Monday, May 16, 2011

Chorizo & Jalapeño Pizza

Felicidades! Happy belated Cinco de Mayo...? Or something like that...?

Last week we picked up some Mexican chorizo at a Latin American market with the intention of making tacos. Didn't take long before we decided pizza deserved a spicy sausage treatment as well.

For those of you not familiar with it, Mexican chorizo is a pork sausage that's made with chile peppers and a variety of seasonings. Very tasty. Moderately spicy. A very dominant flavor that takes over everything around it.

Cue the jalapeños, onions and cilantro:


They also have dominant flavors that happen to go very nicely with said chorizo, which makes this one flavor-filled pizza.

While you're par-baking your crust, be sure to brown the chorizo and pour off the excess grease.

Layer the toppings like this:
  1. Par-baked crust
  2. Thin spread of salsa verde (green salsa made from tomatillos)
  3. Good ole mozzarella, grated
  4. White or red onions, thinly sliced in rings
  5. Jalapeño slices
  6. Browned chorizo
  7. Chopped cliantro
Bake at 450 degrees F for about 7 minutes. Don't bother with the customary drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of Parmesan, but you could consider a few spritzes of fresh lime juice or a shredded radish garnish.


3 comments:

  1. does it make a difference if you parbake the crust or just use a fresh, room-temperature premade crust?

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    Replies
    1. Since I'm not sure what kind of pre-made crust you're using, I'll give you two answers:
      1. If the crust is already cooked and ready to eat, then no, you don't need to bother par-baking.
      2. If you're using a store-bought dough that you need to rolled out, then yes, we recommend par-baking.

      That said, par-baking is technically not necessary at all. You could load your toppings on the raw dough and bake it all at once and it would be delicious. However, in our experience, soft dough plus heavy toppings often results in sad, sad pizza catastrophes. So we discovered that by cooking the crust separately for a couple of minutes (aka par-baking), it firms up enough to make it easy to maneuver in and out of the oven even when it's loaded up with toppings. There's no taste difference in the end result, it just makes the process easier.

      (Sorry for the delay in answering your question, by the way!)

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