Cook: Potato Pizza

That’s right boys and girls… I said potato! Now I’ll be the first to admit I was a little skeptical at first but trust me on this one, well worth a try. Instead of having tomato sauce on top of the base, super finely sliced potato creates a whole new pizza experience.

Now I am not suggesting a potato alone makes a pizza, in fact the observant among you will have noticed some other toppings there too. But its certainly a neat way to mix things up a little and use potato in a new and exciting way! (exciting might be pushing it a little, but it’s tasty :P)

As a gentle introduction to the world of potato pizza, here we sort of had a loaded potato skins theme going on, with bacon, leek and goats cheese. But feel free to have fun with it and make it your own.

Potato Pizza (makes 2 9″ pizzas)

Ingredients

1/2 Batch easy white bread dough

1 large potato

1 leek finely shredded

6 rashers of streaky bacon diced

60 g goats cheese

1 ball mozzarella (have a peek here how to make your own if you really feel like a project)

1. Dough – Mix and knead the white bread dough as per the original recipe, cover and leave to rise for an hour somewhere warm. Split the dough in two and stretch each piece out into two 9″ rounds onto a lightly greased baking sheet (I usually use the removable bases from my 9″ springform cake tins as my pizza bases. Cover with greased clingfilm and leave to rest while you sort out the toppings.

2. Hot things – In a shallow pan, slowly fry the bacon on a medium heat until it is super crispy. Set aside in a bowl and add the shredded leeks to the bacon pan. Cook on a medium heat until the leeks have softened and eaten up lots of that good bacon flavour.

3. Cold things – Finely slice the potato as if you were trying to make homemade crisps (chips for the Americans out there :P). If you have a mandolin (the slicer rather than instrument) this will make your life lots easier, but easy enough with a knife if you take it slow and avoid your fingers.

4. Build – Uncover the pizza bases and cover each with a single layer of the sliced potato until the whole base is covered, leaving a little clear space at the edges for the crust. Add the bacon and leeks and finish off with the goats cheese and mozzarella ripped and shared liberally across both pizzas.

5. Cook – Place both pizzas in a hot oven (220ºC) for 10-15 minutes or until everything has browned and got more delicious looking. To finish off, finally slip the pizzas off their baking sheets and place back in the oven for two minutes. This will make sure the bottoms of the pizzas are nice and crisp (no one wants a soggy bottom on their pizza now do they). Take out, find some friends of family to grab a slice and enjoy!