Get Jerked

• Jerk was developed by the Awarak Indians as a way to preserve meats. Slaves further refined the method in Jamaica. Now it's used as a hot seasoning rather than as a preservative. Ingredients include habanero peppers, green onions, thyme, ginger, black pepper, garlic, lime juice, red wine vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. The ingredients are ground to a paste. If you don't want to make your own jerk seasoning, buy it commercially prepared. Use the jerk seasoning in the pizza dough as well as to marinate the meat and create the pizza sauce. Pizza dough is simply flour, water, yeast and oil.

Special Sauce

• The sauce for jerk pizza adds sweet heat. Add a tablespoon or 2 of jerk seasoning to purchased sweet chili sauce. Another option is to add the jerk seasoning and brown sugar to ketchup or tomato sauce. Add the seasoning a 1/2 teaspoon at a time so you don't use too much. Spread a thin layer of the sauce on the pizza dough.

Marvelous Meat

• The classic Caribbean jerk pizza uses both bacon and chicken. Create a seafood jerk pizza by rubbing the jerk paste on shrimp that have been shelled. Saute the shrimp and place on the pizza dough. Another option is to use a cooked rotisserie chicken from the deli. Cut the meat off the bone and toss with the jerk rub. Whatever meat you use should be cooked before being added atop the pizza. The pizza doesn't bake long enough for raw meat to cook. Scatter the meat over the sauced dough.

Heat It Up

• If the heat from the jerk paste isn't enough spice for you, add more from sliced hot peppers such as serrano, jalapeno or Scotch bonnets, also called habanero. The jalapeno is the tamest of the group, although it is hot, while Scotch bonnets are on the top end of the heat scale.

Vegetables and Cheese

• Pizza isn't complete without vegetables. Red onions and sweet peppers are found in a traditional Caribbean jerk pizza. If you like lots of veggies on your pizza, add slices of cooked sweet potatoes, raw zucchini and cherry tomatoes. Add two layers of mozzarella cheese, one under the vegetables and one as the last topping. Garnish the baked pizza with chopped green onions.