Top That: Bacon and Sprouts (à la Motorino)

Sprouts get a lot of bad press and this pizza is a nightmare to sell. But I refuse to back down as it's one of my all time favourites and I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't enjoyed it having given it a try. There's something about the way the sprout leaves char at the edges and the combination with pancetta or smoked bacon is an all time classic.

I first had this pizza at Motorino as part of our New York pizza tour but you can get it much closer to home from ourselves or the excellent Honest Crust who are also staunch advocates of sprouts on a pizza.

Ingredients

Sourdough base

Mozzarella

Slithers of garlic
Sprout leaves
Smoked bacon or pancetta

Olive oil

Extra prep?

Some people mandolin the sprouts to get the slices fine enough, we just use the leaves and follow the approach almost verbatim from the Slice blog, here's how.

Bertha's in Bristol

Honest Crust in Altrincham

What I'd do differently
Find a way to get more people to order it, they're missing out.

Top That: Roast Chestnut and Rosemary

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."

Probably the last thing you want to hear in January but trust me it's preferable to my tax return so let's catch up on a couple of toppings which went down well last month.

Ingredients

Sourdough base

Mozzarella

Roasted chestnuts, shelled and chopped

Rosemary

Extra prep?

There's an art to shelling chestnuts, one I've yet to acquire even after tackling 3kgs of the little critters. Make sure you work on them while they're hot though, this reduced the frequency of cuts under my nails and toned down the colourful language.

What I'd do differently
It needs a grind of black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil to finish but really not much else. The smell of this pizza alone makes it worth a try even if you have to wait until next year.