Mashed Potato Pizza
When my son Jacob was about 11 or 12, we were visiting friends in Connecticut. Our last stop was a small park where during low tide you could walk out on the rocks and view Long Island Sound as the boats drifted by.
As we were saying our goodbyes and getting in the car, we discussed what we could eat on the ride home. Jacob said “wouldn’t it be great if you could have mashed potatoes on pizza?” Our friends told us that it was quite possible to fulfill his wish within a half hour, if we made a quick pit stop at a restaurant/nightclub called Bar in New Haven, which was on our way home. We looked it up, ordered ahead, and picked up a New Haven-style brick oven white pie with mashed potatoes to eat as we drove back to Long Island. Jacob was in heaven. Pizza and mashed potatoes together; two comfort foods melded into one.
I set about trying to re-create Bar’s mashed potato pizza in my own kitchen. After a number of trials and tweaking, and despite my lack of a brick oven, I came up with an excellent pizza with crispy crust, roasted garlic, fresh mozzarella, dollops of mashed potatoes, a dusting of oregano, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. It may be a diabetic’s nightmare, but mashed potato pizza has become a classic in our house.
While it may disappoint my brother the baker, I do not usually make my own pizza dough. I know it’s not hard, but it does require some planning ahead. Instead, I buy dough from a local pizza shop, most of which are willing to sell a round for a few bucks.
I use a pizza stone to cook my pizza as it makes a super crisp crust. It has taken me years to develop my technique. I find it very difficult to completely assemble a pizza and put it in the oven using a pizza peel. It sticks or shrinks and often falls apart. I also find that my home oven does not get hot enough, even with a pizza stone at the highest heat, to make the crust crispy by the time the cheese is melted and other ingredients are cooked through. So I cook pizzas in stages, with the crust first, much like blind baking the crust of a pie. This allows the crust to get extra crispy and the other ingredients to be cooked to the perfect degree.
Mashed Potato Pizza
2 – 4 servings, about 1 hour
2 lbs. potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) butter
1/4 – 1/3 cup milk or a mix of milk and half and half
1 tsp. kosher salt
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 pizza dough
1/2 lb. fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
4 oz. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- Place pizza stone on bottom rack of oven and turn oven to its highest setting, at least 500 oF. Pizza stones take a long time to heat up, so heating for a full hour will make the crispiest pie.
- Make mashed potatoes by covering potatoes with an inch or two of water and boiling over high heat until a fork easily pierces them, about 15 – 20 minutes. Drain completely in a colander and return to the pot. Add butter, milk and/or half and half, and salt, and mash with a potato masher. (Alternatively you could whip the potatoes with a hand mixer or use a potato ricer.) Taste to make sure there is enough salt and set aside to cool.
- Put the olive oil in a small bowl and crush the garlic into the oil using a garlic press. Stir to mix and set aside.
- Stretch the dough to desired size, but a thinner crust is better. As a non-professional pizza maker, it is hard to stretch a perfectly round pizza, but a misshapen pie has character. Sometimes I make mine round, sometimes square.
- Place the stretched dough on the hot pizza stone and evenly spread the garlic and olive oil mixture over the dough using the back of a spoon, leaving about an inch at the edge. Check the crust after a minute or two and prick any bubbles that form with the point of a knife. Allow to cook for several minutes, until the crust begins to get crispy.
- Using a pizza peel or the back of a sheet pan, remove the crust and cover it with teaspoon-size dollops of mashed potato. (Larger dollops do not provide the correct crust to potato ratio. You may not end up using all mashed potatoes.) Spread mozzarella cheese evenly over everything, sprinkle lightly with oregano, and top with Parmesan cheese. Return to oven to finish cooking until the cheese is melted, about 5 – 7 minutes.
- Remove from oven, slice, and serve hot. Pie can be cooked ahead of time, and left whole to be reheated on the pizza stone just before serving.
Thank you Jacob. Now I just need to convert the crust to cauliflower. Looks amazing.
Jennifer – We have a friend whose son has celiac disease and so has been gluten-free for years. If I recall correctly, pizza was especially hard for him, so they spent a significant amount of time finding gluten-free replacements for the crust. They told me that they have found some frozen cauliflower crusts that are decent replacements. The best recipes they found did not include cauliflower, but were at faithfullyglutenfree.com and in America’s Test Kitchen’s How Can It Be Gluten-Free Cookbook. His favorite store-bought crust was Nature’s Highlight’s Brown Rice Pizza Crust, which you can purchase at Whole Foods. Finally, since you live in Huntington, NY, maybe ask at Wild Flours Bake Shop, a gluten-free bakery in town, if they can make you a crust. I know they do serve pizza that our friend’s son loved when he visited. If you find an especially good recipe, let me know.
What about the bacon?
Magalys – We never got it at Bar with bacon, and I’ve never tried adding it to my own pies. But I’m sure it’s delicious, because after all, bacon makes almost everything better. I’ll have to try it.
I still dream about your mashed potato pizza Max! I think I first had it at your house about 7 years ago. The best! Will try to recreate it! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Anne.