Home > Categories > Food > Frozen Goods > Ham and Pineapple Classic Pizza review
Sonny' Beaches' is the family messenger and he always takes a Chicago Ham & Pineapple pizza with him on a job. Having spent some time off shore (for tax purposes only you understand), he's developed a tropical taste for the tangy mix of premium ham, juicy pineapple and our secret herbed tomato base, topped with herbs, cheddar and mozzarella cheese. It's as Hawaiian as 5-0.
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When it comes to buying pizza's Ham and Pineapple, or Hawaiian as it's offered known as is one of my favourite flavours, I love the tropical taste of sweet, juicy pineapple, ham, cheese and tomato sauce so simple yet so delicious. A few years back we always used to have several frozen pizza's stocked up in our chest freezer as a quick meal or snack for when we were watching a movie or had friends around, after all who can resist pizza?
After having tried several of the other Chicago pizza's in the range we were sold on the brand and vowed never to purchase anything but from then on, the bases are perfect of cook up beautifully, with a nice crunch on the outside and a soft and fluffy bread like centre. The base sauce is always plentiful and full of flavour without over powering the rest of the pizza toppings.
The Chicago Ham and Pineapple pizza didn't let us down, topped with a rich tomato sauce on the base and lashings of big chucks of juicy sweet pineapple,and quality ham pieces, all topped with a generous amount of mozzarella cheese, baked to perfection in the oven for about 20 minutes. The flavours were divine and went together so well, and unlike many frozen pizza's that are out there the toppings were plentiful and well distributed over the entire pizza. This is by far the yummiest Ham and Pineapple I have ever tried from frozen.
The pizza box itself is classy and I love the different characters that are on each of the pizza box, and as far as the picture of the pizza goes, it is pretty spot on, what you see is what you get, no false advertising in this box!
Although this is one of my favourite frozen pizza's, along with others in the Chicago pizza range they are not something we buy very often anymore, only due to the fact you can pick up a already cooked pizza from a take away joint these days for $5 which saves you both time and money, however in saying that I have recently found that Chicago now makes mini microwavable pizza's which are perfect as quick work lunches so I have picked up some of these since, and they match the standards of their larger pizza's so are definitely worth the purchase.
Again, this is another pizza that this vegetarian conducted human experimentation before writing this review. And the victims of the experimentation hardly complained because they were too busy scoffing to notice that they were being experimented on. The things I must do to write these reviews.
For best results, with this and the other pizzas is to pre-warm the oven, and throw the pizza into the oven and take out about two minutes before the recommended time to prevent the base from becoming too crispy.
The pizza was covered lavishly is toppings and tempted all who sat before it. This one was so good, my future mother-in-law nabbed the other one from the freezer because she knew I wouldn't eat it. Obviously she hadn't considered more victims to be experimented on and thus deprived them of this culinary delight.
Ahhhhh, the good old Ham and Pineapple pizza, a staple and basic meal for those unfortunate souls who do not like the more adventurous options available.
That said this is indeed a very tasty version of that old favourite. It is not overly loaded up with pineapple nor is it overly burdened with ham, and the amount of cheese on this offering is just right.
So I think I will be getting more of this one to satisfy those without any adventurous tastebuds.
After tasting the delicious Sicilian pizza from the Chicago range, I was rather looking forward to trying their version of the traditional "Hawaiian" pizza, as it's always been one of my favourites. Unfortunately, I was to be rather disappointed this time round.
I found Chicago's Ham and Pineapple pizza be somewhat bland, which combined with a hard crunchy base/crust, lead to it being one of theirs that I'll be leaving at the supermarket from now on. Its only saving grace, I found, was the abundance of toppings... quite a well-covered pizza!!
I have lousy tastebuds... after years of abusing them with Indian curries that try and melt their way through the containers, kebabs that have a bit of meat and salad with their chilli sauce filling, and Italian dishes that have more garlic and hot spices than anything else... well, let's just say that it has only been in recent years that I have discovered the joys of food that doesn't burn your mouth to ashes and leave you craving a small lake of water afterwards.
So I haven't been one for subtle flavours... they simply don't usually stimulate the remaining 'buds to tell my brain "Hey, this is something more than porridge or sawdust mate!" So yes, I prefer my pizzas to have plenty of meat, some rich sauces and plenty of spices. That's why milder toppings such as this haven't really been on my menu very often. However, like a good reviewer, I gave it a whirl. Once again this is one I tried in the oven in a vain attempt to get it right, and once again I flamingo'd it up right royally, and ended up with razorglass for crust.
However, the copious amounts of topping helped preserve most of the base in an edible state, and it was pretty nice... for what it was. Lovers of delicate flavours would probably find this more appealing than I did, so I want to give it the benefit of the doubt. Not one I would put on my menu, but actually nothing specific wrong with it... it was just really 'quiet' and that's not for me. However, as a bit of an experiment, a good dollop of tartare sauce did it wonders, as did a smear of ranch dressing on another slice.
Overall, a reasonable rendition of a Kiwi perennial favourite, but nothing major to write home about. Go on, be daring, try one of their others...
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