Imagine a faraway galaxy where fiery prawn-toast meteors collide with spinning Neapolitan pizza planets and create a big, banging FLAVOUR EXPLOSION! Time to boldly dough like no man has doughed before and make this sci-fi food fantasy come true. Introducing my latest out-of-this-world recipe: SESAME PRAWN TOAST PIZZA!!
Ingredients
XO SAUCE BASE
Dried bird's eye chillies
Garlic cloves
Banana shallots
Fresh chillies
Anchovies in olive oil (or shrimp paste!)
Spring onions
Soy sauce (light or dark)
Palm sugar (or any sugar)
Mild oil
Fish sauce
Rice wine vinegar
PRAWN PASTE
Raw king prawns
Fresh ginger
Garlic
Light soy
PIZZA
Salt
Yeast
00 flour
Toasted sesame seeds
Sesame oil
Dried fermented prawns
Crispy laver seaweed
Spring onion
Method
The first rule of XO sauce is: THERE ARE NO RULES! Go with the flow with whichever ingredients you like, don't worry about exact measurements, and taste as you go!
In a pestle & mortar (or blender) make the XO sauce by bashing dried bird’s eye chillies, peeled garlic cloves, chopped banana shallots, chopped fresh chillies, anchovies (shrimp paste would be cool too but I had none left!) spring onion whites (keep the greens for garnishing). Add light or dark soy sauce, palm sugar (or any sugar will do), mild oil (I used rendered pork fat and pork stock), fish sauce and rice wine vinegar. Taste as you go and season to taste (the anchovies and soy sauce will be salty!) If you don’t want to go to the effort use your fave sauce from your local Oriental store.
PRAWN PASTE
In a blender whiz up (or chop up) some raw king prawns (deveined and cleaned), grated fresh ginger, grated garlic and light soy.
PIZZA
Stretch out pizza dough. For a Neapolitan-style dough, dissolve 15g salt and 2g fresh yeast in 0.75L room temp water, mix in the 500g 00 flour and knead until the dough comes away from the bowl side. Leave to prove at room temp overnight with the bowl covered with cling film. The following morning, cut and shape into balls then leave to prove covered for a couple of hours or you can keep in the fridge for up to 3 days - the longer the better!
Once the sauce and paste is on the pizza dough (spread the paste thinly as you want it to cook through in 60-90 seconds), sprinkle toasted sesame seeds over the paste, a drizzle of sesame oil and I sprinkle some dried fermented prawns around the crust (soaked to remove some saltiness) some of these prawns will burn and adds a hardcore umami flavour.
This pizza will cook in 60 seconds in my Gozney Roccbox but if you haven’t got a pizza oven, don’t worry, just heat it up on a dry non-stick pan for a few minutes then under a hot grill or in a hot oven.
Top with crispy laver seaweed and spring onion. BOOM!