During Passover, Jews move culinary mountains with matzo: cheesy lasagna with layers of the unleavened bread instead of noodles; peanut and caramel brittle; homemade pasta; and even pizza.
It’s one of 10-year-old Hudson Greenstein’s favorite foods. During Passover two years ago, he was craving pizza when he and his father stopped by one of his favorite neighborhood restaurants, Nick’s Pizza & Ice Cream in Armonk, N.Y., to pick up a salad for his mother.
That’s where he got the idea to sell matzo pizza. Last year, he organized a pop-up, Yalla Matzah Pizza, at the restaurant, making the pizzas with Nick’s sauce, ingredients and oven to make it crispier and replicate a thin-crust pizza better than anything he could have made in his home oven. Hudson sauced and topped more than 400 pizzas on Streit’s matzos. Demand was so great that he has started a second pop-up for Passover at Frankie’s Pizza & Restaurant in Merrick, N.Y.
“I was nervous but was excited to show if off to my friends,” he said of that first year slinging pizzas. “It was a big difference because it’s in a pizza oven. It tastes more like pizza.”
