Sweet Caroline Pizza
remaking (and improving!) an old favorite from a now-defunct Pittsburgh restaurant...
About 5 years ago I took my first of many treks down to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The purpose of this trip was to attend the 2019 Phenomenology Symposium, a conference hosted by the Pittsburgh Particle Physics Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PittPACC) at the University of Pittsburgh to highlight the state of the art in Standard Model physics, Beyond the Standard Model physics, astrophysics, and cosmology.
During this conference I stayed in the student dorms right off of Forbes Avenue, mere minutes away from Lawrence Hall, where the conference took place. It’s also near a bunch of restaurants. One of the restaurants that I visited during this stay was a place called Fuel and Fuddle:
This restaurant, which sadly closed its doors in 2023, was a gastropub that served plenty of good food, including pizza (A menu from the restaurant can be found here.)
One of my colleagues from UB that was also attending the conference suggested that I try the “Sweet Caroline” pie, which is topped with pulled pork, cheddar cheese, bacon, red onion and jalapenos. I took this suggestion, and ordered it. This was the resulting pie:
While it did hit the spot, there is always the opportunity to try to improve on it. So, why not do so as a way to remember this establishment?
The Process
Shortly after 1 pm I took the frozen pizza dough out of the freezer to thaw out, aiming to have it between 6-6:30 pm. This worked out pretty well and by 5 the dough was pliable enough for me to work with.
I then prepared the ingredients that I would need: the jalapeno, mozzarella cheese, red onion, pulled pork, bacon and BBQ sauce. I prepped two pans - one cookie sheet with foil, for the bacon, and one pizza pan with non-stick spray, for the pizza.
I tackled the bacon first, laying out a pound of bacon on the foil prepped sheet and sticking it into a hot, 400 degree oven to get nice and crispy. This took about 20-25 minutes to get to the desired doneness.
While the bacon was baking I set to work on the pizza itself. First, I took the dough ball and placed it on the center of the pizza pan, and stretched it out so it would cover most of the surface:
Next, we needed to get a base layer, something that the rest of the ingredients would stick to. This is actually something that was not determined in the Fuel and Fuddle menu listing, so I had to think for a bit as to what would make sense. I opted to go with barbeque sauce, which would prove to be sticky and add to the desired flavor.
Now for the cheese. Cheddar was what was used in the original dish, I opted for mozzarella to help mellow the flavor out. I was quite liberal with the application, so that the entire pie would be covered:
By this point the bacon was getting close to completion, but it wasn’t quite ready yet. I drained the grease and proceeded to tackle the onion and jalapeno. Surprisingly I did not need too much onion, and the single jalapeno was perfect for this (I opted to remove the seeds as I did not want to make it too spicy for my housemates):
By this point the bacon was ready. I pulled the bacon out and I let it cool, while I cooked the prepackaged pulled pork1. After I cooked and placed the pork on top of the cheese and veggies it was time to crumble some bacon on.
Twenty minutes later the pizza was ready:
Moment of truth… I popped the slice of pizza into my mouth and munched on it. Yep - it was delicious, albeit a bit more puffy and more messy than I remember!
Now I leave it to you guys - what looked better to you? Fuel and Fuddle’s original, or my interpretation of it? Sound it out in the comments.
Recipe
Ingredients:
Pizza dough (I used a frozen pizza dough from Wegmans)
One jalapeno
1.5 cups Mozzarella cheese
1/8 of a red onion
8 oz. pulled pork (I used the Dinosaur BBQ brand, but if you have made your own feel free to use that)
2-3 strips of bacon
BBQ sauce
Instructions:
If using frozen pizza dough, allow the dough to thaw for several hours at room temperature.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Place bacon on a baking sheet and cook the bacon in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until crispy.
While bacon is cooking, spray a pizza pan with non stick spray and then place the pizza dough on it. Stretch the dough out until it covers the entire pan.
Coarsely chop the onion and slice the jalapeno (making sure to wash the pepper and remove the seeds), set aside.
Dollop some BBQ sauce on the pizza dough and spread it until the entire dough is covered.
Place the cheese evenly on top of the BBQ sauce.
Top the cheese layer with the onion, jalapeno and pulled pork (cooking the pulled pork according to package instructions if using a prepackaged portion).
Remove the bacon from oven and allow to cool before crumbling the strips of bacon on top.
Cook the pizza in the oven for about 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
Enjoy!
Feel free to share this around if you enjoyed the recipe, and comment if you tried it yourself. Also subscribe, so you don’t miss out on future recipes and other musings:
You can use pulled pork that you have made, I used this because it’s what I had.