Salad Pizza

[Pizzaio Pazzo]

Buongiorno a tutti!

Recently made a Greek Salad Pizza. Tasted good but couldn't help feel that I would have preferred a salad alongside a pizza. Why? Couldn't really taste the crust enough.

Any suggestions for salads that sit well atop a crispy crust?

The simple salad-pizza stylings of Gino's of Great Neck, NY work well (iceberg, green olives, onion, tomato and vinaigrette on a New York crust with tomato sauce but no mozzarella); still, I am beginning to think that salads and pizzas shouldl remain apart. Any opinions?

[canadianbacon]

I've never heard of this before, but my first thoughts would be to put the salad onto the top
of the pizza at the moment of serving.  Did you see this in an actual restaurant ? or was this something
you thought up ?

As for me, I like my salad on the side.

This makes me kind of think of a spaghetti pizza I made some 15 years ago, I made it once and it
didn't go over well with my drinking buddies at the time.  If you want to eat spaghetti eat spaghetti,
if you want pizza, eat pizza I guess is what they said.  It was a long time ago, but I rememeber it
being ok, but it wasn't great.

Mark

[Perk]

The only type of salad I eat on pizza is when I make a Mexican style pizza and the shredded Iceburg lettuce is always put on after the pizza is cooked, the lettuce has to be cold and crisp otherwise it's a no go.

[AKSteve]

Seriously, you actually put lettuce on your pizza? I'd love to see a pic of the finished product. I can't imagine that worked out very well.

When I make a Greek pizza, I do it like this: The sauce is olive oil with minced fresh garlic and greek oregano sprinkled on top. Then a layer of 50/50 mozzarella and feta (I really like Valbreso French Feta). The toppings are fresh tomatoes, sliced red onion, and Kalamato olives (rinsed, pitted, & sliced), plus another sprinkling of greek oregano. Maybe some bell peppers could go on as well.

Some people use butter instead of olive oil for the base, but I really don't know why. I also have no idea why some pizza places put ham on a greek pizza. Squid or greek chicken or anything remotely mediterranean would make more sense to me.

I guess my response doesn't really answer the question about putting a Greek salad on a pizza. So my answer is that I just use the parts of the salad that seem to work on a pizza. Like I've never tried to put cucumbers on my Greek pizza, because I don't think they would taste good cooked. And, just so you know, Greek salad doesn't have to have lettuce. Without lettuce, it's called Horiatiki Salata, which means villager's salad.

Steve

[canadianbacon]

Hi Steve,

that is so interesting that you posted that great info.  Just last week I was watching a show on Food TV Canada
and the chef who is Greek ( Christine Cushing ) anyway, she had 3 Greet guests on her show, and for the salad
she said she was going ot make a Greek salad, but mentioned that she was making it as a very authentic
original salad - which didn't include lettuce.. - I have never heard of that before, so took note of what she said,
and now you bring that up, so I thought that was reather cool 

info on that show, and actual episode is here:
http://www.foodtv.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=91900

And, just so you know, Greek salad doesn't have to have lettuce. Without lettuce, it's called Horiatiki Salata, which means villager's salad.

Steve

[Pete-zza]

I once made a version of Wolfgang Puck's chicken Caesar's salad pizza. Apparently his latest version is this one: http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/recipedetail.php?Alias=RE_WP3086. I liked the pizza a lot because it was out of the ordinary.

Peter

[kling]

If anyone finds themselves in Armonk, NY or thereabouts, i highly recommend the salad pizza from Broadway North. It was simply amazing. It was a couple years ago and I have no idea how they did it, but they did. I've tried salad pizza from other pizzerias since and they've been simply awful, especially in comparison to Broadway North.

[canadianbacon]

Hey AKSteve,

check out this out, 

http://tinyurl.com/roela

it's a snippit of the show where the chef is explaining the Greek salad history

 

[Pizzaio Pazzo]

Would like to post a photo of the pizza (which is 872 KB) but it exceeds the maximum attachment size allowed (128KB).
Any suggestions how I could post it?

[Pete-zza]

Pizzaio Pazzo,

Maybe the instructions here will help: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2359.0.html.

Peter

[AKSteve]

Here's a pic of a Greek pizza I made yesterday. It came out really great, with the exceptions of not being quite round and having a bit too large of a border. The problems I had in forming it (it was too easy to stretch) probably came from using too much water in my dough recipe. I finally bought a digital scale and now I'm going to start experimenting with hydration percentages. This was 63%, next time I'll try 60%.

Anyway, this pizza tasted fantastic. It was one of those pizzas where you go back and start cutting smaller slices off of the large pieces just because you want to have a little bit more.

(sorry only one pic, my camera died)

Steve

[Pete-zza]

AKSteve,

Now all you have to do is put a few pieces of precooked gyro slices and some tzaziki sauce and you will have a laid out gyro sandwich . I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Peter

[scott r]

I want a gyro pizza right now!

Can you buy those precooked meat slices at a retail store?  Obviously they are sold to pizzerias and the like, but I don't think I have ever seen any in a grocery store.

[Pete-zza]

scott,

I have found the gyro slices in a Middle-Eastern food market. They are precooked and frozen in a one-pound package. The brand is Kronos-Central, out of Chicago. They are the folks who seem to supply most of the restaurants that do not have their own gyros on a spit. As you know, gyros don't include olives, but if I were to use them on a gyro pizza I would go for the Greek kalamatas. I would get the olives with the pits in them and remove them myself. For some reason, the pre-pitted kalamatas have an odd taste to me.

FYI, there is a gyro pizza recipe at Reply 4 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,508.msg4450.html#msg4450.

Peter

[AKSteve]

Pete-zza,

That greek pizza was one that I made for my sister, who's a vegetarian, so meat wasn't an option. Although if I made one with sliced gyro on it, I'll bet she'd still taste it as she's the kind of vegetarian who will occasionally eat bacon if she gets a whiff of it cooking.

I don't know about the Kronos brand gyro meat, but the Athenian Delight brand stuff that I have access to is way too thinly sliced for me. The A.D. stuff is also sold as a 4lb cooked loaf which can be sliced to any thickness.

There's a place up here that bakes their gyros almost like a calzone. The meat is on the bottom, topped with tzatziki sauce, slice tomatoes & onions. I don't think they put any cucumbers on it, although there is still some in the tzatziki sauce.

If I made a gyro pizza, I think I'd skip the cheese. I don't think feta reallly goes with gyro meat. I did make a really great calzone once that was just sliced chicken gyro meat & mozzarella cheese. I think I might try that again, but I'll add some diced white onion in with the mozzarella.

Steve

[lilpizzaplace_ohio]

recently we added A BLT pizza at our pizzeria


Mayo base with shredded smoked provolone, then many slices of bacon, then cook...then once out of the oven, we spread crisp lettuce all over, then sprinkle diced roman tomatoes..VERy Beautiful pizza..WE normally try and wait to put the lettuce and tomato on till the customer comes...YOU WANT crisp veggies..I'll take pics and post...for such few ingredients this pizza is great.........