Pancetta & Caramelized Onion Pizza

Here's a little bit of trivia that I haven't mentioned on here before, for our wedding my husband and I wanted to come up with a unique favor so we decided to write a cookbook. And not just any cookbook, a pizza cookbook. You see my husband worked in a pizzeria for quite a few years working his way up from busboy to pizza man to manager. So we sat together and rattled off a list of 50 plus pizzas and I pieced them together into formal recipes, we proofread it and proofread it again and finally sent it off to be published. We even gave them out to our guests in pizza boxes customized with their names at the end of the night. Over two years later we still get a ton of compliments on the favor and he still gets requests from friends to bring it in to show them the book from time to time. Our cookbook is even for sale on Amazon, which I think, is pretty freakin' cool.




We have everything in the book from traditional pizza to breakfast pizza to crazy concoctions we came up with and I can guarantee that there will be plenty of posts on here that come from our cookbook. Surprisingly enough this particular recipe we came up with on the fly one night and it is most definitely one that will be repeated again. The pancetta and caramelized onions together gave off a surprising sweetness. I was a little rushed for time that day so I opted to use a store bought pizza dough, I promise I will post a recipe where I make the dough from scratch in the near future.

Pancetta & Caramelized Onion Pizza
Yield: 8 slices
Prep Time: 20 minutes     I     Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• Pizza dough
• 1/2 ounce of pancetta, diced
• 1 medium onion sliced
• 1/2 lb fontina cheese sliced
• 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella or fontina cheese
• 1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

Start by preheating your oven to 450 degrees. 

The first step to making a good pizza is making a shell. To do this grease whatever pan you plan to make your pizza in and place the dough inside. Use your fingertips to flatten and stretch out the dough so it is covering your entire pan. Once you have done this sprinkle a little cheese on top and pop the dough in the oven.

The goal here is to cook the dough slightly so it wont shrink on you later when you add the toppings on. This will also allow you to have a fully cooked dough without overcooking or drying out your toppings. Keep a close on the dough while your are cooking the shell, if it starts to shrink you can take it out and stretch. The shell is done when it no longer looks raw, just very, very under cooked. It should be very light in color, that is exactly what you want.

In the meantime caramelize the onions and then add the pancetta to them and let them cook together for about 5 minutes. The result of the two combined will be a delicious sweet and salty flavor. Top the pizza with the onions and pancetta and sprinkle with the breadcrumbs coating the entire pizza evenly. 

Top the whole thing with slices of fontina cheese and put in the oven for approximately 20 minutes. Until the dough is fully cooked and golden brown. If you like a crispier or doughier pizza you can adjust the cook time to your liking. 

*Pizza tips - if you are using frozen dough, take it out of the freezer in the morning and set out in a bowl to defrost, when the dough starts to get soft cover it with a little olive oil, place it back into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap and then a towel so it can rise. If you have done this and the dough doesn't seem to be rising after an hour or so you can fill a bowl with hot water and place the bowl holding the dough on top of that bowl to add some heat underneath. If you are using a fresh or unfrozen dough do these same steps minus the time you would need to let the dough defrost.