The Christmas Pizza
To me the Sicilian pizza is the ultimate Christmas Day treat.
Once Christa and I bought our home we immediately turned to dreams of hosting all the holidays we could. Finally, we could merge families and do holidays our way. Shake up tradition, inject a bit of fun and renew the holiday cheer. There’s nothing wrong with tradition. Tradition provides guardrails and safety nets so that anyone can pick up and enjoy the holiday. But we wanted new traditions. Our traditions.
After spending so many holidays driving from place to place in a never ending caravan of Christmas cheer, we decided that Christmas Day would be our day. People would come to us and we would host a big open house akin to a Dean Martin Holiday special. You’d never know exactly who might be walking through that door, but you know whoever it was would be a great time.
So what do you serve on a day where you’re defying tradition? Well only the most party-type food that exist: pizza!
I knew I wanted a special pizza to be the star of the show for our Christmas Day antics. It had to be something hearty, shareable and pair well with Prosecco, the beverage of choice for the day. For special events I gravitated towards larger pizzas. Sicilian or deep dish, and even Sfincione Sicilian, which is made for the holidays!
I settled on the Sicilian pizza recipe from Tony Gemingani’s Pizza Bible. It’s a simple recipe, but the dough is very wet and hard to work with. After 48 hours of rising and a par-bake the dough is ready to go. This year I’ll par-bake the dough ahead of time so Christmas Day I can decorate the pizza and pop it into the oven.
Once it’s out the pizza evaporates. Guests devour these slices, but it’s hearty enough that it can sit in the tray all day and still be delicious. It soaks up all the excess oil and evolves over time into a little grease bomb covered in cheese. Perfect hot, great at room temperature.
The reviews on this pizza are unreal. Here’s what people say about this Christmas Day treat:
“You really made this?”
“This is the best pizza I’ve ever had.”
“People in New York City would actually pay money for this pizza.”
That last quote was really funny to me because, well, people outside of New York City pay for pizza all the time. But how could a dunce in Pittsburgh create such a pie that even a fine citizen of New York City would be willing to part with a few bucks for a slice? Suffice it to say this pizza is mind blowing.
I’ll be enjoying Sicilian Pizza on Christmas Day and I hope you find a way to integrate pizza into your holiday tradition!
