we've been vaguely cheating on friday pizza night with nachos. ever since we adventured into the secret menu world of the local pizza parlor, in which every pizza can be ordered as nachos, we've been changed humans. there's one pizza called the happy pig that we particularly love as nachos: mozzarella, pulled pork, pineapple, some vegetables, and barbecue sauce. (i know, i was horrified about barbecue sauce as a pizza ingredient when i moved here, but i've since embraced it even though i'm slightly embarrassed to say it out loud.) last time i really wanted to get the tater tot pizza as nachos basically just so that i could tell people that i ate tater tots on nachos, but eggboy protested.
i love our nacho nights and the small-town pizza parlor vibe with the crayons on the tables and the quirky pizza nacho names, but lately i've felt guilty about letting nachos invade our pizza time. like i was forgetting my roots. so last week i renaissanced pizza night with a pizza that would certainly not be shut down by you-know-who despite the fact that it was not covered in sausage and pepperoni and more meat.
eggboy loves shakshuka. more than he loves peanut butter, maybe even more than he loves taylor swift. and i love it too, even more so if there is a big fluffy pita to soak it all up with. this pizza basically replaces the pita with a chewy pizza crust that soaks up the sauce and creates one big delicious mess that's best eaten as a folded slice so it almost becomes a doughy shakshuka sandwich. i'm going to consider this my valentine to eggboy and tomorrow, for our last pizza night before we fly off to vienna (!!!!), i might even make one heart-shaped.
ok: eggs on pizza. it's kind of fussy. the whites can spill out and they take time to cook... so work carefully and make sure your tomato sauce well walls are as high as you can make them before cracking in your eggs. if you're having a particularly difficult time, you can crack the eggs onto a hot pan for a couple of seconds so that the whites firm up just slightly, and then immediately transfer them to the pizza to bake.
the baking part can be tricky since eggs take longer to bake than pizza dough when you have your oven cranked up to a zillion degrees or whatever it is they tell you to bake your pizza at. alex gave me the simple tip of decreasing the oven temp and baking it for longer, which makes a lighter doughier center, but i really love it that way and i think it does wonders for soaking up the shakshuka!
shakshuka pizza
makes 2 personal pizzas
ingredients
1 batch of the pizza dough here or any other pizza dough you'd like
2 tb olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp harissa powder (optional, but you really should)
a pinch of sugar
salt + pepper
1 tb tomato paste
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
4 eggs
4 oz crumbled feta
a handful of chopped parsley
clues
preheat oven to 475 (ideally, with a pizza stone).
heat the oil in a pot over medium and add the onion. cook until soft and translucent, 5-7 minutes. add the garlic, cumin, harissa powder, sugar, a good pinch of salt, and a few turns of black pepper, and cook for 1 minute. add the tomato paste and diced tomatoes and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.
flatten your pizza dough out either on a floured pizza peel or, if you're clumsy with a pizza peel like me, on a piece of parchment. top the pizzas with the tomato sauce, create two wells on top of each pizza, and then crack the eggs into them. sprinkle each with feta, and then carefully slide the pizza onto your pizza stone. bake for 7-10 minutes, until the egg whites have set but the yolks are runny and the crust is lightly browned.
drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with parsley, and enjoy!
-yeh!