Baked Portabella Parmesan “Pizza”

Yield: 24 servings

24 large portabella mushrooms Olive oil Salt and pepper, to taste

6 cups tomato marinara sauce 24 fresh basil leaves, julienned Crushed red pepper flakes

6 cups (1½ lbs.) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1½ cups ( 6 oz.) grated Parmesan cheese

Method: For each serving, brush both
sides of mushroom cap with oil. Season
with salt and pepper. Place mushroom,
gill side down, in baking dish. Broil
4 minutes; remove. Turn gill side up; broil
4 minutes. Spread 2 T. marinara sauce
in small baking dish; place mushroom on
top, gill side up. Sprinkle with 1 t. basil,
some red pepper flakes and 2 T. sauce.
Top with ¼ cup mozzarella cheese and
1 T. Parmesan. Bake at 400°F until
cheese begins to brown.

Mushroom Council and mushroominfo.com

Tavern 17 at the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia. He grills olive-oil covered pizza bread (flat lavash) and layers on prosciutto, fig slices and Gorgonzola, flash bakes in the oven for 4-5 minutes, then tosses arugula in lemon pepper oil and salt and places on top at the end. The flavor balance of sweet, salty, earthy and peppery “is like a little explosion,” he says.

He’s also seen, in Chicago-deep-dish fashion, a restaurant fill a soup bowl with cheese and tomato sauce, place the dough on top, bake it and turn the bowl over, allowing the ingredients to turn out in the right order on the plate.

In addition to sometimes using focaccia bread as a crust, Martin with BJ’s restaurants has used tortillas. In that case, he suggests going light on the sauce to avoid sogginess. He has also seen cornmeal-like pie dough used for appetizer pizzas.

French bread cut at an angle and lightly toasted makes a phenomenal appetizer pizza, he adds. It’s oval-shaped and allows for a dollop of a chef’s favorite sauce, cheese, such as Brie, then sausage or salami and a finish of sun-dried tomatoes.

Recipe is courtesy of the Mushroom Council and mushroominfo.com.

thin slice of lardo, which almost bakes away, leaving the delicious flavor and an aspic-like coating. “The interesting ingredients make people jump to them versus a basic pepperoni, sausage or mushroom pizza,” he says.

• Another unique pizza Young enjoys combines Merlot jelly and Brie cheese finished with arugula. Sycamore Lane Merlot is reduced in a pan with cinnamon, allspice and sugar, cooked, and spread on top of flatbread pizza or lavash, and topped with Brie before it goes into the oven. They melt together, and, post-baking, arugula is added.

For a polenta “crust,” Corrieri suggests cooking thick polenta enriched with eggs and cheese to bind it a bit. Lay it out flat on a sheet pan with parchment paper, allow it to sweat, cool it down and place it in the walk-in refrigerator for an hour. Then, cut shapes with a cookie cutter or a knife. For service, place it in the oven or fryer to warm and crisp it up, and top it with any topping. Corrieri has made it with caramelized Vidalia onions along with a little thyme and garlic salt.

• Pizza salad is another appetizer possibility, Corrieri suggests. Using a traditional 6- or 8-inch pizza dough circle made from a cutter rather than pressing, he suggests brushing on olive oil and salt, and baking at 550°F or 600°F to get it to puff up into a hollow ball. Then, cool it, and crack the side and fill with a small salad.

CRUST OPPORTUNITIES While there are plenty of ideas using traditional pizza crust, some chefs find that appetizers lend themselves to a little creative crust license.

Corrieri believes pizza appetizers provide a great opportunity to work with seasonal ingredients. “They will be cheaper ingredients, and you can get good press for being local and seasonal,” he says.

• Prosciutto, Gorgonzola and fig pizza
with arugula is a favorite appetizer pizza
of Benjamin Young, executive chef at
Whole-wheat, rye or a combination of
flour types works, as do flatbreads of
various shapes and sizes. But Goldberg of
Welldone Restaurant Concepts has also
seen inverted portabella mushrooms, gills
removed, used as a “crust” and stuffed
with tomato sauce, cheese and other pizza
ingredients and baked off in the oven.

Jody Shee, an Olathe, Kan.-based freelance writer and editor, previously was editor of a foodservice magazine. She has 20 years of food-writing experience and writes the blog www.sheefood.com.