A few months ago I went to a place called Cafe Estelle in Philadelphia with one of my dearest, closest & “bestest” friends Steve. I had read that this was one of the best places in the city to have brunch. The article said that Estelle’s breakfast pizza was a must try. PIZZA for breakfast? I kept thinking about the cold stiff slices of pizza that are usually left over from the previous night that most collage students eat.
I jumped in my car with Steve in toe & off we went to dig into Estelle’s specialty.
The whole time I was chowing down I couldn’t help thinking about how I would make a breakfast pizza. Don’t get me wrong it was good..real good, but I always think of ways to do things Diva’s way…that’s just me.
Estelle’s pizza had home fries, bacon & a fried egg. I changed it slightly by sauteing onions along with the home fries & sprinkling them with paprika like diners do. I also swapped out the bacon for pork roll or as we here in New Jersey call it “Taylor ham.” It’s called Taylor ham because it was developed by a man named John Taylor from Trenton New Jersey; this is also why it’s popular in this area.
Here in New Jersey a Taylor ham & cheese sandwich is the breakfast of champions! To be honest growing up in Philadelphia I never ate pork roll, we had scrapple which is a “so called” square of meat that would be cut into 1/2 inch thick slices & fried. This is purely a Philly thing. I don’t even want to know what scrapple is made from, but I think the name could be an indicator. Anyway…
For those of you who don’t know about or never had pork roll, the best way I could explain it is …If Canadian bacon & spam had a child it would be pork roll. I hope that gives you some idea of what it might taste like. I imagine there is pork roll sold in other parts of the country maybe just not the Taylor brand. If anybody out there knows please let me know.
My son John is often my taste tester. When he was finished eating the Diva’s Breakfast Pizza he told me it was “fire.” In teen language that means he loved it. I have to agree with my son, it is fire. About a 3 alarmer! Another Diva dish that’s teen approved.
Recipe Breakfast Pizza
for a 6 inch individual pizza
- pizza dough, store bought or homemade
- 1 tsp. olive oil
- 1/2 c. potatoes, washed & cut into 1/2″ cubes
- 2 tsp. onion, finely diced
- 1/8 tsp. paprika
- 1 slice of pork roll, cooked
- 1/2 c. shredded cheese, I used fontina but mozzarella, fontina or jack cheese would work
- 1 egg fried.
Preheat oven to 450 F
Cook the potatoes & onions until golden, sprinkle with paprika, salt & pepper. set aside.
Cook pork roll until edges begin to char. set aside
Take a piece of small pizza dough & stretch it out to a 6″ disc. brush it with olive oil and pre-cook the crust until golden. Remove crust from the oven & begin layering the ingredients. First put the potato & onions evenly around around the crust. Next place the pork roll & sprinkle the cheese.
There are 2 ways you can do this next step. You can either crack a raw egg on top of pizza & then bake until eggs whites are set
OR
Place the pizza in the oven to melt the cheese. At the same time fry or poach an egg. Take the pizza out & place the egg on top.
Honestly I didn’t have luck with cooking the egg on the pizza. The egg slid off so I fried the egg & placed it on the pizza.
*Diva Note* you can use any breakfast meat you like. Bacon, sausage, canadian bacon, ham..whatever you like. Also to even make it easier you could buy the frozen potato hash browns & saute them with the onions.
Enjoy,
D I V A
