Hawaii Pizza

Taste and Appearance:

Fresh, sweet and sour pineapple, mixed with the mellow cheese and salty ham, results in a wonderful experience.

Ingredients:

Flour, Water, Soda water, Olive oil, Sunflower oil, Dry yeast, Salt, Sugar, Pizza sauce (tomatoes, carrot, celery, onion, garlic, sugar, salt, oregano leaves, bay leaves), Mozzarella cheese, ham and pineapple.

Method of Preparation:

Pizza dough:

• Mix all dry ingredients together (flour, dry yeast, salt and sugar)
• Add water to the dry mix slowly and while gently stirring.
• Mix olive and sunflower oil together and then slowly incorporate into the dough.
• Kneed the dough for approximately 10 minutes until the dough is soft and does not stick to the pan.
• Let the dough ferment for about 1 hour.

Pizza sauce:

• Prepare carrots, celery, onion and garlic by removing skin and chop finely.
• Pour enough olive oil, heat up, and fry onions, carrot, celery and garlic until golden brown.
• Add diced tomatoes with fruit water and bay leaves, bring to boil, then reduce heat and stir occasionally.
• After cooking for one hour, incorporate dry oregano, sugar and salt.

Assembly of the Pizza:

• Roll out the pizza dough and spread it on the baking pan to make sure there are no bubbles.
• Spread the pizza sauce evenly on top of the dough
• Spread the slices of ham and pineapple evenly over the pizza crust.
• Spread a layer of mozzarella cheese evenly on top.
• Bake in oven until well done and crispy.
• Sprinkle some dry oregano leaves on the surface.

History:

Sam Panopoulos was born in 1934 in a Greek town called Vourvoura. Sam has been very interested in eating since he was a child. He has learned a lot of Greek and Italian food. His aspiration was to be a chef.

In 1954, in order to make a better living, young Sam and his whole family immigrated to Ontario, Canada. He and his two brothers opened several restaurants in Chatham City, Canada.

The restaurants provided ordinary hamburgers, French fries and Chinese food that the local people liked.

In the early 1960s, Sam noticed a new trend of food at that time, Italian pizza began to be popular in big cities in the United States. This trend went all the way north and became more and more popular. At that time, there were several Italian pizza restaurants in Detroit. Because Detroit was only 80 kilometers away from Chatham, Canada, the trend also affected Canadians.

So in 1962, Sam decided to sell pizza in his own restaurant. But he soon noticed a problem…

"There were so few popular kinds of pizza! There was mushroom pizza, pepperoni pizza, bacon pizza and not that much more. People didn't have much variety and food choices. Almost everything was a bit tasteless." - Sam once said in an interview with the BBC.

So one day, when Sam was making pizza, he suddenly saw a can of pineapple on the table. He had a wonderful idea …

"Can you add a new flavor to pizza? Sweet and sour, for example?“ wondered Sam. At that time, the only dish with sour and sweet taste was Chinese sweet and sour pork meat with pineapple in it, but putting fruit in other dishes would be regarded as "inexplicable" and "food waste". "But Sam still put pineapple on the pizza“. He said "I don't know what pineapple pizza will taste like. It's was just playing around." "We were a group of young chefs who often do strange experiments."

Sam thought pineapple would loose all water, because of the high temperature, and would not taste well, but in fact, it wasn't. He and his brothers tasted some, fresh, sweet and sour, mixed with the mellow cheese and salty ham... Very delicious!

They gave this dish to the customers in the shop, and many liked it. Over next few months, guest came into the restaurant asking for "pineapple pizza," so Sam added it to the menu.

Because the brand name of canned pineapple used by Sam was "Hawaii", Sam named the dish "Hawaii Pizza"

Since then, Hawaii pizza has spread all over the city, the whole province, Canada, the United States, Europe, etc. Now, unless it is a traditional Italian restaurant, you can find Hawaii pizza in many pizzerias around the world.