Okay, listen up:
THIS. IS. AMAZING.
I’m not kidding. I came up with the recipe because I’m eating low carb during the week now, but this is so good I have to try hard to not eat it on the weekend.
Good wood-oven pizza gets a lot of flavor from the slightly toasted cheese. This recipe is almost nothing but toasted cheese. It is seriously, amazingly good.
Ingredients
1 cup fresh shredded parmigiano cheese
3 slices provolone cheese
½ cup peperoni, diced
3-4 tablespoons pizza sauce
— optional —
your favorite pizza toppings, diced
[NOTE: See this link for the difference between “parmesan” and “parmigiano” aka “parmigiano-reggiano”.]
Directions
You might remember the fried parmigiano salad bowls I did a while back. Tons of flavor, a bit of structure, but a little fragile. Then there were the Asiago cheese crisps. More flavor than plane Asiago, holds together well, but not much structure.
Hey, I know … how about I do a hard cheese base with soft cheese on top? And that’s what I did.
Warm up a non-stick or well-seasoned cast iron pan over medium heat. Dump in the parmigiano and make sure it covers the bottom of the pan evenly. Add the provolone on top.
Spread out the pepperoni or other toppings.
Don’t use big slices, dice everything nice and small. The pieces you cut this into will be much smaller than regular pizza, and you’ll want to have a good distribution of toppings.
When the cheese is bubbling and starting to turn brown on the edges, slip a spatula under and make sure it isn’t sticking. You’ll want to check out the video over on my other site to see how.
Once you’re sure it’s not sticking — you should be able to shake the pan and the cheese will slide around — add just enough sauce to cover almost up to the edge.
Slide the pizza out onto a cutting board and let it rest for a minute or two.
This gives the cheese time to set up a little bit, and the sauce time to warm up. (Starting with room-temperature sauce instead of refrigerated is a good idea.)
Slice the pizza before transferring to a plate to serve.
Hey, there’s a piece missing. Yeah … it never made it onto the plate.
This is one crust that nobody is going to feed to the dog after eating “the good part”.
And that’s it.
Like I mentioned up above, I’ve got the whole video of how to make crustless pizza over on the other site.
Ingredients
- 1 cup fresh shredded parmigiano cheese
- 3 slices provolone cheese
- ½ cup peperoni, diced
- 3-4 tablespoons pizza sauce
- -- optional --
- your favorite pizza toppings, diced
Instructions
Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add the parmigiano cheese and make sure it covers the bottom of the pan evenly. Top with the provolone, and the pepperoni and whatever toppings you like.
When the cheese is bubbling and starting to brown on the edges, slip a spatula under to make sure it's not sticking. When the cheese slides around easily without any sticking, top with sauce almost to the edge.
Slide out onto a cutting board and let it rest a minute or two. Cut into six or eight pieces and enjoy.