Red potato pizza pie

After discovering Mellow Mushroom on our Carolinas trip, I wanted to try to recreate the red potato pizza pie we had in Charleston. It was one of the best things we ate; a garlic base topped with roasted red potato, caramelised onion, bacon, sour cream and spicy ranch dressing.

RED POTATO PIZZA PIE.

I'd seen Dan Lepard's pizza pie recipe in the Guardian recently so decided to use that as the dough recipe. Interestingly he suggested using baking tins to stop the pizza spreading out and presumably to make that a lovely big puffy crust.  

Cornmeal mush, starter, flour.

Dough a-proving.

I got some bargain red potatoes from a farm in Ongar at Walthamstow market (£1.30 for 5kg). I sliced these to pound coin thickness and roasted them with a sprinkling of olive oil and salt for 15 minutes at 180C. I caramelised a couple of sliced onions and fried off two diced bacon slices. Lastly I grated some cheddar and tore up a ball of mozzarella. 

Pies about to go in oven.

I prepared Dan's dough as per recipe. I rolled out two bases which I put in two 20cm sandwich tins. One crushed garlic clove was sprinkled on the bases, followed by the potato slices, onions, mozzarella, cheddar and bacon bits. The pizzas went in the oven at 180C for 20 minutes, then I covered them with foil and put them in for a further 25 minutes. 

Before serving, I drizzled them with sour cream and a made up spicy ranch type dressing (mayo, Tabasco, paprika). 

Verdict: rather delicious topping but too much bread to topping. I think the pizza dough would be more suited to a tomato based sauce like Dan uses. But I'll definitely make the topping again - probably just using a more conventional base next time!

Like most pizzas - still tasty the day after with some random cherry tomatoes and Brie to have with the giant crust. 

 

Reminds me I need to do a Carolinas/Georgia food report - only 4 months late!