A corn-y idea for pizza? Yes, making it fresh and spicy with chorizo

On a recent Lenten Thursday I found myself hungry for a new pizza — one with meat. I turned to a book regular readers may remember: My venerable 1996 copy of “Pasta & Pizza Presto” by Maxine Clarke and Shirley Gill.

According to my Test Kitchen spreadsheet, this is the 19th recipe from the book I bought during a trip to Vermont. Pre-MT, when NEPA snowfall proved too scant to assure adequate cross-country skiing, my oldest brother (of “Uncle Jake’s Favorite Recipes”) and I used to head north a few days for some cross-country skiing.

Of those Pasta & Pizza Presto test kitchen dishes, this is the tenth pizza. While a few of them were pies I had already made several times, I have most certainly tried more new pizza recipes from the book after I started writing Test Kitchen articles (March 20, 2020, Emeril Lagasse’s shepherd’s pie) than I did before.

Yet I found this pizza wonderfully different for two reasons. The lesser reason is the use of chorizo, a sausage I first encountered doing an April, 2021, Test Kitchen recipe from one of the first Food network celebrity chefs to catch my attention, Sara Moulton. She has more recently popped up on Create TV in a show called Week Night Meals.

Restlessly switching channels (a lost art in the age of infinite streaming, sadly — going only where you already wanted to go can rob you of great adventures and valuable knowledge) I had stumbled upon an episode featuring “fideos and shrimp,” the first kitchen concoction I ever came across using “fried spaghetti” (technically it called for “fideos,” but I used what was in the cupboard).

I’m confident that the other, bigger reason this recipe appealed was the use of corn. Corn on a pizza was odd enough; the fact that it called for canned corn in an age when frozen kernels seem to be a superior choice added to my intrigue.

I tried it that evening.

We loved it. And that includes MT, who is no great fan of the heat chorizo brings to the palate. I’d bet dollars to donuts (as my late, great dad used to say) it was the corn that made this work — not just for her, but for both of us.

It adds a refreshing, summer taste to the mix, yet doesn’t scream “I’m a vegetable, I’m good for you!” — the way, say, broccoli does in the broccoli pizzas I’ve had (I like them, but not enough to make one at home so far).

Regular readers will rightly assume I added more cheese than called for. But I didn’t add as much as I usually do (sometimes at least doubling the recipe amounts). I wanted to make sure the chorizo and (especially) the corn were clearly visible in the finished pizza.

Dobru chut!

Chorizo and Corn Pizza (Pasta & Pizza Presto)

1 pizza base, about 10-12 inches diameter when rolled out.

1 tablespoon garlic oil

1 quantity tomato sauce

6 ounces chorizo sausage

6 ounces (drained weight) canned corn kernels

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

2 ounces mozzarella, grated

2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan.

Heat oven to 425°. Brush pizza base with garlic oil, and spread tomato sauce over it.

Skin and cut the chorizo sausages into chunks and scatter over the tomato sauce. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven.

Sprinkle corn and parsley over pizza. Mix together the mozzarella and Parmesan and sprinkle over all. Bake another 5-10 minutes until crisp and golden. Serve immediately.

And if you need them:

My preferred pizza dough. Whisk together ¾ cup whole wheat flour, ¾ cup all purpose flour, ¼ teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon rapid-rise yeast. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and ⅔ cup luke warm water. Mix by hand, knead until smooth and elastic (adding a little flour or water if needed). Cover and let rise for about an hour. Punch down and roll out.

My preferred pizza sauce. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, add one finely chopped onion and gently saute a minute or so. Add one or two cloves crushed garlic and saute until onions are soft (about 5 minutes total). Add one 14-ounce can of chopped tomatoes, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, 1 tablespoon mixed herbs (fresh is better, but dried works fine), a pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered, stirring occassionally, for 15-20 minutes until tomatoes reduce to a thick pulp. Add any seasoning or sugar to taste. Let cool.

And while home-made garlic oil should involve letting 3 or four garlic cloves marinate in 1/2 cup olive oil covered for up to a week in the fridge, I usually peel and smash a clove and put it in a few tablespoons of Olive oil as soon as I know I’m going to want it that day (before setting up the pizza dough to proof, for example), and let it sit until needed.