Ultimate Friday Night Pizza

This is my ultimate pizza to make at home. I saw Tyler Florence make it years ago while in Italy on his old show, Tyler's Ultimate. I loved that the woman demonstrating made it in a rectangle pan, sort of Sicilian style.

I hadn't made it in a while, and forgot about our Friday night pizza nights. Winter is the perfect time to stay in and make a homemade pizza. Even if you don't have a pizza stone or pizza oven (which most people don't), you can use a regular oven at 500F.
Just make sure your oven is clean, or your smoke alarm will be ringing in no time.

My husband is the dough flipper in the house, since I am dough challenged. Must be his Italian roots.

This is a tomato-less pie, perfect for the winter months when there are no good tomatoes or basil in site.

You can make your favorite pizza dough recipe, or cheat like me, and buy a ball of pizza dough from Trader Joe's.

We cook this in a full size sheet pan and it comes out thin, crispy and fabulous. You can use any greens for the top (except iceberg lettuce, please).





Ultimate Friday Night Pizza: (adapted from Tyler's Ultimate)

1 ball of fresh pizza dough (enough for a 16" large pie), best recipe here

2 large onions, sliced thin
2 sprigs rosemary
olive oil
kosher or sea salt & pepper
2 balls of fresh mozzarella packed in water (a 10 oz. container)
6 oz. Serrano ham (speck or prosciutto is fine too)
handful of fresh spinach or arugula leaves
truffle oil for drizzling the top

Preheat your oven to 500F for at least 30 minutes before cooking the pizza.

Start by caramelizing the onions. In a heavy skillet, cook the onions in olive oil with the rosemary leaves on medium heat for about 12 minutes until nice and soft, sprinkling them with sea salt while they are cooking. Set aside.



Brust a 16" full size sheet pan with a tablespoon of olive oil.

Roll out your dough and fit it the sheet pan. Brush some olive oil on top of the dough, so it's nice and shiny.

Tear the mozzarella cheese into blobs and haphazardly lay it all over the dough.
Next toss the onions w/ rosemary over and in between the pieces of cheese.

Tear the Serrano or speck into pieces and drape all over the pizza.
Finish w/ a handful of greens (I like fresh spinach or arugula) thrown on top of the pizza. Sprinkle w/ sea salt and black pepper.



Cook the pizza in a 500F preheated oven for 12 minutes. I rotate mine after 6 minutes to the bottom rack of the oven, don't ask me why, I just do it.

Lift the pizza corner to see if the crust is nice and crispy to your liking, if not, put it back for another minute or two.

Most important part: Drizzle with a tbsp of truffle oil.



The pizza will slide right out of the pan onto the cutting board for slicing.

Let rest a minute, then slice into rectangles and serve.

Have a great weekend and enjoy!

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