Mushroom and Cheese Pizza on a Tortilla Crust

I admit it: I cheat. I use store-bought tortillas as a crust for my pizzas. I would love to toss my own dough but I don’t have the biceps to throw it around, the space to lay it out, much less the time to make it nor the time needed to let it set. If you want your own pizza dough, you need to plan it ahead of time because you have to let it rest at least an hour.

I hate the pizza crusts sold here too. I’ve tried all of them, and most are too dense for them to absorb the oil and the sauce I put on them, so the pizza gets too brittle and cracks when you bite into it. So I use the Village Gourmet’s Mexican Flour Tortillas. It’s available in a lot of groceries. Not as good as the real thing but it’s good enough to hold everything in place while providing a crunchier alternative to most commercially available pizza crusts.

One of my favorite pizza topping combinations for this tortilla crust: shiitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, garlic, fontina cheese and mozarella. And it’s simple enough for anyone to shun those thirty-minute deliveries that always take more than thirty minutes.

INGREDIENTS

2 10-inch tortilla crusts (the pack comes in 6)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
¼ cup sliced shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
¼ cup sliced button mushrooms
4 oz. grated fontina
4 oz. grated mozarella
3 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Lay two pizza doughs or your tortilla crust on a flat cookie sheet. Rub it with crushed garlic, and drizzle in some olive oil. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 250 degrees celsius for about 5 minutes. On a pan, heat about a tablespoon of oil and saute two cloves of chopped garlic, ¼ cup of sliced shiitakes and another ¼ cup of button mushrooms. Add pepper flakes if you want more heat and season with salt and pepper. Take the crust out of the oven and top it with the fontina cheese, the sauted garlic and mushrooms, and then the mozarella. Drizzle some more olive oil before putting back inside the oven and let it cook for about 12-15 minutes or until all the cheese on top has melted and browned a little. Best eaten while hot.


If you have some cilantro or parsley to spare, chop them up to add an herb-like contrast to the creamy cheese and the earthy flavor of the mushrooms.