Fennel & Sausage Cast Iron Skillet Pizza
- nathan
- entrees
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- Serves: 1 Serving
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cooking: 25 mins
- Total Time: 35 min
Thin Crust, Deep Dish, Cheesy Crust, Garlic Knot Crust and so many others have taken up a majority of the pizza market's crust attention. However, few are easily made at home and nearly none can be replicated like they are made at pizza shops. Welcome cast iron skillets.
Cast iron has a very unique difference over traditional pizza cooking methods since we are pre-heating the cast iron skillet with all of our ingredients and then laying down the dough on a piping hot skillet. This has an amazing effect that instantly sears the dough on the bottom which then forces all the heat up through the crust helping it rise. This gives us a crispy, chewy, risen crust in our own house in about 15 minutes in the oven.
Ingredients
Directions
Pre-heat your oven to 425F on convect or 450F if not using convect. Take your dough out of the fridge and let warm in a small pool of olive oil in a small bowl. Rub the olive oil all over the ball of dough and then let rest. As your dough warms, cut up all your ingredients and preheat your cast iron skillet on med-high over your burner on your stove. Add a little bit of olive oil to the cast iron skillet and when the olive oil begins to smoke add in your fennel, sausage, and garlic.
As this cooks, start to form your dough into a circle pushing out from the center to create about a 1" crust. Aim to get your dough to be about the same size as your cast iron skillet so when you transfer it is easy to push the crust all the way to the edges.
When your ingredients are done cooking in the skillet, remove the items from the skillet and set aside. Add some Fleur de sal or kosher salt into your skillet and lay your dough in the hot cast iron skillet. At this point, the skillet is so hot you can turn off your stovetop. Use a wooden spoon with a little olive oil on it to press the crust to the edges of the pizza. Lay down your sauce and spread evenly leaving about an inch from the edges of the pizza. Evenly cover both types of mozzarella across the pizza and then place in oven on top shelf for 8 minutes.
At the 8 minute mark, move the pizza to the bottom shelf for 8 remaining minutes. Once done, remove the pizza from the skillet and place on a cooling rack or large cutting board to cool for 5 minutes. Slice up and enjoy!
