I was talking with a guy who owns a local pizza franchise. He told me the latest pizza craze is pickle pizzas. Typically dill pizza on a white pie, but they also have a red variety.
I’ve had one of these first a few years back — it’s great if you love pickles like I do. The versions I’ve had were on a red sauce.
Looks like typically a white base is used now. I’ll have to try it again that way. It’s really good with some fatty meat on it like bacon or pepperoni.
White base, lots of garlic, slab cut pieces of bacon, quality pickles (Grillo or better).
When I’ve made it myself, I used fermented Polish pickles, which are pretty much the same as Jewish sours. The fermented type taste much better to me than vinegared pickles.
I agree with everything you said. I don’t think a pizza franchise is going to go that far, though.
There’s a pizza place out here that used to do a Salad Pizza. I think it was crust with some garlic oil and a thin layer of cheese blend, then covered with a chopped version of their house salad (lettuce, tomato, cheese, olives, all dressed and chopped).
Basically cheesy garlic bread with salad but all in one bite.
I was just searching for a white clam pizza recipe. (or a clams casino pizza). There is a grocery that sells a very good fresh garlic pizza among other toppings. Just garlic and mozzarella. I was thinking drained chopped clams and crumbled lightly cooked bacon, 400 degrees for 15 minutes? Maybe a white alfredo base instead? My research continues. May have to buy a New Haven type clam pizza here for inspiration.
The nastiest looking pizza I have seen for sale was “pork with orange sauce” at a well known English department store, but I can’t say I actually tried it.
I believe that to be authentic to the Pepe’s original, you would use Pecorino Romano cheese rather than mozzarella.
Korean Potato Pizza.
This recipe uses just bread as the base… but for a pizza crust pizza–you still follow the same idea. Its unique and if you think you’ll like the combo, you will for sure like it.
Another small, local chain used to serve pizza bianca del mare – white sauce with mozzarella, shrimp, clams, and onions. They’ve dropped the bianca since we last had it, which was when the location closest to us shut down some two decades ago.
I rather enjoy Thai Chicken Pizza, made famous by California Pizza Kitchen. I make my own now from time to time.
The Dion’s chain has one called the Tuscany that I like.
It uses pesto instead of tomato sauce.
It is topped with artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, provolone, and parmesan.
Warning: the pine nuts don’t stick to the cheese worth a hoot. When eating, you have to be careful, or they end up on your lap, or on the floor.
My favorite starts with pesto sauce (I have used store bought sauce, but homemade is better), loads of olives halved (I like Sicilian, but any olives will do–except the tasteless canned black olives) then crumbled soft goat cheese and crumbled walnuts. Top with grated mozzarella and parmesan or similar. Bake for 13-15 minutes on a pizza stone in a 450 oven. I usually prebake the shell for 2 minutes; otherwise it is hard to get the rather gloppy pizza cleanly onto the shell. Which for me is somewhere between thin and thick.
That’s a little different than their original Thai pizza, but it’s similar to the “Surfer” pizza I"ve mentioned before.
Thin crust with Thai peanut sauce, mozarella, diced chicken, crispy bacon, caramelized onions, and cilantro. So delicious.
A pizza joint near me offered a wood oven pizza topped with San marzano tomato sauce, basil, burrata, calabrese sausage and spiced honey. OMG it was delicious.
Interesting. With the exception of the chopped peanuts on top, that copycat looks identical to every Thai Chicken pizza I’ve ordered from CPK over the past 20 years. What do you remember being different about the original version?
It was mostly veggies. A few pieces of chicken, but mostly finely julienned carrots and cucumbers, onions, lemongrass with spicy Thai sauce.
I make pizza at home maybe half a dozen times a year. Overnight crust, sauce simmered for a few hours, and a mix of part-skim and whole-milk mozzarella (I know a lot of folks go full whole-milk, but I like a little bit of part-skim to cut down on the greasiness).
Two pizzas for our 4-person family. For the kids, it’s a plain cheese. For my wife and me–and this is the answer to the question–it’s toasted walnuts, fridge-pickled red onions, and feta, with some kalamata olives on my part. The combination of savory, salty, greasy, and tangy is strong enough that I prefer it to meaty pizza, which tends to give me heartburn.