clam & sausage pizza. you might be thinking, “what a strange combination!” but trust me, this is amazing! kevin claims that this pizza was the reason why he decided to go to Yale. his dad introduced it to him as one of his favorite things to eat during his time at Yale, and kevin fell in looove.
this past Saturday was the day of the Harvard-Yale football game, and though we weren’t able to fly back to New Haven for the weekend, we were able to bring a little bit of New Haven to southern California with this pizza.
a few weeks ago, i sent a Facebook message to the Yorkside Pizzeria Facebook page, telling them how much my father-in-law, husband, and i loooove their clam & sausage pizza, and how we wanted to learn how to make it. i asked if they might be willing to share any tips about the recipe. with the Ing family’s early Thanksgiving celebration coming up (which was this past Saturday) and kevin’s dad’s recent Blackstone pizza oven purchase, i hoped that we might hear back in time. sure enough, we did! George, the owner of Yorkside called me on Wednesday and shared all his secrets with me! he was sooo nice! boy were we (and kevin’s dad) excited and happy.
the important thing is to get all the right ingredients! that’s what was most helpful about the conversation with George. i wasn’t able to get exact measurements from him, because they make their stuff in bulk, but it wasn’t a big deal because we just relied on our palates’ memories to make it taste like we remembered it.
the ingredient list:
- dough
- plum tomatoes
- pizza sauce (in a jar, not paste)
- sweet italian sausage
- whole milk mozzarella cheese
- parmesan cheese
- fresh chopped surf clams
- white wine (light, like chardonnay)
- basil
- oregano
- italian parsley
- garlic
- butter
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
for the dough:
- the owner at Yorkside said any plain pizza dough (even store bought) is good. we used Trader Joe’s pizza dough (yum yum yum). we tried the whole wheat for one of the two pizzas and it wasn’t nearly as good. next time we’ll stick with the plain.
for the pizza sauce:
- combine ground up plum tomatoes with already made pizza sauce. add olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano (chopped), and italian parsley (chopped) to desired taste and consistency. we were too lazy to grind up tomatoes so we used 2 tubs of fresh pizza sauce (in the refrigerated section) from Trader Joe’s and a little pizza sauce from a jar.
for the clams:
- in a pan combine olive oil, butter, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, parsley, and white wine until it browns slightly. add the clams at the very end with more fresh parsley. we used about 3/4 of a stick of butter and half a head of galic (minced). we got 14 oz of chopped clams (frozen) from The Fish King, a fish market in Glendale. one note is to make sure to add enough salt to really bring out the flavor of the clams.
a note about the other ingredients: we got the whole milk mozzarella, parmesan, sweet italian sausage, and Meridian Chardonnay, all from Trader Joe’s. we love Trader Joe’s…can you tell?
steps for assembling:
- put sauce on the pizza dough
- put mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce
- add clams (make sure to drain from the sauce)
- add sausage (raw, so that the fat from the sausage marries with the clam)
- sprinkle parmesan cheese, mixed with oregano, parsley, and chiffonated basil, on top of everything
- cook pizza at 500+ degrees
- enjoy!
the key is figuring out how much clam sauce to add to the pizza. you want to add enough so that the clam flavor is nice and strong, but not too much that all the toppings fall off…though, according to kevin, the easily sliding toppings is actually more like the real thing at Yorkside.
all in all, the pizza was delicious! kevin’s grandpa (kevin’s dad’s dad) reeeeally liked it and even ate the leftovers for breakfast on sunday morning…haha. it must run in the family. last night, we used the leftover clam sauce, sausages, and other ingredients, to make a delicious clam/sausage spaghetti. it was soooo good!
HUGE shout out again to Yorkside Pizzeria! thank you for helping kevin and his friends survive many late nights in school, and for sharing your recipe!
alice in cook-ING land 