Reinventing pulled-pork pizza with a promise of savory gravy goodness--Part 2

 
Yes, I know. While waiting for the results of the pig-pizza prototyping project described last Saturday, you’re wondering how you slept at all this past week.
 
I’m here to tell you: sleep is overrated. All you need is pizza. Also, pulled pork doesn’t hurt.
 
In fact, as I’m writing this, I can taste the pork from this pizza and I want more. And I want it now.
 
Today’s lavishly illustrated second installment of the Pulled-Pork Pig Pie Adventure Series features wild speculation, gelatinized pig broth, pig parts on parade, and what was a piping hot pizza bubbling with promise—despite a giant, weeping wound near the center.

​(Fear not. It wept with joy for our sins of savory pursuit.)
 
Like most honest pizza mistakes, this project was edible, enjoyable, dazzling and disappointing all at the same time.

And remember, I do these things so you don’t have to.
 
At some point in the near future, your attentions to this woeful tale of porky pizza escapade will be rewarded with a viable pizza recipe. It might even be for pulled pork.
 
To refresh your memory: after many attempts, I still find the pulled-pork pizza experience to be unfortunate, especially when sugared-up BBQ sauce is involved. I’m open to just about anything. But not that. (Your mileage may vary and you will not be judged.)
 
We’re also halfway to a cure: last week’s proposed pie of savory gravy goodness demonstrates potential. With any luck, this cautionary tale will help you say, “I can do that, and I don’t think I’ll bother.”
 
 
A good friend with a dangerously large surplus of pulled pork wanted a pizza.
 
I decided to put aside my personal pulled-pork pizza prejudices. Instead, I made it my mission to develop some version of a piggy pie that makes both of us happy.
 
After scouring the pulled-pork pizzanet along with the vast array of pizza cookbooks available to me (I have dozens), I stumbled upon inspiration in an unlikely corner of pizzadom: Dan Richer’s intense and terror-inspiring tome, The Joy Of Pizza.
 
(Careful: that’s an Amazon affiliate link above. Click it and buy, and they will hurl pennies in my general direction at no additional cost to you.)
 
I admire Dan Richer. His dogged pursuit of pizza perfection is enviable. There’s a reason he has a world-famous pizzeria in that Garden-State garden spot, Jersey City, while yours truly is down here in the Magnolia State, drinking bourbon on the rocks on the beach by the bay in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and shoveling around word salads like this one.  
 
 
Mr. Richer’s recipe for Pork Pie is filled with simple foodie goodness, and requires preparation.
 
As previously described in last week’s blather, I followed his instructions for plopping a pile of pigs’ feet into a stock pot and boiling it into gourmet pork broth.
 
It took a couple of hours longer than projected, and left me with a pile of cooked pig parts requiring attention.
 
So I slammed it all behind the refrigerator door and went to bed.
 
The next day, I did the deed: As the recipe for pork broth instructed, I separated the feet meat from the bones, skin and innumerable other inedible bits.
 
 
The result? A ratio of garbage to edible meat that was about 50:1.
 
OK, that’s an exaggeration.
 
It was literally 40:1. I weighed it.
 
I produced 2.5 pounds of garbage to 1 ounce of dinky little pork bits.
 
Good thing the recipe doesn’t actually require those bits. It was a total effort in make-work futility that robbed me of 20 minutes I could have spent doom scrolling on Threads. 

ABOVE: Picked pork (left) and piggy detritus (right)


When your intuition tells you that a recipe task might not be at all productive, listen to it.
 
In my fridge is an ounce of precious pork feet meat that cost more to mine than Bitcoin and I have no idea what to do with it.

ABOVE: A tiny container of pig bits weighing in at one ounce, a roughly 40:1 waste-to-meat ratio leftover from developing the lovely and magical pig broth


I should have paid more attention to Mr. Richer's instructions to get what would have been three giant pig's feet versus several smaller ones.

​Anyway. The good news is: we’ve got about two pounds of savory pork broth available for our dancing and dining pleasure in the weeks to come. (And as you know, great pizza makes you want to dance. Pork broth not required, but what isn’t better with gravy?)

ABOVE: Pig broth bagged for action


So anyway, it came time to try the recipe for Pork Pie utilizing my friend's pulled pork leftovers.
 
Following the recipe (scaled up for my larger pizza), I sliced some onions thin enough to read through, then fried ‘em up.
 
