Right now, fresh and open-minded at the beginning of a brand new year, is the perfect time to look at the past, discard what hasn’t been working for us, and try new things. In that spirit, YouTube channel Binging With Babish is upending our traditional understanding of pizza as a flat, pie-shaped food eaten in slices. He, with inspiration from an Eric Andre Show sketch, is spreading the revolutionary concept of “the pizza ball.”
The monstrous delight is based on an episode segment in which Andre, decked out in jockstrap and jester’s cap, tries to deliver a terrifying lump of “straight farm to nug” dough, sauce, and cheese to a karate dojo. Rebuffed, Andre talks Scientology with the class before being chased from the premises by a screaming, staff-wielding instructor.
Binging With Babish’s first version looks to capture this magic with a close approximation of the original clip’s pizza ball. It is, simply, pizza stuffed into two mixing bowls, joined into a dripping globe, and tied up with butcher’s twine. Not satisfied with this version, the next pizza ball takes greater liberties. After an overly gooey first attempt, the revised ball ends up looking more like a savory Gushers candy than a Frankenstein’s monster of pizza slices. The result is smaller, less soccer ball-shaped balls where cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni are encased in a doughy shell that the clip points out kind of look like doughnut holes.
Anyone looking for tonight’s dinner plans can try to recreate the recipe by following along with the video at home. There’s no word yet on whether any clever chefs have figured out the best dipping sauce for the pizza balls, but the obvious solution for the discerning diner is, of course, to “ranch it up.”
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