Pizza – Pepperoni, Pancetta, Mushroom
There are so many things going on around here. Loads of things that I can’t wait to tell you about and it all involves food and travel.
Like our quick trip to New Orleans that was an adventure filled with food and music.
And this past weekend that was an exciting whirlwind of family and friends, that intertwined with planes, brisket, and Lady Antebellum.
But I just have to tell you about this pizza first:
Some of you may be thinking, Another pizza already?
But stay with me. You won’t want to miss this one.
Michael is home for a couple of weeks before starting his summer term, so we started brainstorming a pizza to create.
He said when he orders a pizza it is usually pepperoni, ham, and mushrooms so we decided to do a spin on that.
Here is how we did our Pepperoni, Pancetta, and Mushroom Pizza.
First and very important step: Put the pizza stone into the oven and turn the oven on to 500F.
Pancetta is pork belly that has been salt cured, spiced, and dried:
I don’t know about you, but someone says the words Pork Belly and I begin to drool.
Michael cut the pancetta into cubes:
Then, tossed them into a hot pan:
While the pancetta was filling the kitchen with lovely smells, we chopped the Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms:
And a couple of cloves of garlic:
Put the garlic into some olive oil and let the flavors infuse.
That will be the sauce of the pizza.
You can’t really go wrong with garlic infused oil with chunks of garlic.
Once the pancetta got good and crispy:
We took the chunks out of the pan and drained them on a paper towel.
Another Important Step: Leave the drippings in the pan.
That is a lot of amazing flavor you do not want to waste.
We added some butter to the drippings and then tossed in the mushrooms:
While those were sauteing, Michael formed our dough into a circle-like shape.
Just like the last pizza I made, I bought a pre-made dough from my local grocery store deli.
You can read more about how to form the dough HERE.
While he formed the dough, I grated some Gruyere Cheese:
I love the nutty, butter flavor of Gruyere.
We placed the dough on the HOT pizza stone and spooned on the garlic infused oil.
Then came the grated Gruyere and big thick slices of Pepperoni:
We used Boar’s Head. It has a really good spicy flavor.
Then the crispy Pancetta chunks:
Next came the sauteed Shiitake and Oyster Mushrooms:
And, just when you thought we were finished…
We scattered Goat Cheese all over the top:
If you think you do not like goat cheese, I encourage you to try it again.
Maybe just add a tiny little piece to one section of your pizza.
Give it a whirl.
It is worth a second chance. Trust me.
We tossed the pizza into the hot oven:
And, not-so-patiently waited for it to cook.
Once the crust turned to a gorgeous golden color and the cheese was nice and gooey, we took the pizza out of the oven and let it rest for a couple of minutes.
Before slicing, we added some fresh Basil and then devoured every single slice:
That’s easy to do with a College Foodie in the house.
In hindsight, we should have made two pizzas so that we would have had leftovers for breakfast.
Or a midnight snack.
Next time.