Along with experimenting with a
whole wheat thin crust pizza dough, I have also been playing around with different pizza toppings. I had come across an amazing full-bodied
pizza sauce recipe in my search, and had tried pairing it with some hot sopressata - but the sauce was so strong it masked the flavor of the sopressata!
Then, an idea came to me to pair the sauce with ground venison. As I had mentioned previously, we have meat from a whole deer in our freezer, and so I have been trying use it up in creative ways. Ground venison was particularly abundant, but I wasn't a fan of the gameyness that I could still taste in it. (Interestingly, I don't have the same problem with any other cut - just the ground.) Hence, I thought the rich pizza sauce might help take the edge off of it.
The result turned out quite well! The sauce and the meat were a good balance for each other flavor-wise, and while the gamey flavor of the meat was largely gone, one can still taste the unique flavor of the venison. I suppose ground beef would do well with this sauce also, but I haven't tried it.
Ingredients:
- 1 14-inch pizza crust
- ¾ lbs ground venison
- ¼ onion, chopped
- ½ cup mushroom, sliced
- 4 sprigs fresh rosemary leaves
- a handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
For the sauce: (original recipe
here)
- 1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
- 6 fl. oz. warm water (110˚F/45˚C)
- 3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp anchovy paste (optional)
- ¾ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp dried oregano
- ¼ tsp dried marjoram
- ¼ tsp dired basil
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/8 tsp dried red pepper flakes
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 475˚F.
- To make the sauce, combine tomato paste, water, Parmesan cheese, garlic, honey, anchovy paste, onion powder, oregano, marjoram, basil, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes and salt in a small bowl; mix together, breaking up any clumps of cheese. Let sit for 30 minutes to blend flavors.
- Lightly coat a skillet with cooking spray and cook ground venison on medium high heat until browned. Drain.
- Spread sauce over pizza crust. Top with venison, mushroom, onion, and cheese. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and top with rosemary.
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| Ready for the oven |
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| Ground Venison Pizza - the finished product |
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| Ground Venison Pizza |
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| Ground Venison Pizza (side view) |
