Elote pizza

 

We quickly got addicted to Pizza Lucé’s seasonal option of Elote Pizza, which it describes as Tajin spiced sweet corn, applewood smoked bacon, fresh jalapeño, sliced green onion, mozzarella and feta cheese on top of bianca sauce and drizzled with cilantro aioli.

While we will happily order this as long as it’s on the menu, I was spurred to try to create a version of it at home in case it disappears. Here’s our version.

Elote bacon pizza

Ingredients
1 risen pizza crust dough or a prebaked crust such as Boboli
2-3 tablespoons cilantro aioli (see recipe)
1 ear of sweet corn, grilled, sliced off cob
½ teaspoon or more Tajin seasoning (or other chili lime seasoning, like Trader Joe’s)
Four slices applewood smoked bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
Half of a fresh jalepeño, seeded and sliced crosswise into rings
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
4 tablespoons feta or cotija cheese, crumbled
Cilantro leaves for garnish

Method
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  If using pizza dough, form into a crust and place on a cornmeal-sprinkled baking stone. Or place prebaked crust onto pizza pan.

Prepare aioli according to recipe. Spread 2 to 3 tablespoons over crust to coat thinly. 

Toss corn with Taijin to taste. Sprinkle across crust. Top with bacon, jalepeño slices, green onions and feta or cotija cheese. Drizzle with some more aioli if desired.

Bake for 16-18 minutes for a raw crust, or 10-12 minutes for a prebaked crust, until crust is cooked and cheese is browned. Top with a garnish of chopped cilantro leaves.

Cilantro aioli
From julieblanner.com
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon minced garlic
¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves
¼ teaspoon sea salt
Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Puree until blended.This makes more than you will need for one pizza. So more pizzas! Or fish tacos!

Rating: Usually if I’m trying to replicate a recipe I pursue it relentlessly, refining it until I reproduce it just so. Not this time. That’s because this version is just dandy as it is. It’s not quite the same as Pizza Lucé’s, but if you gave me either version I would be pleased beyond measure. It's a really nice mix of mild heat, mmmm bacon and the freshness of corn and cilantro. It works perfectly fine on a Boboli as well as a freshly risen crust, so it's comparatively pantry friendly if you put up frozen roasted corn in the fall. Might be worth trying without bacon as well, but it's pretty darn tasty with bacon.

If you think about it, this should be the pizza Iowans turn to: Corn, check. Pork products, check. Instead, the latest Iowa pizza gimmick is the beer cheese breakfast pizza from Casey's celebrating the 21st anniversary of its breakfast pizza. (Casey's, if you're not familiar with the stories, is a chain of convenience/gas stations based in Iowa with locations through the Midwest and southern states.) Worse yet, they're calling it bizza. Worst yet, the beer is Busch Light. 

Usually I prefer a home-risen crust, but a Boboli also works pretty well for this pizza.