Thanksgiving leftovers transformation: Your old mashed potatoes get a glamorous new life on pizza.

​Two years ago on Thanksgiving Saturday, I swore an oath I would never make a Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza again. The pizza I’d made with all the leftovers was so troubling, I had problems sleeping until Christmas.
 
Well, such oath swearing is meant to be violated. And yes, I’ve committed that violation—but to a much more successful degree this time.
 
Part of the reason is I’ve taken inspiration from a popular New Haven pizza and made my own version of it using Thanksgiving leftovers and some bonus toppings.

I decided to try this because the New Haven version (made at a famous joint called BAR) is my godfather's favorite pizza. His name is Al, and since Al is both smarter and taller than I am, and went to Yale and still lives close enough to eat New Haven pizza with frightening regularity, it seemed a no-brainer to take a stab at this. 
 
Get ready to sink your teeth into what sounds like a really odd concoction: the first ever Free The Pizza Mashed Potatoes, Gravy & Bacon Bonanza!

This is a pizza that should be sold with a nap included.
 
My wife, The Fabulous Honey Parker took her first bite of the pie and declared, “This is total comfort!”
 
I agree. It’s a warm, comfortable pizza with the big, pillowy ride of a 1978 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. It should probably be served with a side of seatbelts to keep you on your chair. 
 
It all starts with a dough that’s stretched to 12 inches, then topped with olive oil, Pecorino Romano, mashed potatoes (a rich, Yukon-like gold mash for me), low-moisture mozzarella, scallions, bacon, and turkey gravy. (My gravy is homemade with giblets, but this will work with any competent gravy.)

ABOVE: A shot of the bacon & mashed potato monster that emerged from my oven yesterday afternoon and made us all very happy. That yellow is not photo processing. That is the actual color of the gold potatoes we used in the mash along with good Irish butter, heavy cream and turkey soup base. 
 
 
My initial Thanksgiving failure pizza was borne of ambition and confusion.
 
That pizza was too ambitious. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing and cranberry sauce.
 
Nobody needs that many toppings on any pizza.
 
That tangle of toppings leads to a confusion of flavors that ends up muddled and without focus.
 
I’m a believer in the composed pizza—which doesn’t seem to be a Neapolitan thing.
 
The Neapolitans are happy to have a small pizza with an even smaller amount of toppings scattered on the pizza however they land.
 
 
But American pizza done well is a composed product.
 
There’s an even distribution of all the toppings around the pizza.
 
It is, after all, a bigger pizza that's been sliced for the diners involved. It’s a communal food, not a solo affair. And a well composed pizza will have a representative amount of all the toppings all around the pizza.
 
And each of the toppings will be of a size that allows them to be easily managed, i.e. bitten into without causing mayhem.
 
You know mayhem.
 
That’s the screaming and dancing that results when a blistering hot slice of cheesy, greasy, cased-meat product like sliced pepperoni sliding off the pizza and onto the diner’s chin, possibly requiring a visit to the nearest urgent care and a week walking around with a gauze bandage of salve across the bottom of one’s face.

It's a good look, especially for the holidays and Zoom calls. The subject of this exercise becomes the poster child for chaotic living through pizza. 
 
 
I prefer pizza as a mayhem-free zone.
 
And the Thanksgiving pizza with everything on it is a challenge. So much food!
 
It’s difficult to create a pizza from so many disparate flavors, textures, and formats.
 
String bean casserole on a pizza comes with various challenges and could (and perhaps should) be a pizza all by itself.
 
The Everything Thanksgiving Pizza also not an easy pizza. A lot of prep has to go into all those toppings. How much work do you really want to do?
 
I say free the pizza (and yourself) from the mayhem and potential danger.
 
 
Also, this is a pizza that’s possible any time of the year!
 
Granted, you may not want to eat this pizza during the hot and humid dog days of August when the air is so damp and thick that snakes are swimming past your windows.
 
But you have the option.
 
Mashed potatoes are a Thanksgiving staple. There are usually leftovers galore.
 
But mashed potatoes also happen at other meals throughout the seasons—and if you so desire, they can even be made especially for a pizza party.
 
The turkey gravy component here is the part that gives the pizza a proclamation of Thanksgiving-dinner tradition.
 
If you want to make this pizza at other times of the year, when such a gravy isn’t readily available, you can substitute any other emulsion of your choice.
 
Cream of mushroom soup? Sensational!
 
Gumbo? Great!
 
Crema? How extrema!
 
Étouffée? Effing fabulous!
 
Hollandaise? Ha!
 
