Seafood pizza — Italy

Seafood pizza, known in Italian as pizza ai frutti di mare, is a pizza built on a tomato base and topped with a mixture of shellfish and other seafood rather than the cured meats or vegetables more common on other pizzas. It is a familiar choice on pizzeria menus across Italy and is generally treated as a straightforward, recognizable option rather than a chef's specialty. The dish is served throughout the country, though it is especially popular in coastal towns and cities where seafood is part of everyday cooking. It also appears widely on menus away from the coast, since most pizzerias keep some form of frozen or fresh mixed seafood on hand for exactly this topping. To prepare it, a round of pizza dough is stretched thin and spread with tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes, then drizzled with olive oil and scattered with garlic. The seafood, typically a combination such as mussels, clams, shrimp and squid rings, is arranged over the top, sometimes after being briefly cooked separately to remove excess liquid and ensure it is tender by the time the pizza finishes baking. The pizza is baked at high heat until the crust is crisp and the seafood just cooked through, then finished with chopped parsley. What sets this pizza apart from most others is the near-total absence of cheese, since seafood and cheese are seldom paired in Italian cooking; the tomato, garlic and seafood are left to carry the flavour on their own. The exact combination and proportion of shellfish varies by region, season and what a given pizzeria has on hand, and some kitchens add cherry tomatoes, capers or a touch of chili.