What is a Deep-Fried Pizza?
Much has been written about Scotland’s mythical Deep-Fried Pizza, yet very little of it seems to be consistent. Is the pizza battered or just dropped in the fryer next to the battered fish and the flaccid chips?
The answer is seemingly arcane and mysterious …
All wrapped up
Or rather it is exceedingly simple. There are in fact two distinct kinds of deep-fried pizza; the “pizza” and the “pizza crunch”. One is battered - the crunch - and one is not.
Prices
In the interests of science, I bought both a “1/2 Fried Pizza Supper” and a “1/2 Fried Pizza Crunch Supper”. As with all Scottish chip shops, the “supper” means with chips.
Aside for the colonies. What you call chips we call crisps. What you call fries we call … er, fries. Contrary to the simplistic explanations you may have heard, our chips are not the same as your fries (or rather, the Belgians’ fries) but they are in fact much larger and less crisp. As scholars write theses on the difference, here’s a cop-out ‘pedia link so I don’t have to try.
The pizza crunch was served in battered quarters whereas the plain pizza was merely halved and flopped top-down on the hearty potato produce.
Half Pizza Supper
Pizza Crunch Supper
A word on the quality of the pizzas: the chippy we bought these from is renowned for its hand-made pizzas. These are not their fine produce. These pizzas are the cheap frozen kind from the cash and carry. Much like you don’t get the finest cut of beef in a fancy restaurant if you order it well-done, you don’t get the hand-crafted goodness when it’s destined for the fryer.
The edge of the unbattered pizza
If you look closely at the edge of the deep-fried pizza (as opposed to the battered one) you can see it’s been well fried and is crisp and full of tasty oil. Note the tasty chips cheese-glued to the top.
a cut into the unbattered pizza
As you can see in the battered crunch, the pizza itself is remarkably ungreasy. Yes, the shocking truth is that the battered pizza contains less oil than the unbattered one.
a cut into the battered pizza
I’ll be honest, both taste excellent. Sure, they are not hand made and cooked in a wood-fired stone oven, but if you want that, there are plenty of quaint and pretentious little restaurants around. Knock yourself out. These are full-fat ned food for the guy in the track suit that would only run if the ‘polis’ were on his tail. Let’s be honest, they’re cheap pizzas elevated to greatness by being deep-fried. Marvellous.
a fine Pizza Crunch Supper
And yes, to eat either these without a glass bottle of Irn Bru to wash it down would be heresy.
A romantic meal for two
These delicacies were bought at Cafe Q in Strathaven, South Lanarkshire. The prices are visible in the photo above. £2.50 for the fried pizza with chips and £2.60 for the pizza crunch supper. That’s about $5 a meal. All photos can be enlarged with a click.
I will be breaking out the FryDaddy tonight, as soon as the wife gets back with a bottle of oil and a couple of totinos. Call the medics.
I am not a fan of the pizza crunch myself, nor a full pizza supper. The bit where they cut the pizza for the half suppers is by far the tastiest bit - where it soaks up all the lovely chip fat and becomes crispy.
Although I thought us Scots were bad for our love of the deep fryer, while in California recently I did partake in deep fried cheesecake, wrapped in a tortilla. It was predictably delicious.
Ok, being a good Southern (USA) type of girl, I’m frightened and amazed that there is deep-fried goodness such as this that we did not invent. Didn’t even consider. I mean, we came up with deep fried twinkies for f*ck’s sake. The marvels of Scotland never cease.
Hi
Yes I’m Scottish - Not far from Strathaven in fact.
This should carry a health warning!
Not just if you plan to eat it, just looking at it made me feel queezy.
In fact, I think I’m having a heart attack just lookin a ………..
Jared, the undefeated King of crap scottish food is the Munchy Box - I can’t see it ever being surpassed. Both varieties of deep fried pizza are just plain fargin horrendous.
I remember my older brother having one and I decided during lunchtime one day at school that I would, in a fit of filial adoration, purchase the humble Pizza Supper from Alberts in Ardrossan. It made me feel ill - especially when they doused the fecker in vinegar. It’s just fundamentally wrong. Wrong, I say. And to add insult to cardio-vascular injury, I also felt that my already plooky teenage visage become even more craterous with every honking bite I took.
