“So this grape walks into this pizza joint…”
and ended up on my pizza. I know.. “What??? Grapes on pizza??? Have you lost it lady? Did you huff flour Lor?” I know it sounds crazy and would never, ever be something you’d ever think to put on a pizza but seriously it’s totally mind blowing (in a delicious way!) So okay you know how I have my Prosciutto Pizza Parma recipe well this recipe is kinda sorta like that but elevated. It’s a bit more refined; hoity toity if you will .
You know how Friday nights in my house is pizza night, right? Well don’t ask me what in the world I was thinking but I ended up making a double batch of dough, which isn’t a bad thing HOWEVER I make an 18″ pizza every Friday night – for 2 people. Two. FYI.. that’s a HUGE pizza. Traditionally that’s the size of an X-large pizza in a regular shop. Like I said, big. And yes, every single Friday night. Now no, we don’t eat it all that night. Dear God! My yoga pants would set themselves on fire if I did that! We just then have pizza to snack on over the weekend. Plus I LOVE cold pizza for breakfast. Anyway, I had extra dough to make another whole pizza. So into the fridge went the dough.
Saturday after the gym I went shopping for groceries. My store had GORGEOUS red seedless grapes. However I’ll confess I do try one before I buy as I loathe bitter grapes. But these, OMG so sweet and juicy. In that trip I also picked up some prosciutto and arugula. When I got home, the fruit got washed and the pizza dough got pulled out as I was just going to make a prosciutto pizza. I so love that pizza! It’s not heavy like traditional pizza and since I just got home from the gym I didn’t feel as guilty eating it. Ha who am I kidding? I’m never guilty when I eat pizza!
So as I had the dough coming to room temperature I was snacking on these grapes. Since grapes have no protein, I broke the prosciutto and Parmesan cheese. Then it hit me – see what happens when you put them all together – grapes, prosciutto and Parmesan. I mean prosciutto wrapped melon is good so why wouldn’t grapes? It was good but it was one-note. It was sweet and slightly salty but it needed more depth. The first time I roasted grapes, I seriously fell in love. If you recall when I made my roasted grape crostinis I had prosciutto on it and that flavor combination was true money!
On the oven went to get to temp and out came the pan and olive oil as those fat seedless grapes were getting roasted. Normally when you roast grapes you go for about 15 minutes or until they start to just split but since I was putting these on pizza I opted for about 10 minutes just to start the almost blister-process. If I roasted them all the way they would have turned to mush when I put them on the pizza to bake. And I could have added them after the pizza was done but I wasn’t sure if it would get all of the herbed flavor. For aesthetics and the photo shoot I put a few rogue ones on top of the pizza.
Since this pizza was meant to be healthy and lighter I opted to stretch it into a thinner crust so I could get that crunch. It wouldn’t be gooey or cheesy so crunchy is where I went. So yeah, look at the crust pictures and all of the layers. That’s money people! This is that crust that when you pick up the pizza you don’t have to worry about it flopping over or have to fold it in half. I know, I know – if you ask any New Yorker pizza must be thin AND foldable. Well I’m not in New York and I wanted thin and crispy 🙂 So shush LOL
Once the grapes were done and cooled a bit it was time to put this puppy into full motion! The pizza dough got stretched and topped with a light coating of my Herbed Tuscan Oil and some additional herbs. A few minutes in the oven just to firm up the dough to make it more of a ‘shell’ and out it came to get topped with some shaved Parmesan and those roasted grapes (they needed to finish roasting). As the pizza continued to cook you could smell the herbed oil getting all warm and the grapes from their sweetness. Seriously it was heavenly!
As soon as it came out of the oven on went the arugula, prosciutto and a bit more shaved Parmesan. Okay fine, a lot more shaved parm. Wha? I love cheese. The trick with this is to put the stuff on as soon as it comes out of the oven as you want that residual heat to just kinda-sorta wilt the arugula and warm up the prosciutto. A drizzle or two more of the oil and out came the pizza cutter.
There is nothing more awesome than that initial sound a pizza cutter makes when it first pierces the crust. I honestly contemplated cutting more than a single line cut in this thing as I didn’t want to take precious eating time away by “wasting it” on cutting the pizza. Hey! I was starving man! However I restrained and finished cutting the pizza. No sooner did I sit down and Mr. Fantabulous came into the kitchen. “Hey what’cha got, can I have some, where’s mine, what is that, are those grapes, you put grapes on pizza??? Gross….what’cha make me?”
Sigh… NEVER. A. DULL. MOMENT with that man. NEVER. Since the oven was still warmed I hurried up and threw leftover pizza in it for him to eat and went back to eating this. He sat there watching me take that first bite – his nose crinkled up and the look of ‘ick’ came across his face as I took my first bite. However as soon as I bit down, that roasted grape exploded in my mouth filling it with a sweet roasted juice infused with the saltiness of the prosciutto, the creaminess of the cheese, that peppery arugula, all those herbs from the oil and that crispness of the crust.
SERIOUSLY AMAZING!
Now he wouldn’t even give this a try as he’s a snob and doesn’t like ‘change’. Well okay that’s not so much true as he doesn’t like things that he deems perfect modified or tweaked. He will gripe why “can’t you leave well enough alone??? It’s already perfect as-is” Yeah, no – that doesn’t work with me. There is always something bigger, better, faster, tastier. I’m talking food here peeps *wink* So this pizza was all mine to which I think when I want to be a total glutton I will make this every single time as I know he won’t touch it! LOL
Seriously though, break out of your pepperoni double cheese comfort zone and make this. It’s a full blown game changer!
PrintRoasted Grape Prosciutto 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
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2–3 cups red seedless grapes
- 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 3 tablespoon Really Good Extra Virgin Olive Oil – divided
- 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 grapes on a large rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and Sea Salt.
- Using your hands gently toss coating the grapes evenly.
- Bake for 10 minutes or just until the skin of the grapes start to shrivel.
- Remove the pan from the oven and allow to cool.
- 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 and red pepper flakes 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 grapes.
- 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, remaining cheese and drizzle additional Tuscan Herbed Oil over top.
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