Dorky for Sporkie

After a long day at work Tuesday and running a few errands after getting off the train, I was hungry.  I really didn't feel like eating Cowboy Chicken Casserole for the nth time this week, so I pulled some things out of the cabinet and fridge and attempted to make a pizza resembling Bertuccis' Sporkie. 

When I moved to Boston all those years ago, I was introduced to Bertucci's and the yumminess known as Sporkie, a pizza with sausage, mozzarella, plum tomatoes, black olives and ricotta cheese.  I could make this work, right?

I had some pre-made pizza dough in the fridge along with some fresh mozzarella and ricotta.  The whole thing took about 40 minutes to make and it totally hit the spot!

Emily's Dorky for Sporkie Pizza

1 lb. pork sausage
1 ball pizza dough
1 cup pizza sauce
1 lb. ball fresh mozzarella, relatively thinly sliced
1 2oz can of sliced black olives
1 28 oz can of whole peeled plum tomatoes, drained and squished in your hands
16 oz part-skim ricotta

Place a cookie sheet in the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

In a skillet, brown the sausage over medium-high heat.  Cook until browned completely.  Remove from heat.  My sausage meat was really lean so it didn't render a lot of fat.  If you notice a lot of fat in the pan, remove the meat to a paper towel covered plate to drain and rest until you're ready to top the pizza.

Before

After

I used my garlic-cheese pork sausages from my CSA.  I removed the casings and broke the links up into large chunks.  If you're using store-bought sausage, I'd suggest either hot or sweet Italian sausage.  If you buy links, it's really easy to remove the casings.  The lady-like way is to carefully run a paring knife down the length of the sausage.  Peel off the casing and discard.  I typically just make sure one end of the casing is open and squish the meat out.  I know, charming.  Break the sausage meat up into bit sized pieces, but not too small. Set aside once cooked, as mentioned above.

Sprinkle a little flour on your counter-top or pastry cloth or whatever surface you use to roll out dough.  The ball of dough will be sticky, so flour your hands before you attempt to remove it from the bag.  Now, I have made pizza dough from scratch before but I had neither the time or the patience to deal with that this week.  If you do happen to give the scratch version a try, keep one of the two balls in the freezer for future use.

Roll dough out into a rectangle.  Yes, I roll it out into a rectangle.  I suck immensely at trying to toss pizza dough, so I opt for the "Emily" way of doing it.  Once the oven is preheated, remove the HOT cookie sheet from the oven.  Using a pastry brush, apply olive oil to the bottom of the pan.  Carefully, lay your pizza dough on the hot sheet pan.  This will do two things: make the bottom of you pizza nice and crunchy, and it will start cooking the dough before it goes into the oven.  Because of the second point, you will want to work fast.

Using a spoon, smear sauce all over the dough.  Don't goop it on.  Remember, it's best practice to keep things as dry as possible.  Nobody likes a soggy pizza.  I used a little more sauce than I probably should have because it bubbled over a bit, but it still tasted good!  (Same rule applies to the mozzarella, too.  If you use a ball that came in water, make sure to dry it off really well on some paper towels before cutting it up and placing it on the pizza.)

Next, place the shingles of mozzarella in a single layer with space between them, followed by the olives and sausage.  Complete your masterpiece with some plum tomatoes and small dollops of ricotta in the blank spaces.

Place pizza in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  Remove form oven when the cheese is bubbly and the crust is golden brown.  Let cool for a few minutes. Slice and serve, or keep it all to yourself.  I won't tell.  This was an awesome mid-week dinner, and was excellent as leftovers.

 

 Okay...I need to make this again...soon.