Pizza Today - September 2019 - 38

INGREDIENTS

latbreads have been around thousands of years. Our early ancestors, once they learned to harness
fire, took grain, water and salt and
cooked the concoction on rocks heated by
flames. The flour they made from whatever
grains they had on hand (depending on
where they were in the world) was different
from what we use today, but the end result
laid the groundwork for what would one
day become pizza.
Most flatbreads aren't leavened. Today
they are easy enough to make
in a pizza kitchen for those
who want to offer something
different as a limited time
offering, for instance. Or you
can simply cut down the size
of your pizza dough, roll it out
really thinly, give it a shape
and call it a flatbread pizza. It
won't really be a true flatbread,
but your customers won't care
as they'll appreciate the twist
with your LTO.
We recently experimented
with flatbreads and flatbreadlike doughs in the Pizza Today
test kitchen, and the resulting
creativity yielded some great
pizzas. I'm going to start with
my personal favorite - which
had a lemon-dill cream sauce
as a base and was simply
decadent.

provided the original inspiration for the
pizza when she asked me if I had ever had
a pizza with dill pickles on it. But no such
luck - the magazine and Pizza Expo staff
devoured the thing within minutes.
For the sauce, we started with a base of
sour cream. We added in some ricotta, as
well as heavy whipping cream to thin it
a bit. We hit it with lemon juice for acid,
then added fresh garlic, salt and pepper for
flavor. Lastly, we were liberal with mixing
in fresh dill to give it the profile we sought.

I'M THE GUY WHO, AFTER
A LONG TRAINING RUN, has

no problem drinking pickle
juice right out of the jar to the
extreme disgust of my family.
Hey, it provides my body
hydration and salt - and
tastes delicious!
Okay, so pickle juice may not be for
everyone. But if you love the taste of dill
pickles, by extension you're a fan of dill. The
aromatic herb, popular in both Europe and
Asia, is often used in seafood dishes. But
recently in the Pizza Today test kitchen
we discovered it to be an amazing match
with chicken, mushrooms and peppers
when utilized in a creamy dill sauce. The
resulting pizza wasn't just beautiful, but
downright delicious. In fact, I had hoped to
sneak a piece of it to a friend of mine who
3 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9

It turned out remarkably well.
Using that sauce as the base, we added
pulled grilled chicken, fresh chopped
Portobello mushrooms, crumbled bacon
and roasted bell peppers. We then topped
it with Asiago cheese and fresh mozzarella.
Post bake we hit it with more fresh dill for
color and flavor. This pizza smelled and
tasted absolutely amazing!
WE WERE THINKING FALL A BIT WITH
THE NEXT PIZZA AND WANTED TO USE

FRESH APPLE. We knew it would need

to be a white pie as well, so we went with
an olive oil/light garlic base and added
chicken sausage, honey crisp apple, arugula
and provolone cheese. As simple as this
pizza was, the chicken sausage and apple
paired remarkably well together, and the
arugula made a nice, slightly bitter contrast
to the sweetness of the apple. In all, this
one was another winner as well.
Either of these pizzas could be ideal
LTOs this autumn, and your bar staff could
have fun offering
up beer and wine
pairings for your
servers to suggest
with each one. Get
in the kitchen with
the ingredients and
experiment until you
find a variation of
your liking. You may
enjoy the combinations we utilized, or
the process may spur
your own creativity
and you may end up
taking the ideas in
another direction.
But, either way, the
key to a fun LTO is
to step outside the
norm and offer your
customers something
they can't get on your
menu daily.
While flatbreads
obviously are not a
prerequisite to doing
this, you might find
working with them
provides your staff
and customers a
break from the norm,
and it'll give your service crew a nice story
to tell as they connect with your guests
over a brief pizza history lesson.
The emphasis here is to push the boundaries just a bit, but not too far, while having
fun and offering your customer base a
delicious reason to order from your pizzeria
more frequently. n
JEREMY WHITE is

Pizza Today.

Editor-in-Chief at

http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - September 2019

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