Friday, January 13, 2012

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

I have two cats. They're wonderful. They were my initially my husband's cats. Then, when we got married, I sort of inherited them. Well, truth be told, one of them came over to my side very shortly after my husband and I started dating. In fact, lately, she's almost quite literally been at my side (or on my lap, or sitting next to me, or laying on top of my arms as I'm trying to type...) most minutes I'm home. She's not really one to take a hint or realize that I have stuff to do.

The other cat took a while to come around.  I think she thought I was invading her turf. We're now BFF, but it took her a while to determine that I was OK.

I think what made her come around was that I cook with chicken a lot. She would mysteriously appear at my side and wander through the kitchen with that "oh, hi! I'm just passing through" look about three seconds after the raw chicken got out of the fridge. After a while, she stopped doing it. But recently, she's picked up the habit again. It's so adorable it makes me want to cook with chicken even more. Especially when it's to make such delicious things like this Buffalo Chicken pizza. It's an excellent change in the "pizza night" rotation .



Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Recipe from Rachael Ray, adapted
Serves 3-ish
Cook & Prep Time - about 30 min

INGREDIENTS
  • 3/4 pound chicken breasts (about 2 breasts)
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
  • salt & pepper, for seasoning chicken
  • 1 pizza dough (I make my own)
  • Cornmeal or flour, to handle dough
  • 4 TBSP butter
  • 2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
  • 6 TBSP hot sauce (Frank's)
  • 1 cup tomato sauce
  • 1 - 1 1/2  cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
  • 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles (I leave this off - we don't like it)
  • 3 scallions, thinly sliced


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and preheat grill pan to medium-high.

Drizzle olive oil over the chicken then season generously with salt & pepper. When grill is hot, add chicken and cook about 3 minutes on each side, until cooked through and has a nice sear. Let rest for a few minutes and then thinly slice.

Stretch dough to form pizza using cornmeal or flour to help you handle it. Poke it with a fork a few times so it doesn't puff up too much during the cooking. Bake for about 5 minutes. Take out of the oven and set aside.

In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt butter and stir in Worcestershire, hot sauce, and tomato sauce. Stir to combine. Once combined and warm, remove from heat. Take about half of it and put on top of the pizza crust.

 Add chicken to the remaining sauce and coat. Put the chicken on top of the pizza and then drizzle with any remaining sauce. Cover with cheese and then add the scallions. Bake 15-18 minutes or until crisp and the cheese is bubbly.

1 comment:

Joanne said...

I'm generally not really a cat person but there are certain cats that I do adore with all of their cute antics! I am eternally a buffalo-anything fan....so this pizza sounds awesome!