When people ask me what my favorite food is, they're often surprised to find out it's not grilled cheese. Although my favorite does involve a combination of bread and carbs, the clear winner in the favorite food race is pizza. Shocking, I know, but there's just something about pizza that gives it top billing in my heart (and my tummy). Taking this into account (along with the fact that the pizza grilled cheese I pinned on Pinterest is my most often re-pinned item) I decided it was high time to bring my two loves together and make a pizza grilled cheese.
I didn't want to go with the recipe I actually pinned on Pinterest because it featured pepperoni and regular bread. I don't like pepperoni and want to see what can be done with an actual pizza crust. So I headed to the store and got your basic pizza ingredients with the plan of improvising a recipe.
* Pre-made pizza crust (thin)
* Fresh mozzarella
* Ricotta
* Pizza sauce
* Garlic
* Home-grown basil
So I knew that pizza dough wouldn't fully cook were I to just grill it, so I opted to cook the dough first in hopes of turning it into "bread." This, of course, involved me tossing the pizza dough in the air while pretending to actually be an Italian pizza maker. Sadly the dough ended up looking like this:
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| Yes, that's me peeking through a hole in the dough. |
I figured seasoning the dough before I cooked it would be a good idea, so I drizzled olive oil on it and spread some crushed garlic on top of that. I also gave some sprinkles of my generic McCormick "Italian Seasoning." I imagine this consists mostly of oregano.
Now it was ready to bake! I had preheated the oven to 400 degrees and put the dough in for 5 minutes initially. Checking on it at 5 minutes I decided it could use more time, so I went for 5 more minutes.
At this point it had cooked for 10 minutes total and was starting to crisp up, but just for kicks I decided to throw the ricotta on there for the final 4 minutes in the oven.
So total cook time ended up at 14 minutes. While the dough was cooking I started trying to grate the mozzarella, but found that it didn't grate so much as it just came off in strips and strings (a la string cheese-- logically). So I opted to break with tradition and pull the cheese into strips rather than grate it.
Once the dough had cooled a bit I used my pizza slicer to cut it into 8 squares and added dollops of pizza sauce to four of the slices. On top of that went the mozzarella. Colin decided he wanted a lot of sauce, so he also added pizza sauce to what would be the other pieces of his sandwiches.
Then we topped our pizzas according to our personal preference (and the ingredients we had on hand). I opted for just basil, but Colin chose basil and super hot peppers.
I then made each pair of crusts into a sandwich and brushed each side of the exterior with olive oil. Then it was time for a quick grill to help melt the mozzarella and to officially transform the sandwiches into grilled cheeses.
The sandwiches didn't spend long in the pan because I didn't want to burn the dough, so they were ready in no time.
Taste Review:
I think the combination of garlic, basil and fresh baked pizza dough combined to give the sandwich a nice aroma. And as soon as I picked it up to take a bite the messiness of the sandwich took over. The ricotta and pizza sauce combined to make it particularly runny, so multiple paper towels were necessary. Conclusion: sauce on both sides was too much. Just one side would decrease runny-ness. But we're not here to talk about that, we're here to talk about the taste, and this definitely tastes like a pizza.
The crust is good and crispy with a little sweetness to it. The pizza sauce is also sweet while the cheese is sort of neutral, and the basil definitely contrasts the sweetness of the sauce and crust. At first I liked it, but by the end I wasn't sure if it was too bitter to really enhance the sandwich. The ricotta was creamy, but didn't really bring much else to the table, so you could take or leave that (and potentially lean towards leaving it since it makes the sandwich pretty runny). Colin voted that we grate the mozzarella next time so that it melts more evenly, but I'm not sure that's necessarily needed. Overall this reminded me of a crispy calzone.
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich:
|
Pizza Grilled Cheese
|
Gooey-ness:
|
6
|
Aroma:
|
3
|
Appearance:
|
Bright red center with a golden crisp crust.
Looks like a panini. |
Taste:
|
A- |
Colin really liked the concept of this sandwich and gives the overall idea an A, however he suggested that it could be improved by customizing the filling to each person's taste preferences where toppings are concerned (in his case, add pepperoni, more peppers, etc.) and gave this iteration of the sandwich a B, so for overall grade we decided to meet in the middle with an A-.
Gooey Scale
|
Aroma Scale
|
| 1 = still cold/hard |
1 = can’t smell
a thing
|
| 2 = slightly
melted but still firm |
2 = tender waft
|
| 3 = melted evenly |
3 = makes your
stomach growl
|
| 4 = melted and slightly runny (starting
to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth
when you take a bite) |
4 = strong scent
|
| 5 = runny |
5 = overpoweringly pungent
|
| 6 = sloppy mess! |
Nice creativity!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of "Make-Your-Own" pizza grilled cheese. Pepperoni and mozzarella for me.
Thanks! And yes, I think pepperoni would be a popular addition for many pizza lovers out there.
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