In short - filth. And not in a good way.
What? No deep fried Mars Bar for afters? Lightweight!
We don’t have the shortest life expectancy in the UK without reason (well, I don’t cos I’m posh)
A small correction I believe, I have come to understand that Supper usually means two of the accompaniment
So “Fish and Chips” is 1 piece of fish and some chips.
A “Fish Supper” is 2 pieces of fish and some chips.
I’ve been living in Scotland 6 months and this is handy to know.
Man, now I’m feeling hungry, those cold baked beans just didn’t do it for me. Nice one Jared!
They’re not bad. I haven’t had one of those for a couple of years now, pizza suppers tend not to be on the chip shop menus now but you can still get them if you ask.
Four of my chipper dinners include:
A pie supper
A sausage supper
A fish supper
Black pudding supper
THe only good thing about the invention of this crap is that only idiots will eat it therefore shortening their lifespan and improving the human race. The worst thing on the menu is The sausage wrapped in donor meat and deep-fried in batter. BOAK!
Doogie Talons, you still get 2 bits of fish if you ask for a “single fish” at most of the chippies i’ve went to… which is false advertisement but in a good way
I was just wondering if there was anywhere in Strathaven that sold the pizza crunch as I’ve never had it, and I got to where you bought them. Hooray! That’ll be something interesting to try.
This pizza crunch is a new innovation which has obviously been created in the time since I left Scotland. Our local English-run chippy in Brooklyn has deep fried pizza and it’s battered, and I always thought this was an abomination… but turns out it does exist back home after all.
And “supper” just means with chips - no fancy rules about how many pieces of anything.
To have a fish supper means to eat a lap kebab where I come from..
I don’t want to free the neds from their collective shame on inventing deep fried foodstuffs, yet I feel the true blame should be laid at the door of those other fine examples of masculinity, the Italians.
Deep fried pizza is a traditional street food from Napoli, where it has been eaten for generations. There is a long history of the Scottish and Italians emigrating between each other’s countries, is it unfeasable that this delicacy has been brought in by an immigrant population? I know, burn them now!!!1!.
Mine’s with salt and sauce (and if you want it done properly, mate, step away from the Weeg and get yourself to Embra.)
The Scots and the Italians eh? Well, most Scottish chip shops were started by Italians after the war, so it’s hardly suprising that there’s a crossover.
My favourite chippie back there used to offer deep fried battered mushrooms as an alternative to chips. Ooh, they were nice. And the owner was indeed Italian.
Top tip: never ask what the sausage in a sausage supper is made of.
Been in Scotland all my life and never seen this crap before. Don’t tar Scotland with the mingin, life-expectancy-of-63 Weegies please! That’s like saying your whole house is filthy because the toilet has been used.
Let’s put this “supper” thing to bed once and for all.
A fish supper (or indeed haggis, black pudding, pie etc) is fish and chips.
A ’single’ fish, haggis etc is the same thing without the chips. That’s it. The number of pieces you get depends on your local chippie.
Oh yes, the only people who by fried pizza are the last drunks to stagger out of the pub with a case of the munchies. The fried pizza is the last thing to be sold before the chippie closes and the drunk is too far gone to notice that it is simply a splodge of dough saturated with oil. Doesn’t matter anyway as the mix of oil and beer will result in a pavement pancake somewhere between the chippies and home.
Don’t ask me why I know that!
Fried pizza crunch?? We don’t get those round here, and I want to try one! A chippy I used to go to when I was at school used to rub a bit of batter into the base of the pizza before frying it, but usually they’re just unbattered. And I agree with Mystery Bob that the best bit is the crunchy cut edge of the half pizza
Ooooh I want one now!
As a student in Edinburgh I was known to partake of the fabulous/filthy Doner Pizza from the Istanbul chippy on Nicolson Street (now sadly gone due to health and safety violations!).
Normal cheese and tomato pizza made genius by the introduction of doner meat, onions and wicked chilli sauce.
