Crab Stuffed Mushroom Pizza

Written By Brad English

I’ve made a number of pizzas over the years with seafood.  I like the uniqueness of how seafood blends and stands out as a topping on a pizza. When you do it right, shrimps on a pizza literally snap when you bite them, and that’s a good thing!  Clams are right at home on a pizza.  After all, what do you do when eating steamers?  You sop up the sauce with bread.  On a pizza, it’s already done. The clams mix with the toppings and become part of the sauce and the crust is already there baking in all that glory.

Crab is another fun one.  Crab all by itself, has a sweet and subtle taste.  I love drizzling it with lemon, or a little Vietnamese Fish Sauce mixed with chilies and just eating it on it’s own – warm or cold!  Another great way to enjoy crab is in a crab dip which is just cheesy goodness!  The cheese and crab combo just goes so well together, which is why crab dip and crab stuffed mushrooms and crab on a pizza makes total sense to me.  Here’s one of my Crab Dip Pizzas: *Link

While I was making up some Crab Stuffed Mushrooms I decided to just make myself a Crab Stuffed Mushroom inspired pizza.  One idea I had was to bake the stuffed mushrooms and slice them up and use them as a topping.  I had that idea after I made a different pizza, where I went with a more traditional approach — just using the basic crab ingredients, but putting them on a pizza instead of stuffing the mushrooms.  Crab Stuffed Mushroom Recipe: *Link

I have been using an English White Cheddar for my stuffed mushrooms.  There is a boldness to a good cheddar, a sharpness. What I like about a good cheddar cheese is that while it’s bold it is also sweet.  As I write this, I actually have the sensation of tasting this cheese starting at the front roof of my mouth and then having it wash across the top of my mouth and down my throat! You feel the sharpness up front and it finishes smoother and sweeter.  I never knew this, but Cheddar Cheese comes originally from England and was said to have first been produced as early as the 1100’s in a village called – you guessed it, CHEDDAR!  There were caves in the area that provided the consistently ideal temperatures for producing this cheese.  Lucky for us.

Cheddar goes really well with the stuffed mushrooms as well as with this pizza.

 

Crab Stuffed Mushroom Pizza

– Favorite Pizza Dough like Peter’s Country Dough

– Grated English White Cheddar

– Lump Crab meat

– Roasted Onions

– Roasted Leeks

– Roasted Red Peppers

*You could also add some chilies to give a little more heat.

– Roasted Mushrooms

– Basil

– Olive Oil

* Chili Oil to finish

 

This is a no “sauce” pizza.  I drizzled olive oil on the crust which blends with the cheese and other ingredients to keep things moist.

After the olive oil, add the grated cheddar.  Don’t put on too much because you want the cheese to blend with everything, not overpower it.

Add the crab, onions, peppers mushrooms and place some basil leaves on top.

Drizzle with a little more Olive Oil and slide her into the oven.

 

You can see that there is plenty of “sauce”.  If you wanted more, you could add some cherry tomatoes cut in half and allow them to add to the moisture content as they bake in the oven, emitting more of their juices.

Just like the Crab Stuffed Mushrooms I’ve been playing with, this pizza nails it!  The cheddar really goes well with the crab, and the other ingredients add texture and sweetness that also works well with the crab.

 

Slice it up and make sure to have some good chili oil around.  The spice is a nice finishing touch!

 

Enjoy!

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