There are plenty of stand-out performances in So I Married An Axe Murderer.  Without a doubt, one of our favorites is Phil Hartman’s Alcatraz tour guide/former prison guard John Johnson, whom everyone calls “Vicky.”

Despite his droll delivery, you can see the obvious glee in his eyes as Vicky gives his tour group the inside scoop on the murderous escapades of Alcatraz’s more notorious inmate, regaling them with all the gory details.

So what to make in tribute to Vicky?  Well the first thing that came to mind was pizza.  Why pizza you may ask?  Laura’s been trying to get me to make one my famous pizzas (famous because I often post pictures of them on Facebook) for the blog—an “Escape from Alcatraz” pizza, playing upon the Escape from New York Pizza chain.  I was totally on board with that idea.  We initially thought of loading the pizza with all kinds of sausage because of all the sausage-making scenes involving Charlie and Harriet at the butcher shop.  But I wanted to create a pizza that really paid homage to Vicky’s twisted sense of humor, so I decided to embrace my own twisted sense of humor and came up with Vicky’s (No) Escape from Alcatraz Pizza, which I would describe as a macabre version of “green eggs and ham” pizza (incidentally an indirect nod to Mike Myers in Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat).

At the base is my tried and true pizza dough, topped with a layer of homemade pesto sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese, and halved cherry tomatoes.

Looks like a perfectly innocent pizza, right?  Well, hold on to your knickers!  About 3/4 of the way into the baking, I cracked two organic brown eggs into the center of the pizza and fired up the broiler to cook the eggs to a lovely sunny side up, with the yolk still soft.  To finish off the pizza, I arranged slices of prosciutto di Parma around the eggs and artfully drizzled streaks of marinara sauce around the yolks to make them look like “bloody” eyeballs (a la Machine Gun Kelly).

On a side note, I had intended to use duck eggs for this pizza, but my plans got derailed by an unfortunate trip to the Asian market–it involved lousy parking, my friend Karen being recruited to procure said duck eggs, language issues, and a clueless sales staff–which resulted in me getting the wrong kind of duck eggs…the fertilized kind…as in BALUT!!  For those of you unfamiliar with balut, let’s just say it’s like finding a bloody mini alien in an egg shell–good thing I cracked it into a bowl first!  Suffice it to say, I dispatched the nasty looking little bugger to the compost bin.  After all, it’s a comedy thriller, not a horror flick.  Next time, I’ll try the Farmer’s Market or Whole Foods for duck eggs.

Vicky’s (No ) Escape from Alcatraz Pizza

Pizza Dough:

1 cup Bread Flour

1-1/4 cup 00 Flour (for Pasta/Pizza)

1 tsp. Instant or Rapid Rise Yeast

3/4 tsp. Sea or Kosher Salt

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil

3/4 cup Warm Water (110°F)

Combine the flours, salt, and yeast in a food processor fitted with a dough blade (plastic).  Pulse a few times to blend.  Combine the olive oil and water.  With the food processor going, slowly add the liquid and process until a rough ball of dough forms.  Pulse a few times at 5 second intervals until the dough is sticky and clings to the blade.  The dough should be smooth and elastic.  Turn the dough out into a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise to double its size in a warm, draft-free space.  Punch down the dough and stretch it out onto an oiled sheet pan to desire thickness.  *You can also put the dough into a greased Ziploc freezer bag at this point and freeze it for later use.  Just let it thaw in the refrigerator.

Toppings:

1/2 cup Pesto Sauce (homemade or store-bought)

1 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

6-8 Cherry Tomatoes (halved)

2 Large Eggs (or Duck Eggs if you can find them)

4 Slices Proscuitto di Parma

1/4 cup Marinara Sauce

*sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Spread the pesto onto the stretched pizza dough, then layer on the mozzarella.  Arrange the cherry tomatoes around the perimeter.  Bake the pizza for about 10-11 mins. in a preheated 495°F oven.  Take the pizza out of the oven and crack the two eggs in the center.  Fire up the broiler and continue baking the pizza until the egg whites are just set but the yolks are still soft.  Arrange the prosciutto slices around the eggs and drizzle streaks of marinara around the yolks.  Sprinkle with a little grated Parmesan.