Now if you ask any one that knows me what my favorite food is it would literally be a tie. Bacon and Pizza. Like I love them both like they were my job. Heck pizza for a while was my job. It is that one dish I never EVER get tired of eating. It’s that one dish that transcends breakfast, lunch, dinner, appetizer, snack, late night meal or post 2am bar food. It’s great cold, hot or luke warm. Here’s something I bet you don’t know – if I eat cold pizza… are you ready for this? I HAVE to have it with a glass of ice cold milk. But wait, there’s more… I HAVE to dip my cold pizza in my milk. Yeah I know, “EWWWWWWWWWWWW!” but I’ve done that ever since I was little. I told you guys eons ago I was a ‘dipper kind of eater’. Pizza is no exception. If it’s hot it gets dipped in pizza sauce. Cold gets milk. Luke warm I can go either way. Crazy, I know!
Just like clockwork I made another batch of pizza dough. Every week I make homemade pizza for us. Typically I make 2. A ginormous 20″ round one for him and a smaller one for me. He’s pretty simple when it comes to toppings. He totally loves just plain or pepperoni where I like to go outside the norm. We’re talking avocados, eggs, hash browns, bbq chicken, chocolate, peanut butter, etc… This week was no exception. Since I had visited a local hoity toity grocery store (that shall remain nameless as I don’t want to get sued) I managed to get some amazing baby arugula for super cheap.
I’ve developed this serious love for arugula in my adult life. Now full disclosure I am not a fan of regular arugula as I find it more bitter. I prefer the baby arugula as it’s more tender and in my opinion, tastier. So that being said, I knew I wanted to incorporate arugula in this pizza. Now while I was at the snobby store there is an Italian deli near by that sells some of the best prosciutto. I’ve bought the pre-packaged stuff and it’s good but once you’ve had it straight from an Italian deli, there’s no turning back. It’s pure love for me.
So as I was making Mr. Fantabulous his 20″ pie for him to inhale in about 2 days I got to working on mine. I took out my bottle of Tuscan Herbed Oil from the fridge to come to room temperature. I got to slicing some cocktail tomatoes in half. If you’ve never heard of cocktail tomatoes they are about twice the size of a cherry tomato and still on the stem. Now I hate tomatoes in this form but when they are roasted, they tend to take on an amazing flavor. I’ve had cherry tomatoes roasted and they are good but if you can find cocktail tomatoes, use those as the flavor is amazing! And since I was at the Italian deli I picked up some fresh Parmesan cheese. Please don’t use that pre-shredded stuff. It’s not the same on this pizza. You want the hard brick of cheese that you have to shave yourself. TRUST ME ON THIS!
As he was scarfing up his pizza I roasted my tomatoes and got the rest of the ingredients ready. As soon as those tomatoes were done, I topped the pizza with a light coating of that oil in the oven to par bake, then pulled it out topping it with some cheese and tomatoes. Baked it til it was golden brown. Now normally you would then have the arugula, prosciutto and some more cheese put on top then sliced but I wanted to take that chill off of the prosciutto so I popped it in the oven just for another minute.
Folks, this was the BEST decision I ever made regarding pizza like this! The prosciutto became so tender and the shaved cheese on top softened just a tad. It didn’t melt but it softened enough to make it infuse into the meat and arugula. To finish it off I drizzled some more of the Tuscan Herbed Oil on top. I so wish you were in my kitchen to smell this pizza as it was AMAZING!
Now remember that 20″ pizza I made the eating machine? Well he had 3 huge slices (literally they are equivalent to 6 normal slices). As I’m cutting mine and you hear that crunch of the pizza cutter running through the crust I hear “sniff sniff sniff what kind did you make?” So I told him to which I got “ew, you always make funk… ” cue me sitting down at the table during his mid sentence “funky… hey! What’s that? That looks amazing!” LOL Yeah you know where this is heading, don’t you?! Fortunately the phone rang and he got distracted (Squirrel! LOL) and forgot about this pizza… *sigh* for 10 minutes. He ended up eating some but that’s okay. My thighs thanked him for it. LOL He loved it as it was a white pizza, which he loves but with a twist. It was fresh and light but filling. This is a definite keeper!
PrintProsciutto Pizza Parma
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Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce Best Pizza Dough
- 3 cups fresh shaved Parmesan cheese
- 1/2–3/4 cup Tuscan Herbed Oil
- 2 cups cocktail or cherry tomatoes, halved
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 2–3 cups baby arugula
- 8–10 slices prosciutto
Instructions
- Follow the instructions on making the pizza dough.
- Preheat the oven to 400F.
- Place the cocktail tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Gently stir around with your hands.
- Roast for 15-20 minutes.
- Remove from oven and plate to rest.
- Thirty minutes before baking (and the dough is ready), place a Pizza Stone on the lower third rack or invert a metal pan and place on the rack.
- Raise the oven temp to 500F for 30 minutes. *if using a Pizza Screen , do not preheat the screen but place the oven rack on the lower third rung.
- If using the pizza stone or inverted pan, stretch out the dough and place on a flour dusted paddle. If you don’t have a paddle stretch out on a flour/corn meal dusted parchment paper.
- Stretch the dough into a round, thin crust, leaving the outer edge slightly thicker.
- Drizzle the Tuscan Herbed Oil over the crust to a 1/2” rim for the crust.
- Bake on the lower rack for 4 minutes.
- Remove from oven and top with 2 cups of cheese and roasted tomatoes.
- Return to oven and bake for an additional 4-6 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
- Remove from the oven, top with arugula, prosciutto and remaining cheese.
- Return to oven for 1 minute (just enough to get the Parmesan to soften slightly).
- Remove from oven and drizzle additional Tuscan Herbed Oil over top.
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