For me, the mashed-potato-on-pizza format is an evolution of the concept that pizza and potatoes are each a delivery system.
 
But it does require being judicious in the choice of toppings.
 
 
Being thoughtful and strategic here can result in a crowd-pleasing pizza that makes your friends and family say, “Wow, you’re a lunatic!”
 
So here now, the recipe for a leftover mashed potato pizza with bacon, scallions, and turkey gravy.
 
One note on the toppings: You’ll want the mashed potatoes and gravy to be tempered. They’re easier to work when they’re not cold and hard from the fridge.
 
You can leave them out on the counter with the pizza dough while the oven heats.
 
I often use the time-defrost feature on my microwave to bring cold product like sauce, soup, or gravy to a more usable, friendly state. The time defrost is distinct from the time-bomb button that splatters the inside of the oven with the exploded soup, sauce, or chili.
 
One note on the oven: This pizza is baked in a home oven using the broiler method.
 
If you’re unfamiliar, the broiler method requires preheating a baking steel (or a heavy baking stone) at the home oven’s highest temperature (typically 500 to 550 degrees, depending on the oven). Then, during the bake, switching on the broiler mimics the performance of a pizza deck oven.
 
If you have a dedicated pizza oven, feel free to use your best oven-management methods for baking what is a substantial pizza.  

If you're making a pan pizza, a) I salute you and b) you may find it necessary to double your napping requirement. 

ABOVE: The unbaked pizza ready for the oven. The reddish bits that look like sundried tomato are the bacon. The brown dollops are the gravy. The bigger yellowish dollops are the mashed potatoes. (They are an indeterminate gold organic potato. Yukon Gold potatoes are apparently a vanishing product as they are difficult to farm, present low yields, are susceptible to disease, and don't store well. So now we get "Gold" potatoes.)


Free The Pizza Mashed Potatoes, Gravy & Bacon Bonanza
 
Ingredients
 
- Dough ball for a 12-inch pizza, room temp (My dough for a 12-inch pizza weighs in at 285g or 10oz.)
 
- 4 slices thick-cut, bacon, cooked to almost crisp and cut into half-inch pieces (the bacon will finish crisping during the bake)
 
- 3 scallions, chopped
 
- 1 teaspoon chopped fresh herb, like parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme (cue Simon & Garfunkel). I used sage, because my wife does not care for rosemary. She took a bite and said, “What’s that herb on here?” Seems she enjoys sage only slightly better than she enjoys rosemary. Next time, it’s time for thyme.
 
- 85g low-moisture mozzarella, shredded (about 3/4 of a cup)
 
- 20g Pecorino Romano, shredded fine (about 2 tablespoons)
 
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
 
- 1 cup leftover mashed potatoes, room temp
 
- 1/4 cup left over turkey gravy, room temp
 
 
Directions
 
Take the dough ball from the fridge about 90 minutes before making pizza. (If you’re new to this game, cold pizza dough does not stretch. It snaps back as if to say, “Nope. This is not your day.” You will bake a rugby ball instead of a pizza. You will cry. 90 minutes, please.)
 
Place a baking steel or stone in the top third of the oven, approximately 8 inches below the broiler.
 
Turn on the oven to 550°F. Once it reaches temperature, continue heating for 60 minutes.
 
When the oven is ready, stretch the pizza dough.
 
Brush the dough with the olive oil.
 
Scatter the fine-shredded Romano on the dough.
 
Place small dollops of mashed potatoes evenly around the dough. (I always start with good intentions and a teaspoon. By the end, I’m always using my fingers to grab and form my dollops.)
 
Scatter the shredded mozzarella atop the taters and around the pie.
 
Scatter the chopped scallions.
 
Distribute the bacon evenly around the pizza.
 
Sprinkle the fresh herbs over everything.
 
Using a spoon, distribute small dollops of gravy all around the pizza.
 
Launch the pizza. Bake for 3 to 4 minutes, then rotate it 180° and turn on the broiler to high.
 
Bake for an additional 3 to 4 minutes.
 
Remove to a cooling rack. Allowed to sit. Slice and enjoy.

Your pizza should look somewhat like this...

ABOVE: The finished product. It was a delight. Try to not eat it all by yourself or you may find yourself indulging a dessert of fear and self-loathing. 


And there you have it. Free The Pizza Mashed Potatoes, Gravy & Bacon Bonanza. And remember, pizza here is a participation sport. Feel free to share your photos via the contact form.
 
And thank you for playing. I’m thankful for your support.  

Special thanks to New Haven Pizza Expert Al, who found the above photography to be appropriately appetizing. 

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