Crab rangoon pizza

 

There are cheese pizzas and then there are pizza ideas that are potentially cheesy. I first heard of crab rangoon pizza when some of the Fong's Pizza locations in Iowa closed and commenters were lamenting the demise of a source of this pizza variation. A little research indicates this oddity has spread and has been available on the menu locally at Day Block Brewing, where the beer list is likely to make cheesy ideas seem less of a stretch.

Crab rangoon pizza
The recipe started with an amalgam of several recipes I found online and my standard crab rangoon wonton recipe, and then I experimented a few times until I came up with something workable. Dinnerthendesert.com and the Brownie Bites Blog were among the more useful sources. You can either use purchased sweet chili sauce or make the recipe that follows.

Ingredients
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
½ tablespoon toasted sesame oil
½ tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ teaspoon onion powder
1 (4.25-ounce) can crab meat, divided
2 green onions, chopped, divided
½ cup grated mozzarella
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
5 to 6 tablespoons sweet chili sauce, divided
Premade wonton crisps for garnish
1 prebaked or parbaked pizza crust

Method
Preheat oven to 425. Combine cream cheese, garlic, sesame oil, Worcestershire sauce and onion powder in a small bowl. 

Set aside 2 tablespoons of the crab meat. Stir the rest into the cream cheese mixture. Set aside a generous tablespoon of green onions for garnish. Put the rest in the bowl with the cream cheese mixture and mix well.

Place prebaked crust on a pizza pan, or else parbake a crust on a pizza stone. Spread cream cheese mixture over crust. Top with remaining crab meat. Sprinkle cheeses over the top and drizzle with some sweet chili sauce. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes (for a parbaked crust) or 10 to 12 (for a prebaked crust like a Boboli) or under golden brown. (Remove from oven and top with wonton crisps, remaining green onions and some more sweet chili sauce.

Sweet chili sauce
From dinnerthendessert.com

Ingredients
¾ cup sugar
⅓ cup white vinegar
⅔ cup water
¼ cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Method
Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan and cook until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens. You will have tons leftover, so if you don’t use sweet chili sauce often, you might want to cut it in at least half. 

Rating: Can there be an authentic crab rangoon pizza? (Or even authentic crab rangoon, when you think about it.) I have no idea whether this is anything like the original restaurant version, because I've never had it. But since it seems we're unlikely to eat inside a restaurant any time soon, I figured I might as well try it. The first version I made had way too much cream cheese, and the crust clearly couldn't stand up to all that moisture. So we dialed back the cream cheese the next time and used a prebaked crust. I'd say this version works well enough, at least as an oddity. If we survive long enough, perhaps some day we'll run across it on a menu.

 

Oktoberfest pizza

 

Pizza Lucé teamed with Kramarczuck’s for a special Oktoberfest style pizza. We happened across it on one of those nights where you start out thinking you’re actually going to get to go out for a walk after work like you planned, but then someone encountered a problem just after you should be done for the day. So then the mental bargaining begins, and you pass through the denial stages where you think maybe a short walk and stop at the pizza place down the hill since it’s getting late. And then you’re three hours into trying to help someone and you ask if it’s OK to order pizza. But otherwise we probably wouldn’t have got to sample this one. Which of course we then tried to reverse engineer because it was only offered during their Oktoberfest celebration.

The Krautwürst
Inspiration: Pizza Lucé
Note: For quick pickled onions, you could follow the instructions in this recipe, or try the recipe below.

Ingredients
Pizza crust (either prebaked like a Boboli or dough for one pie)
½ tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons coarse grainy mustard
¾ cup grated muenster cheese
⅓ cup well-drained sauerkraut
¼ pound smoked knackwurst, sliced ¼-inch thick (1 link)
2 ounces bratwurst, sliced ¼-inch thick (1 link)
½ grated mozzarella
2 tablespoons pickled red onions (see recipe)
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If using a pizza stone, place in oven while preheating.

