Pizza Bianca
Freshly baked crust, topped with Roma tomatoes, leaves of fresh basil and mozzarella cheese, but without tomato sauce makes this a White Pizza, or Pizza Bianca, as they say in Rome.
Can-O-Dis It Is
Not sure what can-o-dis means? Go to the Kitchen Tapestry section of Culinary Terminology. And that’s what this recipe technically is because its basis is a canned roll of Pillsbury Pizza Crust dough. I know that any proud Sicilian, denizen of Rome or even a New Yorker would condemn me in the strongest possible terms for using such an abomination of industrialized, processed foodstuffs, but I don't care.
There are other ways to make a decent pizza crust, but none easier, and I'm as much an old man as I am a proud culinarian. This is delicious. Prove me wrong.
I modified the original version of this recipe from the One Little Project website by taking a page from the Pizza Margherita playbook, and topped my pizza with thinly sliced Roma tomatoes and leaves of fresh torn basil. Along with fresh mozzarella, this blend of ingredients was made famous in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Naples because they were the colors of the Italian flag. The dish was named after the ruling monarch at the time, Queen Margherita of Savoy. I didn't use fresh mozzarella in this recipe, opting for the more traditional aged variety. I also elected to keep this a lighter pizza since I was serving it as an appetizer and did not start the toppings by adding tomato sauce, making this a favored street food pizza in Rome, known as Pizza Bianca.
I strongly recommend using Roma tomatoes. Their slender, firm texture makes for the perfect fresh pizza topping.
Pizza Biana
Ingredients
- 1 13.8-oz can of refrigerated pizza dough (like, Pillsbury "Classic Crust")
- 3 tbsp butter, melted in the microwave oven
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp dried oregano leaves
- 2 small Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
- handful fresh basil leaves
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese, thick shredded (like, Tillamook "Farmstyle Thick Cut")
- non-stick cooking spray (like, Pam Olive Oil)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F with a rack in the top 1/4 of your oven.
- Line a sheet pan or cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray lightly with non-stick cooking spray, then roll out the pizza crust on top. Push the dough outward, but maintain the rectangle shape.
- Add the garlic powder and oregano to the melted butter, and using a basting or pastry brush, liberally slather on the melted butter mixture over the top of the dough.
- Put the dough into the oven for 7-8 minutes to par-bake it, then remove to your work surface.
- Lay out the Roma tomatoes end-to-end in a straight line at the right and left sides of the dough rectangle. You'll get about seven of them in a single line.
- Place torn fresh basil leaves on top of each Roma tomato slice.
- Using a pizza cutter and the Roma tomatoes as your guide for width, slice the dough into 7 individual strips; then, by making a cut down the lengthwise center of the dough, divide the two sides so that you have 14 individual rectangular slices.
- Top with the two cheeses, Parmesan first.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes until the cheese has melted and the crust is taking on a golden brown color.
- Use the pizza cutter to follow your previous cuts in the pizza crust to separate the rectangles for serving.
