Red Pepper Pesto and Shrimp Pizza

Last week’s vote for a dish was really close.  So close, in fact, that it was a tie.  I broke the tie by one email that a nice reader sent me encouraging me to make a shrimp dish.  I decided that if she wanted a shrimp dish bad enough to email me then her vote counts for two.

And so I settled on this awesome shrimp pizza with a red pepper pesto sauce.

I went with a thin crust for the pizza.  It just seemed like a crispy thin crust was the best way to go.  The original recipe actually said to buy store bought stuff, but you can probably guess how I feel about that.

I actually keep a few balls of pizza dough frozen that way I just have to pull them out a few hours before (like 5) and let it thaw slowly.  Then it is just like fresh.

Shrimp and Red Pepper Pesto Pizza (Adapted from Pizza)
This is for one 12-15 inch pizza

- 1/2 pound large (16-20 count) shrimp, peeled, deveined, and halfed
- 1 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- Juice from 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flake
- 1/4 medium onion, cut into thin strips
- 1/4 red pepper, seeded and cut into strips
- 2 Cups low-moisture mozzarella cheese
- Fresh basil (I left this off because I didn’t have any. It was fine.)
- 2/3 Cup red pepper pesto

Roasted Red Pepper Pesto (Makes about 2 cups)
– Clove garlic
- 1 jar (16 ounces) roasted red peppers
- 3 Tablespoons grated Parmesan
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 Teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flakes

Helpful Equipment:
- Pizza stone and peel

Prepping the Shrimp. If you purchased nice whole shrimp, take your time to shell them entirely and cut them in half head to tail.  Also remove the black vein near the back of the shrimp if there is one.

Then toss your shrimp in a bowl with the garlic, pepper flakes, olive oil, and lemon juice.  Let this marinate for 10 minutes or so.

Red Pepper Pesto. The pesto is actually really simple.  Just throw all your ingredients in a food processor and give it a pulse until it is sauce.  It’s okay if it has some lumps.

The original recipe said to not use the oil in the jar, but then the recipe called for added oil.  I thought I would try just pouring in the entire contents of the jar and skipping the extra oil.  That worked like a charm.

Besides the pesto, chop up the onions and red pepper.  Try to get them pretty uniformly sliced.

The dough. I’m not going to go into the exact specifics of making pizza dough in this post.  You can check out a really detailed explanation on this post.  I actually made the dough I’m using for this recipe a few weeks before and just froze it in a bag with a bit of olive oil drizzled inside.

You should preheat your oven to about 500 degrees and if you are heating up a pizza stone, make sure you give it at least 30 minutes to get the stone as hot as possible.

Then roll out your dough and slap it on a lightly corn mealed pizza peel.  You can also use the back of a sheet pan if you don’t have a peel.

Add an even layer of your red pepper pesto and then top it with the onions and fresh red peppers.

Next pile on your cheese and finally those shrimpies.  Try to keep the shrimp in one layer or they might not cook all the way through.  You can pile them on though as long as they don’t overlap.  They will shrink up when they are cooked.

About 12-14 minutes in a 500 degree oven and your shrimp should be cooked perfectly, your cheese melted, and your crust super crunchy and delicious.

Honestly, I had never really made a seafood pizza before, but it worked really well.  I ate about half of this pizza for dinner one night and took the other half for lunch the next day.

As with most pizzas, it’s possible that this one was better cold.

If you are looking for a spicy and interesting pizza to try, definitely give this one a go.

Be sure to check back tomorrow also to vote on a new dish for next week!