Italian Grandma Pizza
In this monthly series, I commit to cooking whatever is on the cover of Bon Appetit, Saveur or maybe some other food magazine. There’s a reason these particular dishes are on the cover – they’re usually the best recipes in the magazine.
I guess you could say I cooked the Grandma pizza from the cover of Bon Appetit’s October 2014 issue, if you’re willing to overlook the facts that I didn’t make my own sauce, got lazy and didn’t make homemade crust (even though I know how to now, especially for Detroit style pizza), forgot to buy fresh mozzarella and just used the cheap stuff, and only used one type of soppressata.
I mean, sometimes life just happens. Also, many of Bon Appetit’s recipes are simply too complicated for me. And I’m willing to guess that if they’re too complicated for somebody who spends half her day in the kitchen, then they’re probably too complicated for the average Joe. Regardless, the combination of soppressata and fennel on this Grandma pizza was a winner.
Speaking of The Average Joe, I noticed while I was in Italy that there were A LOT of guys named Fabio around. Most of them were just totally average looking. So, I’m thinking that in Italy, The Average Joe = The Average Fabio?
Italian Grandma Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 ball (1 pound) of homemade pizza dough, or store-bought
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup prepared pizza sauce
- 4 ounces thinly sliced soppressata
- 1/2 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
- 2 fresh red chiles, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano
- 1-1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- Coarsley chopped fennel fronds, flaky sea salt and red pepper flakes, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Press dough to fit a greased 13 x 18-inch rimmed baking pan. Sprinkle with mozzarella, then dollop with pizza sauce. Top with soppressata, fennel, chiles and Pecorino Romano. Drizzle with oil.
- Bake 24 to 26 minutes or until crust is completely cooked through and crisp around the edges. Cut and serve garnished with fennel fronds, sea salt and red pepper flakes, if desired.
Regardless of what ingredients you used, this looks lovely, just like that photo on the cover!
Thanks so much, Mary! This was a challenging food to photograph!
I like the way you think, Lori. Average Fabio… 🙂
I know a lot about food but have never heard of soppressata, and had to look it up. Guess I’m not as gourmet as I thought I was. If you post a recipe with ingredients with esoteric names, it would help people like me if there was a description or explanation of the ingredient. Sorry about the rant; guess I’ve just seen too many things like that lately, and it’s frustrating when I know that I most likely would not be able to find such specific ingredients locally.
Makes sense, Susan. I was thinking that maybe I should explain it, but then just got lazy and didn’t. Sorry about that. Regardless, I was able to find it at the deli counter of my grocery store. It honestly just tasted like salami with larger bits of fennel seed in it. Salami, or a mixture of salami and pepperoni would be great here.