I’ve been making this pizza for a number of years and have seen many variations on the theme. In Italy, where simple and fresh is the premise of any dish, in France, with a béchamel sauce as a base and here with many different additions in many different pizza locations. This is one of my favorite mixes. I added thinly sliced mushrooms, thyme and extra virgin olive oil. The complete recipe is below. I admit, I cheated and used ready made dough from the refrigerator section of my grocery store, but this was only because we had some surprise visitors and I didn’t have time to make the dough from scratch. It would have been that much better from scratch, but this was pretty good.
The dough was a little over 1 lb (750g) and it made a pizza that fit in a 11″ x 16″ sheet pan. I used Yukon Golds – 1 large potato covered the entire pizza. Here’s the recipe. As always – enjoy!
1 lb pizza dough
1 large Yukon Gold potato, thinly sliced on a mandolin
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 large jalapeno, thinly sliced
1/2 cup finely grated parmigiano reggiano
salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil
Preheat oven to 450F
Bring the dough to room temperature
Toss the potatoes, sliced mushrooms, jalapeno, thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil in a bowl making sure all the potato pieces are covered with oil
Lightly oil the sheet pan, don’t over oil it as it will make the dough difficult to work with – use a spray if you prefer not to use oil
Spread the dough to cover the pan, this may take a bit of effort as the dough is very elastic, be patient and work it out from the center to the sides
Layer the potatoes onto the surface of the dough – use them to spread the dough into the corners where the dough tends to come away from, it helps keep it in place
Sprinkle the cheese on top in a very thin layer (okay at this stage I also sprinkled cayenne pepper on half the pizza as not everyone likes it spicy – I know, can you believe it?!)
Bake for 20 minutes – the bottom of the pizza should lift up/slide easily when it is done
Remove to a cutting board, let cool slightly, cut into pieces and serve
Great with red or white wine, on it’s own or with a tossed salad
