Purple Potato Pizza

CPK, eat your heart out.

Garry had a bag of Peruvian purple potatoes in his crisper for the last couple of weeks and I've been eyeing them with purple mashed potatoes in mind.  Today we were going to do a chicken stir-fry with mushrooms and bean sprouts, but I looked at the contents of his fridge and realized we had all the makings of a fantaaaaastic pizza.  

The first time I saw potato pizza on a menu, I was skeptical, but Pizza Antica changed my mind.  The starch-on-starch may sound redundant, but it's fantastic in texture and flavor.  You can't just use any old potato though--a nice rich one like a Yukon Gold or these purple potatoes works best.

Ingredients
  • TJ's herb pizza dough.  Next time we may try whole wheat instead.
  • TJ's pesto (soo good!)
  • Barely grilled chicken breast, cut into cubes (it doesn't need to be cooked all the way through because it'll keep cooking when you bake the pizza and you don't want it to get tough)
  • 3 purple potatoes, sliced and zapped in the microwave for 1 min.
  • Sliced crimini mushrooms, toasted in the toaster oven to get rid of the juices
  • A bit of thinly sliced white onions
  • Mozzarella cheese

We're slowly learning that when it comes to pizza, one had best exercise restraint.  Usually we're tempted to load a zillion toppings on our pizza, and while hearty and tasty, it sometimes gets soggy and just comes off as kind of...crass.  We're not quite where we need to be in terms of pizza-minimalism, but today was a step in the right direction: every ingredient was necessary, and the whole was a lot greater than the sum of all parts.  The only thing I might have added is a drizzle of truffle oil.

Needless to say, you can't get a pizza like this anywhere, but if you could, it would probably cost like $25 (with the generous amt of toppings involved).  Plus I like how, as Garry quipped, it's "shaped like Oregon."

18 responses
MMM this was absolutely delicious!
that's amazing!
that's called "new american" - good stuff!
hey girl - did you cook the taters first? my last potato-on-pizza experiment left me with some undercooked potatoes. :( tips??
Hey Steph--yes, I sliced them and cooked them in a covered bowl in the microwave for about 1 min before putting them on the pizza (and baking them).  I'm sure you could also boil, fry or pre-bake them.
In general, I've learned that cooking potatoes before doing other interesting things with them is the way to go.  For instance, if you try to make hash browns, the trick is to boil them first, then refrigerate overnight, and then shred and fry.  If you try to shred raw potatoes and fry them, you'll just end up with a gluey mass.
great tips steph! I was debating whether to boil my potato or not before making home fries the other day, but I searched for a recipe eventually. Cooking it first gets the starch going and the potato gets cooked faster in the pan and browned easily.
Nice - Thanks for the 411!
My stomach is growling!
really nice, very interesting recipe:)
where'd you get the purple potatoes btw? do they taste different then yukons or a regular potatoe?
hey steve, garry got them at safeway, but I imagine whole foods would have them too.  they are pretty starchy and have a lovely sweet buttery flavor.  =)
cool. i just got a mandolin and wanna try potatoe chips. but PURPLE potatoe chips are even better! thanks!
That pizza looks DELICIOUS! Just stumbled on your blog here from techcrunch to posterous to you on the home page. Very entertaining.
haha, it WAS delicious!
I just have a question about this recipe, I often obtain all the ingredients, but I can't find this purple potato, where I could find it? inclusive I tried to obtain it in Viagra Online. and result that customs service retained for some days.
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