Plum Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Crispy Bacon: Revisited
October 7, 2010
I love experimenting with different pizza toppings. Given the chance, I would eat a spinach artichoke pizza over the trusty ol' pepperoni any day. My pizza making skills are still developing however, and I've yet to make the perfect pizza crust. My tastes lean toward a thinner crust with a little bit of chew, just the right amount of soft and crispy combined. I've been wanting to try Peter Reinhart's Napoletana pizza crust for a while now, and since I had some plums, onions and bacon just lounging away on my refrigerator shelf, I decided to try the crust with my plum pizza.
I previously posted this recipe, but used a crisped up tortilla crust for convenience. While the tortilla crust worked fine, it lacked the chew that a real pizza crust can add. The crust I used is an adapted version of Peter Reinart's by 101cookbooks, and the result was pretty good. My dough was a little too sticky, even though I weighed the flour exactly, so I think I will follow the original version of the dough, which calls for a half cup more of flour. I caramelized some red onions, cooked up some crispy bacon, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar sets it all off. This is a favorite of mine. Since there are a lot of tips and instructions for this crust recipe, I'll leave it for the pizza pro's to explain. You can find the adapted version of the Napoletana crust here.
Plum Pizza with Caramelized Onion and Crispy Bacon
1 pizza crust, homemade or store-bought
2 ripe plums, thinly sliced
1/2 onion, thinly sliced and caramelized
4 strips bacon, cooked crisp
shredded mozzarella
dried oregano, to taste
sea salt, to taste
balsamic vinegar, to taste
grated parmesan, to garnish
Preheat oven to 500F for one hour. If using a pizza stone, put it in the oven now to warm up.
For the onions: In a large heavy bottom pan, add some olive oil to cover the bottom and about 1 teaspoon of butter. When butter is simmering, add the sliced onions and stir to coat. Cook on medium high for 5-10 mins, stirring occasionally. Lower heat and continue to cook for about another 5-10 mins, stirring just when the onions start to stick to the pan, but not burn. If you stir too often the onions will not brown. You can add some sugar if needed to help the onions caramelize. When the onions are a deep caramel color, remove from heat and set aside.
For the pizza: Place the prepared circle of pizza dough on the pizza stone or cookie sheet. You can use a pizza peel or the back of a cookie sheet, sprinkled with cornmeal, to transfer the pizza. Since I was making individual sized pizzas, I just used my hands to carefully place the pizza dough on my hot pizza stone. Top with mozzarella cheese, onions and crumbled bacon, then arrange the sliced plums on top. Sprinkle some dried oregano and sea salt over the top. Place pizza in oven and bake for about 5-7 minutes, until cheese is melted and golden. Remove from oven and let cool. If desired, garnish with some freshly grated Parmesan and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Enjoy!
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17 comments:
What a great idea! I've done fig and bacon pizza, but never plums! Genius!
I love pizza, I can eat it all the time and I am with you I would pick a spinach artichoke pizza over pepperoni, hands down! This pizza sounds so delicious, I am very intrigued with the flavor combo, I bet it is wonderful!
This pizza looks incredible!!!! I'm sure it was amazing...very original!
I've never tried this combination before but you always know how to pleasantly wow.
Wow what a great combination of flavors! The pizza looks INCREDIBLE! I'm sadly allergic to plums, do you think I could substitute another fruit?
Hi Lindsey, A Spicy Perspective had a great suggestion of using figs, so i'm sure that would work well as a substitution:)
I LOVE the plum addition! So creative!!
I've never tried this with plum, sounds great! :)
Pairing the sweet plums with the salty bacon is inspired, truly! This looks like such a unique and tasty pizza recipe. Something that would make my mouth pop! I love experimenting with pizza recipes too...but mine don't often turn out as great as yours!
plum is yummmmm! i want this pizza!
What a great idea to use plum and bacon for your pizza. Looks delish...looking at them makes me hungry now :) Thanks for sharing the recipe :)
Awesome looking pizza! This looks gourmet and I bet it tastes heavenly with a good glass of wine along side :o) Thanks for sharing!
I wouldn't have thought to do plum with these savory toppings...I'm glad you did! It looks amazing...yummy flavors, and you can't really go wrong with bacon and caramelized onions!
Sounds delicious! I love making pizza so I will have to give this recipe a try.
I would have never thought of pairing plums and bacon. Your so creative and it looks so yummy! I would love this pizza, but my husband wants the traditional toppings. He won't even eat spinach on pizza:(
This post was selected as one of my great posts of the week. Here is the link: http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/2010/10/great-posts-i-came-across-this-week_16.html
Hello! I just came upon your blog and must say that it just went into my blog folder.
This recipe looks so good that I must try it....along with several others I saw.
Here is a pizza crust recipe you may want to try. It is a copy cat from a pizza franchise here in Canada.
I can't remember now who gave it to me, but we really like it.
Hope you do too!
Charlie
Pizza Hut' Style Dough Mix
The secret ingredient here is baking powder. Extensive testing has revealed that baking powder plus yeast in a pizza dough yields a chewy, tender crust. Baking powder also produces a near-instant oven rise.
Each batch makes 1 16-20 inch round pizza, or a 17 by 11 inch rectangle, or a variety of smaller, free form individual pizzas.
8 cups unbleached bread flour
4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup stone ground cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons baking powder
In a large bowl, whisk together bread flour, all purpose flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder very well. Store in well sealed plastic bags. Keeps 4 months.
To make pizza dough:
1 cup water
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons fast-rise yeast
3 cups dough mix
2 tablespoons olive oil
If you like your pizza crisp, use the lesser amount of yeast. For a fluffier, bready-like pizza, use the larger amount (and do not roll out too thin). Depending on the yeast you choose (i.e. brands differ in performance as do fast or active dry varieties), the fermentation may vary somewhat.
This dough can be kneaded by hand, in a mixer with a dough hook or in a bread machine (on dough cycle, following manufacturer instructions). For the mixer, place water in a bowl with yeast. Mix a moment and allow mixture to sit about five minutes, to allow yeast to expand. Add pizza mix and oil, then smooth and elastic on slow speed - about 5-7 minutes. Once dough is made, cover well with oiled plastic (or refrigerate) and allow to rest one hour. Deflate before proceeding
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