Its no secret out whole family misses the food in Okinawa. Its hard not to. Japanese (duh), Thai, Indian, Mexican, Italian and FUSION like I’ve never had before. Well one place almost everyone who has ever been there knows about is the Garlic House, AKA Arin Kirin. We made sure to visit a couple of times right before leaving Oki and soak up all of the garlic goodness. One of the best items on their menu is their garlic pizza. Alexa can even polish off a whole pizza in one sitting. I found a recipe and have altered it to make a pizza that looks and even tastes very close to the garlic houses. Ready for the recipe?? Well after a funny quote from today to show you just how good it really is.

Me: Alexa do you know what we are having for dinner tonight?
A: No what?
Me: Garlic Pizza
A: Like the garlic house in Okinawa.
Me: Yes!
A: Mmmm I love that!!

On to the recipe…

Garlic Pizza, Copy cat of the Garlic House

1. with your favorite recipe for a home made yeast pizza crust. It should be a slightly crisp recipe

2. Next, take a large clove of garlic peal off the skin from the outside leaving the individual pieces still wrapped up. With a sharp knife cut off the top 1/2 inch of the head exposing the fleshy parts. Put the whole head into a foil boat and drizzle with olive oil and a pinch of kosher salt.

3. Roast in the oven at 400degrees for 30 min. Remove and let cool completely.

4. Squeeze roasted garlic out into a mortar and pestle and smash til it forms a smooth paste (or cheat and use a mini blender or food processor)

5. Mix garlic paste with 2T olive oil and 1T dijon mustard and blend well. Set aside.

6. Grate cheeses and mix together. 10-12oz whole milk mozzarella, 2-3 oz Parmesan (not the stuff in a bottle), 2-3 ozGruyere cheese. I like the hard cheeses with a fine grate but either is ok.

7. Preheat the oven to 425degrees and put a PC pizza stone in there to heat up. Roll out a 13-15 inch pizza (make sure it has room on the edges of the stone. You want it to be very thin. Use a pizza peel to transfer the unbaked crust to the HOT stone. Prick the pizza crust with a fork if your dough looks like it starts to bubble up too much. Bake shell only for 5-6 min then remove from the oven.

8. Top the pizza with a thin coating of the garlic spread and then put the cheese on, not too thick. Sprinkle with light dusting of Pixie dust (AKA as parsley in the normal world).

9. Bake for 5-7 min til edges start to turn golden. Eat right away before the rest of the family knows it came out of the oven then make the second one to share 🙂

You will need:
Large head of Garlic
Kosher salt
Olive Oil
Dijon Mustard (prepared type)
Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesan Cheese
Gruyere Cheese
Pizza Dough
Pixie dust (parsely dried works)

Enjoy a little part of Okinawa. I’d love to hear how you like it or if you find something that tastes a little more like garlic house’s pizza.