Perhaps spurred on by Blake’s admittedly tasty-looking pickle butter, I finally caved in and decided to write about one of my favorite snacks. Though a tad less refined, and even a bit shameful, it’s something I absolutely adore. I wish it were more interesting. But it’s simply a thin crust pizza with a fried egg on top. Not exactly a revelation, but it’s quick and surprising better than it has any right to be.
I wish I knew what it was called. I’ve been searching the Internet for a hint of what to call this. All I could find was a little website claiming that there is a recipe from Alice Water’s Cafe Cookbook that has a similar recipe. I got the idea from my time in London when my roommate would prepare this from time to time. He thought it was French. I don’t know.
The biggest misconception about this recipe is that a fried egg is just tossed on any old slice of pizza. That’s gross, especially if said pizza comes from Ohio, which has mounds of greasy cheese on top. The pizza would be too big and would warrant more than one egg. It would get disgusting quick.
No, what is needed is the smaller, thinner kind: Naples style. It arrives for one, and is the perfect carrier for that one fried egg on top. When the yoke breaks, it drips on all the other slices commingling with the ingredients to create some glorious new dish.
Unfortunately, as we have explored before, Naples style pizza isn’t easy to come around. Most pizza ovens stay well below the 800 degrees needed to make the pies correctly. And most pizzerias don’t take kindly to bringing in your own egg. While we have been able to create some spectacular pizza at home, it is a pain, and only done once in a while. A shortcut was needed.
Which brings us back to the less refined, shameful feeling of the dish. The easiest way to have a thin crust pizza at home is, sadly, frozen pizza. And the one brand that stacks up best in all the categories is Totino’s. Yes, that 99 cent pre-packaged circle. It’s not authentic. But for some reason, some awful reason, it tastes really good when you put a fried egg on top. It's elevated from one of the palest imitations of one of my favorite foods, to something uniquely it's own.
Anyone have any idea what this is called?
Egg on a Pizza
- 1 Totino’s Cheese Pizza
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tablespoon butter
- parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 450.
Remove pizza for packaging and cook in the oven for 12 minutes.
With one minute left, melt the butter over medium high heat.
Crack the egg into the pan, cover with a lid, and cook until the whites set. Somehow I go the egg to spread beautiful out across the pan so it would cover more of the pizza. I'm not sure how I did this. But I am lucky.
Set the cooked egg carefully over the pizza, grate the cheese, and season with salt and pepper.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Pane Frattau?
The older the egg, the more it will spread out over the pan. Eggs are amazing!
I did some googling and found that it is called "Pizza alla Bismark"
Do a search on Pizza alla Bismark and you'll find several restaurants that have it on their menu. Here's one:
http://www.vigiluccis.com/pizzeria_menus.html
Y'all are kidding, of course.
This new, fantabulishis snack is called –
are you ready
Pizza Hash al la gourmande!
If you want a fast, easy snack that's truly delicious and has a Middle Eastern flair to it then just follow along and I'll send my contribution for the week.
1 cup finely grated Gruyere Cheese or
Manchego if you prefer
1 2oz can of good Anchovies in oil –
drained and roughly chopped
1/2 cup pitted black pitted black olives
roughly chopped
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter (small
pieces)
1/8 tsp Cayenne pepper
Definitely Crusty Sea Salt
Place all the ingredients except the salt in your trusty food processor and pulse until a firm dough is obtained only (don't over or undermix)
Place dough ball in plastic wrap –
loosely
Chill for 20 minutes in refrigerator
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Roll-out dough thinly on lightly floured surface
Cut the dough into 2 inch wide strips then cut across each strip diagonally in alternate directions to make triangles.
Place on baking sheet
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden
brown.
Cool on wire rack
Sprinkle with crunchy sea salt
Serve and bon appetite, as Julia would say.
Dont knock Totinos. Im a chef, and its still a favorite from childhood. Tried this and it made it even better!
Several years ago I visited Paris with my family. We went to a French/Italian restaurant and I ordered a "Cyclops" having no idea what it was. Turns out it was a naples style pizza with a fried egg in the middle. Several days later I forced my parents to go back for lunch, all so I could eat another Cyclops. While the Bismark reference is probably more accurate, I'll always think of this dish as a cyclops.
My wife and I were in Italy earlier this year, and there were a few pizzas with egg as a topping listed on menus. I've no idea what they were called, I'll try to remember next time we go back.
We *will* go back. All of the food was incredible, and inexpensive. I recommend going to the south, and staying away from the big cities. You get a better feel for what Italy really is about, and it's much cheaper. Just make sure you can speak some Italian!
Dear Nick,
Sorry my comment isn't more timely, but it sounds as if you are creating a variant of pizza Florentine, which is served with an egg on top, although it also has spinach as a topping (beneath the egg, of course). I have usually found pizza Florentine to be a very mild taste (at, say, Pizza Express), but the variation you suggest (at home with a regular cheapy frozen pizza) might zing it up a bit. Here is a recipe from bbc.co.uk for pizza Florentine:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/florentinepizza_13863.shtml
Thanks for a great site!
Jason
Eggs on pizza is an Australian standard. They put a fried egg on burgers too – also standard, along with beets and pineapple.
It is called Pizza alla Bismarck