Pan pizza with pepperoni (or whatever other meat you like)

Sep 21, 2023

By Mark Guydish [email protected]

A thicker crust with fresh herbs and a winning flavor combination of olives, mushrooms, pepperoni and fresh basil make this pan pizza very tasty. My problem was getting the crust right.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

This TL test cook still on pizza kick

Pepperoni pan pizza on an herbed crust.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

The ingredients for a pepperoni pan pizza. The crust proved a little tricky for me, but otherwise we really liked this.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

I’m obviously still on a bit of a non-traditional pizza kick, this time trying my first (I’m pretty sure) pan pizza. And while MT & I thoroughly enjoyed the final product, I admit up front the dough gave me a trouble that made dinner at least 30 minutes later than expected. Fortunately, as usual when trying a new pizza, I also made a tried and true pie, the four cheese pizza sans the blue cheese, so we had a three cheese pizza more or less on time.

I think we’ve both proven that part of doing a “test kitchen” is learning from mistakes, and this one had a few.

In the end, the flavor combo worked really well, with herbs baked into the thicker pan dough and the tomato, mushrooms, pepperoni, olives, basil and two non-traditional cheeses.

As to the dough problem.

First, as with the the sun-dried tomato, olive and pizza bites I tried a few weeks ago, this calls for a scone dough, which doesn’t need to be proofed because it uses self-rising flour. We still don’t stock that in the pantry, so I followed the included recipe but added a teaspoon of rapid-rise yeast, and proofed it before rolling out for the pizza base. I don’t know if that changes how the dough cooks, but it might have been part of the problem: The dough wasn’t cooked through after the broiler melted the cheese.

It’s much more likely that my mistake was frying the dough in a pan that was much larger than the very old electric burner under it. While it browned and hardened nicely in the center, it was still soft on the edges. Clearly it’s important to do the stove-top part with an evenly heated pan, so the outer edges get as browned and firm as the center.

My second mistake was that, once finding the dough underdone a bit, I popped the pizza, still in the pan, back into the oven and covered the top with tinfoil to avoid burning the cheese. Alas, this seemed to create a moisture trap that made the dough soggier, not firmer.

I fixed that by transferring the pizza to an already-hot pizza stone in the oven (from the cheese pizza). I lightly covered it with foil for about half of the eight or so extra minutes of baking on the stone. This got the dough cooked through and firm.

The moral of the story: Get the frying part of the dough right the first time. I’m wondering if you could brown it thoroughly on both sides before adding all the toppings, then top it and put it under the broiler to let the cheese melt.

Maybe it’s just time to start stocking self-rising flours in our kitchen.

Dobru chut!

Pepperoni Pan Pizza (Pasta & Pizza Presto)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mixed herbs

1 scone pizza dough

2 tablespoons tomato paste

14 ounce can crushed tomatoes, drained well

2 ounces mushrooms, thinly sliced

3 ounces sliced pepperoni

6 pitted black olives, chopped

2 ounces Edam cheese, grated (couldn’t find any, so I substituted Gouda)

2 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

Add the herbs to the scone dough before mixing into a ball (see dough recipe below). Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Roll out to fit a well-greased frying pan, about 8½ inches in diameter.

Cook the dough in the pan over low heat for about 5 minutes, until the base is golden. Lift carefully with a spatula to check. Flip the dough (turning it onto a baking sheet and then sliding it into the pan with cooked side up is one way to do this).

Mix together the tomato paste and drained tomatoes and spread over the pizza base. Scatter mushrooms, pepperoni, olives and cheeses over the sauce. Continue to cook for about five minutes, until bottom is golden. When ready, transfer the pan to a preheated moderate broiler for 4-5 minutes to melt the cheese. Scatter basil on top and serve immediately.

Scone Pizza Dough: Mix 1 cup self-rising flour, 1 cup self-rising whole wheat flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Work in 4 tablespoons of diced butter with your fingers until it starts to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add 2/3 cup milk. Mix with a wooden spoon to a soft dough, then knead lightly on a lightly floured surface until smooth. The dough is ready to use.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish