May 12th, 2010 was my very first ‘Pizza de Mayo’ celebration,
featuring a number of deep dish pizzas.
As you will see from photos below,
it was my first attempt at making a crustless deep dish ‘meatza’.
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| Bacon lattice, with a ground sirloin to fill the gaps and form the outer crust. |
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| add a layer of wisconsin brick cheese (symbolic of the brick that would later occupy our stomachs). |
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| add a layer of italian sausage for good measure |
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| top with diced tomatoes, a layer of pepperoni, and bake. |
The first attempt was very tasty and definitely not recommended for anyone battling a coronary disease.
Many things were learned.
- Crustless Deep Dish Pizza… TASTES FRIGGIN’ AWESOME!
- Bacon, Pepperoni, Ground Beef and Italian Sausage produce an enormous amount of grease while cooking.
- Turkey basters are very effective at removing excess grease from a pizza pan.
- Bacon really should be partially pre-cooked before using in a ‘meatza’
- You need twice as much ground beef as you think you do to effectively cover the bottom of the pan.
My next attempt at this ‘meatza’ will involve pre-cooking some of the meat ingredients to reduce the enormous amount of grease that it creates while baking and to allow the bacon/beef crust to get nice and crispy, and possibly draining the tomatoes longer to further reduce the liquid in the pan.
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| Italian sausage with hot Siracha chiles in the sauce, topped with pickled jalepeños, mushrooms and yellow bell peppers. |
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| Pepperoni with half mushroom and black olive. |
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| Garlic crust, spinach and garlic deep dish, before saucing and baking. Baby spinach was sauteed in olive oil with smashed garlic and moderately cooled before using. If viewing this photo at full size, you may notice that in addition to the fresh garlic and garlic powder already added in the original preparation of the dough, I have also pressed additional minced garlic into the inside of the outer crust. |
Not pictured: Garlic crust (3rd attempt) with sausage/pepperoni.
