This pizza was equal parts experimentation and indecision, motivated by the need to use up leftovers (tomato sauce, ricotta, and prosciutto from last weekend’s ravioli). The experiment part involved adding ingredients at different points during the baking period and concentrating different flavors around the pizza. The indecision part stems from my inability to make really insignificant decisions, and I added half of the prosciutto before baking and half after.
What follows is not really a recipe as much as it is tips or ideas for your own experimentation. If there’s one thing you take from this post, I hope it’s the desire to crack a few eggs onto your next pizza. Or to cover it with fresh greens. Or to add prosciutto because it makes everything better. See what I mean about indecision?
Prosciutto + Red Sauce. I don’t really like the combination of prosciutto and red sauce, but I had several slices of prosciutto and a little bit of red sauce that I was intent on using. Instead of spreading the sauce over the entire crust and making a pizza that I didn’t want to eat, I just dolloped it in between pieces of prosciutto so that each bite would be of one or the other and not both. Not only did it work, but it’s a move that I plan on using in the future. Even if your goal isn’t to keep two ingredients from blending, it’s a good way to change up the standard sauce method.
Eggs on Pizza. I’ve added eggs to pizza once before and discovered that they end up rubbery and overdone if you add them at the beginning (at least in a 400+ oven), so this time I added them halfway through the 20-minute baking time. The eggs weren’t overdone, and the yolks were just barely runny, so it was a definite improvement from the last time. I prefer runnier yolks, though, so next time I’ll add the eggs with 5-8 minutes of cooking time remaining.
Post-Baking Toppings. I couldn’t decide between crispy prosciutto or raw prosciutto, so I added half at the beginning and half at the end. I also added fresh ricotta and some grated parmesan when the pizza came out of the oven.
Greens on Pizza. After a brief cooling period (maybe 5 minutes?), I topped the pizza with several handfuls of fresh arugula. The cooling period prevented the greens from wilting too much, and they added a little freshness that you don’t usually have with pizza.
It’s hard to go wrong with any homemade pizza, and this was no exception. Half the fun of home pizza making is trying out different ingredients that might not be standard pizza toppings and seeing what you can come up with. A few ideas stemming from this pizza experiment: bacon or sausage breakfast pizza, spinach and egg pizza, dollops of both red sauce and pesto…
