared crust. You can use however much you like; I happen to like a little less sauce. Sprinkle some of the mozzarella over top, not a lot. Then, top with caramelized onions, sauteed peppers/ ham, feta, more mozzarella, bacon, and pineapple.
- Bake it off for about 10 minutes in the 500 degree oven, or just until the cheese is all melted and starts to brown slightly. Remove it from the oven and top with the fresh cilantro. You could also elect to save some of the pineapple for after the baking process, as it will retain more of its “fresh” sweet flavor.
- Enjoy it, yo!
The Un-Snooty Foodie 