Best Popeye Pizza Recipes

SPINACH AND THREE-CHEESE PIZZA

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 550 degrees (or highest temperature) with a pizza stone placed on lowest rack for at least 30 minutes. Top a pizza peel with parchment paper.
• Working with one piece of dough, flatten dough into a disk that is thicker in the center than at the edges. Using your fingers, gently pull on the edges of the dough to form a 12-inch circle; dough should still be thicker in the center. Transfer dough to prepared pizza peel.
• Top dough with one-quarter of the cheeses, spinach, and sliced garlic. Season with pepper and drizzle with olive oil.
• Transfer pizza along with parchment paper to pizza stone and bake until spinach is wilted and slightly browned, 10 to 12 minutes.
• Using pizza peel, remove pizza from oven and top with one-quarter of the mint. Serve with lemon wedges. Repeat process with remaining dough and toppings.

POPEYE PIE

Steps:

• 1 Place the pizza stone in a gas oven on the middle rack. Preheat the oven on bake at 500°F for 30 minutes. Switch to broil for 10 minutes and then back to bake at 500°F. (For an electric variation, see Cooks' Note.)
• 2 With the dough on the peel, sprinkle the surface evenly with the garlic. Distribute the pecorino, Gruyère, and mozzarella evenly over the dough. Sprinkle evenly with pepper.
• 3 With quick, jerking motions, slide the pie onto the stone. Bake for 2 minutes.
• 4 Pull the rack partially out of the oven. Quickly add the spinach in what will look like a big mound (the spinach will reduce, the mound flattening, as spinach always does when it cooks). Sprinkle evenly with salt. Return the pie to the oven for 3 1/2 to 4 minutes in a gas oven (somewhat longer with an electric oven; see Cooks' Note), until the crust is charred in spots, but not as deeply as with the other pizzas in this book.
• 5 Using the peel, transfer the pizza to a tray or serving platter. Drizzle evenly with oil. Slice and serve immediately.

JIM LAHEY'S NO-KNEAD PIZZA MARGHERITA

Steps:

• To make dough: In a large bowl, mix the flour, yeast, and salt. Add water and stir until blended (the dough will be very sticky). Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 12 to 24 hours in a warm spot, about 70 degrees.
• Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface and sprinkle the top with flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rest for 15 minutes.
• Shape the dough into 3 or 4 balls, depending on how thick you want the crust. Generously sprinkle a clean cotton towel with flour and cover the dough with it. Let the dough rise for 2 hours.
• To make sauce: Blanch tomato for 5 seconds in boiling water and quickly remove. Allow to cool to the touch. Peel the skin with your hands and quarter the tomato. Remove the jelly and seeds, and reserve in a strainer or fine sieve. Strain the jelly to remove seeds, and combine resulting liquid in a bowl with the flesh of the tomatoes. Proceed to crush the tomatoes with your hands. Add salt and olive oil and stir.
• To make pizza: Place pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven and preheat on high broil. Stretch or toss the dough into a disk approximately 10 inches in diameter. Pull rack out of oven and place the dough on top of the preheated pizza stone. Drizzle 5 generous tablespoons of sauce over the dough, and spread evenly. Try to keep the sauce about ½ inch away from the perimeter of the dough. Break apart or slice the buffalo mozzarella and arrange over the dough. Return rack and pizza stone to the middle of the oven and broil for approximately 6 minutes. Remove and top with basil, olive oil, and salt.