Background🔗

The pun "Beetzza" is credited to A when we were making Ratatouille pizza. It's such a cool name that I decided to make a true beet pizza. It took quite some effort to get it right.

"Beetzza", as straightforward as the name suggests, is not as simple as I first thought. The general philosophy of pizza flavor is to keep it simple. To develop a new flavor, I usually imagine what pairs well with the toppings and make that “what” into sauce. For the case here, beetroot pairs well with soft cheese or sweet dressing. So I used honey cottage cheese puree as sauce, mozzarella as usual and sweet soy reduction as the finish. However, it doesn't really work. For the first time in a long long time, I was disappointed by the flavor. It's off balance. Unlike its golden sibling, red beetroot is very earthy. Without a good ratio of sauce and cheese to complement the earthiness, it's overpowering. Another unintentional mistake is the use of tomatoes. The original thought is to add color contrast as well as complementary flavor profile. It turns out that tomatoes steal the spotlight and the sweetness from tomato juice makes beetroot more earthy, in an undesirable way.

Upon some serious reflection, I came up with some improvements to address the issues.

• Cut beetroot into matchsticks instead of slices to make it more easily distributed among sauce and cheese so that the earthiness is better balanced
• Inspired by the classic New York white pizza, reorder the layers from bottom to top: a thin layer of white sauce, half beetroot with mozzarella, the other half beetroot, goat cheese.

Formula🔗

Sauce🔗

• milk
• cottage cheese, blended

Topping🔗

• beetroot, matchstick cut
• dollops of herb goat cheese

Finish🔗

• parm

Evaluation🔗

The improved version really has a big performance boost. There is no longer overpowering earthiness. Instead, subtle sweetness gets to shine through. The light white sauce gives just enough background support to incorporate beet juice into creamy beet sauce, which then absorbed by cheese and crust, permeates the mellow beet flavor everywhere. Now it truly deserves the name "Beetzza". With the good supporting sauce and cheese, it's a celebration of the unique earthy flavor of beetroot.

Demo🔗