Mmm...crispy...

Making pizza at home is never that great. Unless you have some pro gear, most home ovens can’t really get hot enough. That’s what makes pizza special though, so simple but so hard to pull off well. You can make your own dough, it’s pretty easy and there are tons of recipes online, I usually just buy store bought dough though, ideally from an Italian market, or some pizza places will sell you dough if you ask them, that’s the move. Whole Foods has a pretty decent plain dough if you can’t find anything, just make sure you don’t get the Trader Joe’s one. I have also included a recipe for a rosemary and garlic infused pizza sauce, but you can use your own too.

The skin of a chicken is extremely resilient and delicious, you can cook the hell out of it. I buy a cooked chicken once a week, use the skin for crispy bits, the meat for filling burritos, sandwiches, 2 AM wing snacking, and the bones for stock making. Plus they’re $7.99 at Whole Foods, $9.99 for organic. After this bird has been cooked to a dark golden brown at the market, I remove the skin carefully and bake for an HOUR in the oven at 400, the moisture is removed and the skin turns plastic like, brittle and packed with flavor, like a perfectly crisp pepperoni charred from the oven. I think it makes a strange and exciting pizza topping that pairs well with a rosemary and garlic infused sauce, classic chicken flavors.

Sure making a pizza at home isn’t ideal, but if you preheat your oven to its highest temperature for about 30 minutes, cook your pie on the floor of the oven, closest to the heat source, and oil your pan liberally, you can get a pretty satisfying little pizza at home to snack on throughout the weekend.

Chicken Skins

Equipment

Two Half Sheet Pans 13” x 18”

Parchment paper

Ingredients

One store bought rotisserie chicken, cooked

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. Carefully remove all chicken skin from the bird, trying to get it all off in large pieces.
3. A chicken straight out of the refrigerator will be harder to get the skin off, so do it when you get home from the market and its still warm from the trunk.
4. Lay all the pieces on a parchment lined baking sheet, spaced evenly.
5. When completed, cover with another sheet of parchment paper, and another baking sheet, locking in the chicken skin to stay flat, and protected from direct heat blasting.
6. Bake for 1 hour. When cooled, skin should easily pull from the parchment, crumble with hands so you get some nice sized bits, a food processor or knife gets annoying and messy.
7. Reserve for later, taste a little though.

Rosemary Garlic Pizza Sauce

Equipment

Blender

Mesh strainer

Ingredients

14 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes, I like cherry

2 tbsp tomato paste

3 garlic cloves, rough chop or thin slice (not too small so it doesn’t burn)

1-2 tbsp of finely chopped fresh rosemary (depending on taste)

1.5 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp sugar

Pinch of red chili flake, to taste

Directions

1. In your smallest little pot, heat olive oil to low-medium heat
2. Add finely chopped rosemary, garlic, and red chili flake
3. Fry gently for 5-10 minutes, stirring often, lower heat if garlic is browning, don’t burn the garlic! Keep it looking blonde, even a little browning will make this whole sauce too bitter
4. Strain olive oil through a fine mesh strainer, perhaps into a slightly large but still small pot
5. Heat medium pot to medium heat, add tomato paste and fry for a couple minutes, get some moisture out and some dark complex colors created, stir often
6. Add canned tomatoes, stir for a minute and scrape the bottom bits stuck from the paste
7. Cook for 30 minutes on medium heat, covered, just a slow bubble
8. Add everything to a blender, season with salt and sugar, blend to smooth everything out for a minute, check for seasoning, add more salt or sugar if it’s not singing for you, pizza sauce should be a lil sweet, remember

Pizza

Ingredients

pizza dough, store bought or homemade 16 oz

Mozzarella cheese (hard, not soft) 8 oz thinly sliced, not grated

Pizza sauce, amount to your liking

One chicken’s worth of skin

Enough olive oil to thinly coat a sheet pan

Directions

1. An hour before making pizza, remove dough from refrigerator to come up to room temp
2. Preheat oven to literally as hot as it gets, for 30 minutes, you want it to be as hot as possible, arrange oven racks to allow easy access to the very bottom of your oven, that’s where we’re cooking
3. Apply a thin layer of olive oil to your sheet pan, about 1 tbsp, just use your hands and make sure every surface is covered, up the sides too
4. Using your oily hands still, start the process of stretching your dough to the pan, just smash it down in the center and start moving it out to the corners a bit, do this for a minute and let it rest for 10 minutes
5. 10 minutes later, repeat, stretch some more, it will be easier but still not quite there, just be patient
6. By now it should have rested long enough to finally cover the pan, and look at that your oven is like, scary hot now
7. Now slice your mozzarella instead of grating it, apply directly to the dough, and then sauce on top of that, protecting your cheese from drying out, and having a sauce to catch and hold all the chicken skin toppings after
8. I like pan style pizzas extra saucy, so I go a little heavier with it, but that’s your call for sauce amount, sometimes I’ll even apply more sauce near the end
9. For a pan pizza like this, I also sauce all the way to the corner, not leaving a crust handle
10. Bake in your oven, on the floor of your oven, not on the bottom rack, but directly on the floor of your oven
11. Baking time is 10-15 minutes depending on oven strength. After 10 minutes I like to pull my pizza out and run a spatula under the dough. 1: to make sure the bottom is cooked and has some nice color to it, and 2: to unstick any dough that could be stuck
12. When cheese is melty, crust is goldn brown and cooked through, emove from pan to a cutting board, sprinkle evenly with crumbled chicken skin, slice into small rectangles, eat immediately
13. Also don’t be afraid to grate some parmesan on top if you’ve got it