YUm!
That is truly disgusting, i want one.
The A71′ shut the night an’ am gonnae huv tae wait until Monday to try the Cafe Q version.
As has been pointed out by others the Pizza Crunch is a relatively new feature which has yet to make it down to most of Ayrshire… though the new chippy in Darvel now has it on the menu (£3). Just noticed a Friter Roll in Str’aven is only 60p, definite stop on the way home from work now!
@ Colin (albert’s ardrossan) ahh the joys of the “half pizza lunch special” was only a pound way back when.
I bet the ‘merman’ Phelps routinely devours these joyous titbits as part of his 12,000 calorie per day diet. Probably one slice of each should suffice …
Pizza Crunch is delicious. Almost as good as a battered haggis or a battered burger.
My favourite chippies are Humes in Alloa and the Bridge Cafe in Sauchie.
Christ, that looks superb. I wish there were somewhere here in Toronto that sold these. Admittedly, I’d settle for the munchy box, but either that or this would rule.
Jesus H Christ on a bike!!! No wonder the ‘Sweaty Socks’ have the highest rates of heart attacks in Europe.
Fantastic!
I love all forms of fried food from the supreme Scottish chippy, although I rarely frequent such establishments these days due to the obvious downsides to eating regularly. And I am of an age when the Doc starts to give you lectures.
I too was a student in Edinburgh, and I reckon I had a doner pizza from the aforementioned purveyor of post pub gastro-delights. I’m still here, no ill effects. “Salt and sauce, mate?” top lolz
Ian:
“Let’s put this “supper” thing to bed once and for all.
A fish supper (or indeed haggis, black pudding, pie etc) is fish and chips.”
So in Scotland, if I order a haggis I have to ask for fish and chips. Thanks, will try that next time I’m there.
I discovered the pizza crunch a couple years ago at lunchtime, watching my mate scoff it nearly put me off my roll and fritter!
The Emperor of heart failure has to be the Donner Calzone:
A Donner Calzone is a folded over 16″ pizza dough filled with Donner kebab meat topped with about half a block of cheese then deepfried with a wee tub of chili sauce.
Costs about £3.00 from the local Indian “Resteraunt” run by Turks.
Tastes brilliant after a crawl but leaves you shiting lava for a week and takes about five years off of your life expectancy!
No, just no.
I’ve been living in London for a few months and a half-fried pizza with a glass bottle of Irn-Bru from Cafe Q (Formely ‘Marcos’, formely ‘Quintillianis’) is what I miss the most about Strathaven. I’m literally salivating looking at the photos. The suppers down here are absolutely rotten.
It might be interesting to know that when we were at school we used to go down there for lunch and quite often ask for a roll and pizza crunch. It was perfect. Usually alternate between that and a double fritter roll as these were the cheap options. If you got a fish supper for your lunch then you must have been in the money.
Someone on a religious humour list posted this URL. What an education! I’ve been gettin’ in touch wi’ ma Scottish roots lately, and what an education it is! Why did my ancestors ever have to leave Scotland?
It’s clear that I come by my love of fat honestly. I need to try all these things you folks have mentioned, and I need to try them NOW! Does anyone know where to find a Scots chippie in the mid-Hudson Valley region of New York State?
Well, good lord.
Here I am, a regular B3tan normally but owing to married life not able to catch up for a while. When lo and behold in a B3ta Newsletter something done by someone I actually KNOW from a time past at Michael Hall.
Aside from minor concerns about the state of your health after one of those thingies, I am making contact herewith! Hope that you are well (deep fried coatings of the veins notwithstanding) and that your food experimentation continues!
Have a Lovely time. Your mum, bless her, was only out by a few years with the marriage thingy. I dug out the tape some time ago and she said by 25 I’d be sorted. Turns out it was 41 but I shan’t hold that against her as I’m happy now!
Keep in touch mate!
It looks completly disgusting… Can’t wait to eat it
I really want to try a battered Mars Bar, I am sure it would be just as heartening as a battered pizza.
Wow, that is awful! I saw it, but I can’t unsee it! Stop the pain!