What Is This Mysterious Pizza Called?

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.

Cheese, Eggs, Eggs, Parmesan, Pizza, Pizza