Place a prebaked crust on a pizza pan, or form pizza dough into a round on a peel sprinkled with cornmeal. Combine olive oil, garlic powder and mustard. Spread over crust/dough. Top with muenster cheese, followed by sauerkraut, sausages and then topped with mozzarella. Place pan in oven or slide pizza onto baking stone. Bake for 12 minutes for a prebaked crust (or 15-20 minutes for an unbaked crust) or until pizza is golden. Remove from heat and served topped with pickled red onions and parsley.

Rating: Again, not really an approximation of the original pizza. Again, not really caring, because this one works for me. Both of them taste mostly of Kramarczuck’s smoked knackwurst and pickled onions, and both are plenty tasty if you like something that tastes kind of a like a really good sausage roll in pizza form. And boy, is Kramarczuck's crammed on a Saturday mid-morning these days. Glad to see they're busy, but vowing to get going earlier in the morning next time.

Quick-pickled red onions
From “Picture Perfect Parties” by Annette Joseph

Ingredients
1½ cups red wine vinegar
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 to 5 whole cloves
1 large red onion, cut into ¼-thick slices

Method
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine vinegar, sugar, salt and cloves. Simmer for 2 minutes. Add onion and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let onion cool. Transfer to a jar for longer term storage in the refrigerator.

Feel free to mix up the spice to your liking. Fennel, caraway or celery seed would be viable alternatives. 

This was the inspiration pizza.

Here's where we landed. This one mixes bockwurst and knackwurst.

Chicken red pepper pizza with kale and quick pickled onions

I always have firm intentions to keep up with the volunteer kale plants. And every year I find myself in fall, scrounging for new ways to use up the wretched excess. So of course I put it on pizza, because I put it on everything.

Favorite pizza-related joke seen recently: Trash Jones tweeted: Chicago-style pizza implies the existence of AP style pizza.

The comments are priceless for the copy editors among us.

Chicken and pepper pizza with kale
Adapted from Better Homes & Garden, January 2020

Ingredients
½ cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup thinly sliced red onion, divided
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
½ cup sliced red bell pepper
8 ounces cooked, shredded chicken
Tajin or other chili-lime seasoning
Fresh pizza dough for 1 crust or prebaked crust such as a Boboli
¼ cup pizza sauce
2 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon pepper
1½ cups thinly sliced kale leaves
1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted

Method
Place a baking stone in the oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a small saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar and garlic. Bring mixture to a boil. Add ½ cup red onions and let simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet. Add remaining ½ cup red onion and red pepper. Cook over medium low heat until onion is softened. Add chicken to heat through and sprinkle with chili-lime seasoning.

Form pizza dough into desired crust shape. If you have a pizza peel, sprinkle it with cornmeal and assemble pizza on that and then slide it onto the hot baking stone. Alternatively, remove baking stone from oven and assemble pizza on that. Spread pizza sauce over crust. Top with chicken mixture. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes until top is golden. (Or if using a Boboli, check it after 10 minutes.)

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine sun-dried tomatoes, lemon juice and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add salt and pepper and whisk to combine. Add kale leaves and let the mixture set while the pizza bakes. Add drained quick-pickled red onions to kale mixture. Spread across hot pizza. Sprinkle with pine nuts.

Rating: This is one of those recipes that was either going to really work, or really not work. Despite its odd nature (or at least I think adding pickles to pizza sounds a bit odd), it actually works really pretty well. The soak in the dressing softens the kale just enough and the flavors all work well together. I had wondered whether we would regret not adding some goat cheese or feta, since the recipe does not call for any cheese. I'd say it worked fine without it, but speculate that it would also work nicely with that addition. Have to follow up, and use up more of that kale. 

Roast turkey and proscuitto pizza, and other forays into DIY frozen pizza

Early on in the pandemic I did a deep dive into frozen pizza. Not the kind from the freezer aisle, mind you, but the DIY kind.

