Beyond The Dough

from PMQ Pizza - December 2023

by PMQ Pizza Magazine

OUT

Presented By

It’s probably mid-December as you’re reading this in your restaurant.

The holidays are wonky, up-anddown business days, right?

Mother Nature throws curve balls at you nearly every day.

Staffing is harder than ever.

It’s been a long year, and you’re frazzled.

It’s not just about great food any longer. You must be a great pizzaiolo AND know everything about tech, marketing and finance. It’s hard. We see you.

Please take a moment. Deep breath. Exhale. Look around and give thanks for all you have. You. Are. Blessed.

You got this!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from The Perfect Crust Family!

To learn more about Perfect Crust’s pizza liners and other products, visit perfectcrust.com or email Eric Bam at Eric@perfectcrust.com

About Eric Bam: chicken, housemade ranch dressing and pickles, Mikey’s offers the Ma’s Mac edition, crowned with mac and cheese, as well as a vegan version called the Not Chicken, featuring housemade seitan, plant-based cheese and ranch.

Eric is the VP of Sales & Marketing for Perfect Crust Pizza Liners and Incrediblebags.com. Eric is a goal driven optimist that uses his positive attitude to lift up those around him. He’s a father to Nycholas, Alayna and Ruby. He’s a public speaker and show host. You can find him on all social media @TheEricBam.

Family-owned Donatos, also based in Columbus, has a hot chicken pizza of its own, showcasing fried spicy chicken, smoked provolone, Romano cheese, jalapeños, dill pickles and a ranch drizzle. Meanwhile, Atlanta-based Your Pie, with about 70 locations around the U.S., rolled out its own limited-time Nashville Hot Chicken pizza as part of its wintertime Craft Series in January. It’s topped with spicy chicken, pickles, red onions, housepickled jalapeños, mozz and Nashville hot sauce, plus a side of comeback sauce.

Even Pizza Hut tried to score a Nashville-style hit, testing its Pickle Pie—combining crispy, breaded chicken breast sprinkled with Nashville Hot Seasoning, white onions, cheese, buttermilk ranch sauce and spicy dill pickles—at its store on 8th Avenue in New York City last spring. The catch? The pie was offered for just one weekend, from June 9 through 11. And we haven’t heard a word about it since.

Chicken and Faraway Lands

Chickens live nearly everywhere—they’re the most common bird on the planet. No wonder their meat tastes so good with just about every type of regional cuisine. Rapid Fired Pizza, with 25 locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia, recently debuted a Thai Chicken Pizza, topped with grilled chicken breast strips, Thai Satay sauce, shredded mozzarella, cheddar, red peppers, green onions, cilantro and a lime wedge garnish.

What about the flavors of India? Butter chicken pizza has been ruffling feathers in Canada lately. Made with tender chicken thighs simmered in a spicy, creamy, tomato-based sauce called makhani, this Indian specialty is already hugely popular in Canada. So it was inevitable that companies like Ontario-based Rapizza, with eight locations, would suspect that butter chicken’s even better on a pizza. Rapizza’s version spotlights Tandoori chicken, makhani sauce, mozzarella, a blend of peppers, red onions and mint chutney. In June, Smithville Pizzeria, with one store in Smithville, Ontario, debuted its own version of the butter chicken pizza with a tad less spice, and even Papa Johns rolled out a butter chicken pizza for Canadians in May.

Finally, Mexican-style chicken is so at home on a pizza that Bill Crawford, owner of Righteous Slice in Rexburg, Idaho, won the $15,000 grand prize at this year’s Real California Pizza Contest with a pie called El Pollo Borracho. Packed with fresh, zesty flavor, it married tequila-lime chicken, elote corn, jalapeños and Tajín seasoning, plus Oaxaca, queso fresco and crème fraîche cheeses.

Austin Buckland, co-owner of Berwick Pizza in Green Camp, Ohio, was a finalist in that same contest, sponsored by the California Milk Advisory Board, and showed off a Mexican-inspired chicken pizza of his own, dubbed La Fiesta. “This one was our version of a chicken fajita pizza,” Buckland says. “It started off with fresh fire-roasted salsa on our homemade dough. We then added grilled chicken, grilled veggies, cilantro and tortilla strips. The contest was focused on California cheese, so it also featured three of [the state’s] amazing cheeses: Oaxaca, cotija and a drizzle of queso blanco. A true fiesta of flavors!”

Buckland and his team are often pickin’ chicken for their restaurant’s Pizza of the Month specials: Chicken Cordon Bleu, Honey Mustard Chicken,

Chicken Teriyaki, Chicken Fajita, Chicken & Waffle, Sweet & Sour Chicken and Summer Honey Chicken have all graced the menu.

The La Fiesta is also on that list of recurring LTO specialty pies, Buckland says. “We offered it around the time of the contest for everyone to try, and our customers anxiously awaited its return. They loved the flavors and thought it was absolutely delicious. On top of that, they thought it was amazing for a small-town shop in the Midwest to be able to go out and represent on a national level!”

And in case you’re wondering: Yep, Buckland’s customers are partial to his Nashville Hot Chicken pizza, too. It’s made with a garlic butter base, mozzarella, baked chicken tenders tossed in a Nashville hot sauce, dill pickle slices and a ranch drizzle. “The popularity of it really surprised us,” Buckland says. “Our intention was for the Nashville Hot Chicken to be limited to summer only, but we’ve had so much positive feedback that it’s on our full-time menu now.”