Grandma Pie with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage
A pizza for the cozy months
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Well, I may be a little late to the Super Bowl party, but it’s always a good time for pizza, right? We still have a few weeks (months?) of coziness left before we start swinging open the doors and adopting a lighter way of eating. So for now, I’m still into comfort food.
Today I’m sharing the Grandma Pie recipe with you from my latest book, Open Kitchen (page 169). Even if you already have my book, I like to highlight recipes from it from time to time rather than giving you a brand new one. I want to convince you to actually COOK the recipes in the book rather than just look at the pretty pictures!
Making a big pan pizza like this one is great for a family dinner or a bigger gathering (I think we’re starting to do those again?). Once, I thought it would be fun to make pizzas when we were entertaining a family with kids, but I was so busy making each individual pie that I never got a chance to actually sit down and eat with them. Making a big sheet pan (or two or three) of pizza like this lets you do all the assembly ahead of time so all you have to do is put the pan in the oven; 30 minutes later, you’ll have plenty of pizza for a crowd.
You can lose the sausage and go vegetarian with the toppings—let your imagination run wild! I love the bitterness of broccoli rabe here, especially with the sausage, but anything is possible. You can even go half and half since there’s plenty of room to spread the toppings out. There’s no sauce-making necessary here, you will just use marinated canned plum tomatoes that you break up with your hands.
One of the hallmarks of a Grandma Pie is that the cheese is on the bottom, followed by the tomatoes and then the toppings, making for a slightly different pizza experience than you may have had before. The crust almost fries in the olive oil in the pan, much like focaccia, making for a very crisp bottom.
The dough, like any yeast dough, can easily be made a day or even two days before you need it. I find that easiest, since I’m usually planning ahead. A slow, cold rise also makes for a tastier and more well-developed dough. That said, you can also whip it up in real time, giving it just an hour to double in size. You can prep the toppings while you wait, making this perfect for you non-planners too.
I’ve often said that even bad pizza is pretty good. But this is a very good pizza, and the perfect way to please family and guests of every generation.
Risotto Talk!
Many of you responded to last week’s post for Mushroom Risotto with personal stories of your own about Pino Luongo, Coco Pazzo, or just making risotto. Thanks for writing—I love hearing from you!
My friend Colu Henry—who has what looks like a very fun and exciting new book coming out, Colu Cooks: Easy Fancy Food, and also a Patreon newsletter where she recently shared a recipe for mushroom pappardelle—noted how many writers were highlighting mushrooms AND risotto last week. The February 13th edition of Buona Domenica—a new Substack newsletter written by Domenica Marchetti—takes a deep dive into risotto as well, sharing a recipe for Risotto Con Radicchio. Great minds!!
What’s Cooking Next Week
Roast chicken! Paid subscribers will receive not one but two posts next week (containing several recipes, a video tutorial, and more) about what I consider to be one of the most impressive—and surprisingly easy—meals to serve your family: a roast chicken. It’s a perfectly cozy dish to round out February with and to have in your back pocket year-round. If you aren’t already a paid subscriber and would like the posts to land in your inbox, I hope you’ll consider investing!
Grandma Pie with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage
Serves 8 to 10
I first became acquainted with the Grandma Pie, a Long Island specialty, on one of my many trips back and forth between New York City and my place on the eastern end of Long Island. I love pizza, so I was always tempted to stop about halfway home for a slice. The pizza was pretty average at this particular place, but still, it was pizza. One day they had grandma pie, and it was better than average and exactly what I wanted—a nice neat car snack—not too saucy and crisp on the bottom. I continued to ask for it on subsequent trips, but they rarely had it! A big pan of pizza (or two) is a great way to feed a crowd, and happily. If you have vegetarians, it’s easy to leave off the meat—you could substitute with well-roasted sliced shiitake mushrooms, which will lend a meatless note of umami.
For the dough:
1 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
1 ½ cups warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the bowl
3 to 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons salt
For the pizza:
1 (28-ounce) can San Marzano tomatoes, drained and broken up (cores removed and liquid discarded or saved for another use)
2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped (1 heaping tablespoon)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
6 fresh basil leaves
3/4 teaspoon salt, plus more as needed
Red pepper flakes
10 ounces (4 links) hot Italian pork sausage, removed from casings (optional)
1 bunch broccoli rabe, thick stems cut out
1/4 cup olive oil
8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced and torn
To make the dough: In a large liquid measuring cup, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Stir in the sugar and oil. Combine the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix briefly to combine, then slowly pour in the yeast mixture on low speed until well combined. Mix for about 5 minutes, until smooth. Transfer to a very lightly floured surface and knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 10 times. Form into a ball, then transfer to an oiled bowl. Turn the dough so it’s oiled too, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
To make the pizza: In a medium bowl, combine the tomatoes, garlic, oregano, basil, and salt and season with red pepper flakes. Set aside.
Heat a large (12-inch) nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook until no longer pink, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside. Meanwhile, wash the broccoli rabe. Drain the broccoli rabe (but not very well; you want it to be dripping wet). Add it to the pan and increase the heat to high. Season lightly with salt and cover. Cook for 2 minutes, tossing once or twice. Remove with tongs to a plate and drain off any extra liquid.
About 1 hour before you want to assemble the pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 500°F.
Pour the oil into a 13-by-18-inch rimmed baking sheet and spread the dough in the pan. If it pulls back, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes. Spread the dough to fill the entire pan.
Sprinkle on the cheese, followed by the sauce, and then the broccoli rabe and sausage. Place on the bottom rack of the oven (using a preheated pizza stone if you have one—put the pan right on the stone). Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until crisp on the bottom and browned on the edges. Cut into squares and serve immediately.
Cooking tips and variations
TIMING TIPS:
Up to 1 day ahead: Make the dough and refrigerate; brown the sausage and cook the broccoli rabe; prepare the tomatoes and store in the fridge.
About 1 hour ahead: Prepare the pizza for the oven and bake.
If you want to assemble the pizza more than 1 hour ahead of time, you can! Refrigerate until ready to bake, but expect a slightly puffier pizza.
Do not fear making a yeast dough! This one is so easy—there is really no way to fail. And it takes less time to make than defrosting a ball of frozen pizza dough!
Though the instructions say to use a stand mixer to mix the dough, you can definitely do it by hand if you don't mind using a little elbow grease!
If you have vegetarians on hand, try making “shiitake bacon” as a topping. Even the carnivores won't mind!
If the dough resists when you try to spread it out on the oily pan—and it probably will—just cover it and let it rest for 10 or 15 minutes then try again.
The toppings will also help weigh down and thus spread out the dough, so if it’s not quite spreading to the corners, just add the toppings then nudge it some more.
Leftovers reheat well, and you can freeze them too. Try it for breakfast with an egg on top! Or for lunch with a salad on top!
This pizza is very much like the pizza I grew up with (the days before no-knead dough and so many flour choices). My mom was from Abruzzo, and this pizza reminds me of Abruzzese-style; not Neapolitan, not quite Roman, not quite Sicilian, very homestyle and so delicious.
Also, thank you for the kind mention!