I did corned beef pizza last year with the leftover corned beef. It was pretty tasty, but I had just started making yeast breads and wasn’t real confident with the crust. This year I did a rye crust, and it was amazing if I do say so myself — and since no one else who had it writes their own blog I guess I’m going to have to say it myself.
This was almost exactly my regular pizza crust recipe, except instead of half-and-half bread flour and all-purpose flour, it was bread flour and rye flour. And to make up for the texture of the rye, I added two teaspoons of vital wheat gluten. The other change was I used the stand mixer instead of kneading it by hand. Go check out that previous article for all the ingredients and the complete step-by-step photos for making pizza crust.
Then use yellow or spicy brown mustard in place of the tomato sauce. I didn’t add any cabbage this time like on last year’s corned beef pizza, so all that was left was the swiss cheese and the diced leftover corned beef.
Then 15 minutes at 450° and it was ready to go. Actually the hotter you get the oven the quicker it will be done. New York pizza places use brick ovens that are about 850-900°, so don’t worry that it’s too hot. But the hotter it is the closer you have to watch it.
Oh, and if you have it really hot … don’t use an oven mitt made of synthetic fibers.
That was new. It had only been used once or twice before I pulled the pizza out of the oven. Oops.
The pizza was my contribution to St. Patrick’s Day. My wife did her usual Irish soda bread marathon.
That’s not counting the two batches she did the night before that had already been handed out to friends and family. These aren’t what most people think of as “traditional” soda bread, but we’re not competing for historical accuracy. And this stuff is gooooood.
PS: The corned beef pizza was my official tribute to Pi day — 3/14. Get it? Pizza pie?
