Easy Recipes for the Grill & Cucina – Paggi Pazzo

Timing may not be my strong suit and this post probably seems a bit out of season but bare with me, I’ve been wanting to post this for months so here it goes…. Days after Thanksgiving ends, there seems to be a never ending supply of turkey sandwiches and other fixings left over from our great American pastime. In order to put a little variety in these turkey menu variations I decided to mix things up a bit by creating a Thanksgiving pizza cooked in my brick oven and enhanced with a few extra ingredients. Today I’m sharing that pizza recipe that I believe was created when the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth, or was it San Diego?

To get started on our Thanksgiving pizza, I typically make the dough before hand and then freeze so whenever I need a few dough balls I always have a few handy. To make your own dough feel free to use this homemade dough recipe. For the toppings I will chop the turkey meat into little strips and make sure the squash is at room temperature because we want to spread like a sauce across the dough. Once we have the ingredients sorted, I start my brick oven pizza fire with a few sticks of kindling and a small log. I have a Alfa Forno pizza oven and it doesn’t require hours of fire building to get to 900 degree temps, in fact it can be reached in 30 mins so once the kindling is going strong add 2 large logs to really get the fire roaring (one draw back is the temp can drop fairly quickly so we want to keep the oven door slightly closed to keep the fire breathing and adding additional logs depending on how much food and company you have).

So our fire is roaring and it’s time to make the pizza. On a clean surface, stretch your dough by hand adding flour when needed to prevent sticking. Before adding your dough to the pizza peel, add semolina flour to again prevent any sticking (we don’t want a pizza in pieces, do we? Or is that how the Pilgrims did it? so confused….). Spread the squash across the dough and top with shredded turkey and any vegetables that you prefer (I added some mushrooms to this pizza). Then add your goat cheese in little chunks across the pizza followed by pieces of prosciutto di Parma and sage. Add a little extra virgin olive oil across the pizza and a sprinkle of Reggiano Parmigiano and now you’re ready to add the pizza to the brick oven. Make sure the pizza oven temp inside the oven is between 750-900 degrees for best results – the pizza will cook in about 90 seconds to 2 1/2 minutes so be sure to turn the pizza repeatedly making sure the pizza does not burn. So there you have it, Paggi Pazzo’s Thanksgiving brick oven pizza, Happy Turkey pizza day to you and yours – time to nap on the coach.

Thanksgiving Pizza Recipe

Prep time: 2 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 17 min
Yield: 8 slices

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon grated Reggiano Parmigiano
• 2 ounces goat cheese
• handful fresh sage
• 2 thin slices Prosciutto di Parma
• 1/4 cup chopped or shredded turkey
• 1 Pizza dough
• 2 ounces mashed squash
• 1/4 cup chopped mushrooms or asparagus spears
• 1 teaspoon Semolina flour

Cooking Directions

1. To make dough, click here
2. Build brick oven pizza fire with kindling and 1 small-medium size hardwood firewood log
3. Once kindling is burning hot, add 2 larger logs and once temps are close to 900 degrees, move fire to one side of the oven so pizza(s) can cook on the other side
4. Sprinkle semolina flour across pizza peel before putting dough on top
5. Roll out dough then put on top of pizza peel and generously lay squash across, add salt and pepper
6. Add shredded or chopped turkey across pizza and then top with chunks of goat cheese
7. Add pieces of prosciutto di Parma across pizza followed by fresh sage and a light dressing of olive oil, then grated Reggiano Parmigiano
8. When temp is between 750-900 degrees and pizza and turn throughout 90 seconds – 2:30 minute cooking process to prevent burning. Once dough has spotted char marks and toppings have melted (cheese turning an almost light brown), remove from brick pizza oven
9. Let rest for 5 minutes then slice and serve