White and green pizza from Loews Portofino Bay Hotel, Universal Orlando

How are you all? What is it, today? Lockdown day 44 or something? It’s not too bad here. We’ve settled into an uneasy truce where we’re mostly civil to each other, which is a lot easier for everyone. Anyhoo, I hope your lockdown home life is going okay. I’m missing travel and my favourite theme parks and hotels and restaurants and delicious food in general, so when the lovely chaps at Universal Orlando Resort mentioned that a few of their recipes have been put online for people to recreate at home, I jumped at the chance. Last night, I made the white and green pizza from Sal’s Market Deli at the beautiful Loews Portofino Bay Hotel, and woah, it’s delicious. I know a lot of people are talking comfort in taking time to create new dishes, so I’ve adapted it a bit from the US measurements so you can give it a go too.

Dreaming of pizza at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel

Instead of a traditional tomato sauce base, this pizza uses a yummy ricotta, parmesan and romano cheese base (I couldn’t get romano, which is a hard, salty cheese similar, but not as strongly flavoured as parmesan, so I used pecorino, which is really close in flavour and texture), and is finished with a pile of rocket that’s been dressed in a heavenly vinaigrette that adds a little pop of sweetness which is the perfect foil to all that salty cheesy goodness. We used veggie bacon because I don’t eat pork and Chas is a vegetarian, and it wasn’t the best. If you’re veggie, I’d suggest using some shards of my smoky maple halloumi ‘bacon’ instead. We also thought this would be cracking with the addition of some of those delicious sliced green jalapenos you get in a jar.

White and green pizza

Makes one large pizza - you will need:

Pizza dough - you can buy a fab ready made sourdough one in Tesco, or try my easy recipe here

For the toppings

2 large white onions
Small tub of green olives, sliced
Bacon or pancetta (or veggie alternative)

For the white ricotta cheese sauce

50g butter
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
250g tub ricotta cheese
25g pecorino cheese, grated
25g parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra for garnish

For the rocket with black pepper vinaigrette

1 bag of rocket (arugula)
2 tbsp agave (I used honey)
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Firstly, preheat your oven to 200 C/gas 6.

If you’re making your own dough, do that first and leave somewhere warm to prove.

Next, make the caramelised onions. Slice two large, white onions, and fry them slowly in a couple of tablespoons of oil until they’re light brown and really soft.

Then make the sauce. Melt the butter and oil together, then stir through the ricotta, parmesan and pecorino. Set aside (it looks a bit curdly but don’t worry, it’s fine when it’s cooked).

Flour the work surface and roll out the dough into a rough circle (I’m rubbish at this, but it doesn’t matter too much). Spread the cheese sauce generously over the pizza base, and then add the caramelised olives, onions and bacon.

Bake the pizza for about 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

Whisk together the dressing ingredients and toss through the salad. Pile on top of the pizza and finish with some grated pecorino. Deeeeelicious. Not quite as lovely as eating pizza overlooking the water at Loews Portofino Bay, but not a bad way to recreate the feeling 🙂

Gorgeous Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando Resort

Other Universal Orlando Resort loveliness

If, like me, you’re missing your favourite theme park snacks, Universal Orlando have very kindly put a few of them online so you can recreate them at home. There’s the scrummy green eggs and ham tots from the Green Eggs and Ham Café (if you can’t get the mini tater tots, try it with crispy squares of potato - yum), or you can recreate the incredible, enormous confetti milkshakes complete with an entire slice of cake on top from my favourite Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen.

If you want a little sneaky peek behind the scenes, there are some fab videos on things like how some of the rides were created, and the technology Universal use, including The Revenge of the Mummy, Transformers, Jurassic Park, and several others which can be found on the official playlist.

And if you’re missing the full ride experience, have a look at the absolutely brilliant POV rides in a 360 playlist on YouTube - these are absolutely nothing like the shaky mobile phone vids that you see online, but official HD videos that put you right in the centre of the ride action, including Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit with AMAZING views of the park!), Flight of the Hippogriff from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Jurassic Park: River Adventure, and Volcano Bay’s Kopiko Wai Winding River.

Enjoy! And let’s hope we’re all back there experiencing the real thing very soon xx