 
Yes, the recipe used the more cheffy word, “caramelize.”
 
I did not use that word because my wife does not care for caramelized onions. They’re “too sweet.”
 
Thinking about this, I realized that what Honey actually doesn’t care for is a certain result related to caramelized onions.
 
But as a native of Philadelphia, she is a connoisseur of the fabled Philly Cheesesteak.
 
And a key ingredient in the cheesesteak is “fried onions.” Literally, those are thin-sliced onions caramelized on a flat top.

ABOVE: Onions--fried or caramelized, up to you...


Would a stinking rose by any other name taste as sweet?
 
Of course not.
 
Goodbye caramelization, hello frying!
 
Yes, a true chef can accuse me of missing a subtle distinction between these two onion-based flavor delivery procedures. I’m going with what I know a) tastes good and b) I can sell to my customer.
 
As per the recipe, I had also cubed the required amount of gelatinized pork broth.

ABOVE: Little cubes of gelatinized pig broth


I set aside the specified amount of “fried” onions.
 
I portioned out cubes of pulled pork and finely grated a quantity of Pecorino Romano. (The recipe calls for Parmigiano Reggiano, but I enjoy the bonus funk of Romano and have plenty of it on hand.)
 
I covered the stretched dough with quivering cubes of gelatinized pig broth, added the kinda caramelized onions, cast the grated cheese evenly about, and drizzled the lot with stupidly expensive genuine organic imported Italian olive oil.

We're at the danger stage!
 
 
The Pulled-Pork Adventure Pizza was ready to launch.
 
It slid into the oven with very little of the quivering pig-soup dice or the cubed pork chunks rolling into the convection fan at the back of the oven.
 
Still, it took only a couple of minutes for the crisis to unfold…

ABOVE: Pork pie baking with its weeping wound exposed to the oven


I was using a somewhat older pizza dough from the freezer.

It had been on the counter a bit too long, and was stretched perhaps too thin in a spot.

​A quivering cube of swinessence (it’s a fancy new word, so don’t bother googling it) probably melted right over that spot, and when I went to rotate the pizza at halfway through the bake, well…
 
It opened wide that weeping wound we discussed at the outset.
 
These things happen. I let the pizza finish baking. When I retrieved it, I tidied up around the hole. Made it look purposeful and intentional.

ABOVE: Pork pie wound dressed for service with the "crispy-edge bonus hole feature."


I served the pizza to the assembled mass of two—my friend who provided the pork, and the Fabulous Honey Parker, she of the near-perfect palette.
 
After laughing (justifiably) at the gaping maw torn in the pizza, we each took a bite.
 
​
Somebody said, “Wow.” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.
 
And we ate most of it. I had the meager remains for next morning’s breakfast.

ABOVE: Pork pie remains after being savaged by the diners in attendance

 
We agreed that there’s something happening here that's a savory, umami, almost unctuous delight.
 
The pulled pork itself had behaved admirably under the broiler. The crusty bits got crustier. The juicy bits remained moist. The shreddy parts were falling apart in just the right way.
 
We were in concurrence that, while not perfect, and its massive wound notwithstanding (after all, holes have no flavor unless…well, you know), this thing is a pizza with promise.
 
 
We decided to reconvene next week for another pass at porcine pizza perfection.
 
I have opinions on what must happen here.
 
Dan Richer’s recipe provided a good starting point. But we have more pig to pull (so to speak). We've been given a springboard from which to launch ourselves headfirst into another kind of Pig Pie Adventure. 
 
We averted potential disaster, sampled a tasty little pizza pie of pig parts, and are preparing to do further battle with the Piggy Little Pizza That Could.
 
Stick with us. There’s a pizza at the other end of the tunnel.
 
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Making a cheese pizza requires no crazy, pig-soaked pork trotter madness—just a simple set of steps to get you from here to there on your own two feet. You'll find all those simple steps to pizza magic right inside my weird and award-winning pizzamaker’s manual, Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have. If you’re just beginning your pizza-making journey, this book is a convenient place to start because it doesn’t force you to make any decisions beyond making a pizza. It’s simply a step-by-step guide for getting from zero to pizza and amazing your friends and family. And really, yourself as well. That first fabulous pizza is a glorious moment. And you'll have your own story of "My First Pizza." Learn more right here. ​ ​