I went down that rabbit hole partly because I'm aware that my sour dough always makes the most ebullient crust when it's never been refrigerated or frozen after its feeding. So I thought, why not make the crust and parbake it for my own, presumably better than Boboli base? I had made frozen pizza as a kid, but hadn't revisited it as an adult.

After lots of testing, I decided a very lightly topped pizza -- think thin red sauce with minimal cheese -- worked fine enough. If I added additional ingredients at the point I was ready to bake it, that was fine, but putting them on before freezing didn't yield the most satisfactory results: Better than store bought, but still a less perfect crust. 

Mostly I decided it was worth experimenting with frozen pizza, but it wasn't ever going to be as good as a newly raised and formed crust, so I just set myself a reminder to thaw a ball of dough overnight in time for Friday night pizza.

This was probably the most satisfactory frozen effort, a minimalist Margherita.

It wasn't a wasted effort, however, because I also went nuts trying out various pizza sauces to put on those frozen pizza attempts. While frozen crusts aren't all that useful, frozen small containers of sauce are a wonderful thing to have on hand. All the sauces I tried made perfectly fine pizza sauces. Surprisingly, the no-cook sauce using canned tomatoes from the Kitchn.com was a definitely viable repeater, and not just because it's super fast to make. I mostly fall into the cooked sauce camp, but that fast-fix version works just fine and makes plenty to freeze ahead in small containers.

My favorite cooked pizza sauce is probably still the one from "Little Pizza Guides" that I blogged about in this recipe for Roasted Garlic Bacon Pizza. (There's no meat in the sauce itself; it's just a versatile slow-simmered sauce that's handy to make ahead and store in one-pizza size servings.)

Another cheater's pizza sauce version that I've made as a bail-out sauce for years is a riff on Martha Stewart's Spaghetti 101 sauce: Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 3 large garlic cloves thinly sliced and ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes and cook just until garlic is fragrant. Add 1 (14.5-ounce) can chopped tomatoes and increase heat to high and cook until liquid has mostly evaporated and it's tightened into a sauce. Season to taste with coarse salt.

Pizza: Just another reason to be happy it's Friday.

Roast turkey and prosciutto pizza
Adapted from Cooking Light. This was among the recipes we made on a crust that I parbaked and then wrapped in plastic wrap and tin foil, and then froze until we needed it.

Ingredients
1 par-baked pizza crust or purchased prebaked crust like a Boboli
¾ cup pasta sauce
½ cup shredded fontina cheese
1 cup (or less) shredded cooked turkey or chicken
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
½ cup thinly sliced red onion
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 thin slices of prosciutto, shredded into thin strips
A handful of arugula leaves

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place crust on a baking sheet or stone. Spread pasta sauce over crust. Sprinkle with fontina cheese. Toss chicken with balsamic vinegar and spread over pizza. Top with red onion and Parmesan cheese. Bake for 12 minutes or until browned.

Remove from oven and top with prosciutto and arugula.

Rating: When I tried this recipe I commented that I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. To which my husband understandably asked why I had made it then. Not sure if I can explain properly the idea that sometimes a recipe strikes you as something so odd it might just work. Tossing the chicken with balsamic vinegar perks it up quite a bit. I used the full cup of chicken as directed, but if I make it again, I'll probably dial it back a bit for a better balance of flavors. But we enjoyed it.

Basic frozen pizza Step 1: Bake untopped crust at 400 degrees until just set but not browned,
about 8 to 10 minutes.Spread a thin layer of sauce over the cooled, par-baked dough.

Step 2. Top with additional toppings of choice.
Place in freezer on a parchment lined baking sheet until frozen.

Step. 3. Wrap frozen pizza well in plastic wrap, then tin foil and store in freezer.

Step 4. Bake frozen pizza at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes until golden brown.
Better than store-bought, at any rate.

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.