Tom Yam Pizza

Tom Yam Pizza

All my pizza bases are freshly made with sourdough starter. I grind the wholegrains and use fresh flour. Flour does not last long. Flour sold commercially has had the bran and germ removed [the most nutritious part of the wheat containing the vitamins and oils such as tocopherol or Vitamin E] so it will last longer. Over 25 nutrients found in wholegrains are absent from white flour. In addition I ferment the flour with sourdough starter for hours to break down phytic acid so the body is able to easily absorp these nutrients. Please read “WhySourdough Starter?” to learn more.

Tom Yam Pizza Base

Ingredients

200 gm starter

600 gm (22 oz) wholegrain flour or spelt flour

400ml (14 fl oz) filtered water

2 tsp (10 gm) salt

Tom Yam Pizza Paste

Ingredients

Makes 3/4 cup [180 ml]

• 4 Tbsp lemongrass
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-size piece ginger or galangal
• 1 fresh red chili or cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped coriander leaves
• 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp soya sauce
• 1/2 tsp shrimp paste
• 1/4 cup [60 ml] lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar [22 gm]
• 2-3 spring onions, sliced

Pizza

Ingredients

Pizza base

Tom Yam sauce

Mushrooms

Red onions

Pumpkin, steam till partially soft

Fresh basil leaves

Chemical-free Swiss Browns from Shoalhaven Mushrooms

Method

• First make the Tom Yam paste by simply blending all the ingredients in a food processor. To make the pizza sauce dilute the paste with a little water and add salt. You can keep this paste in the fridge and use the next time you make Tom Yam pizza or any other dish that requires Tom Yam paste. I don’t add salt when making the paste so I can adjust the salt in the different recipes in which I use this paste. Besides, ingredients such as shrimp paste, soya sauce and fish sauce in this paste already contain salt.

• To make Tom Yam pizza base pour filtered water into a bowl. Add active sourdough starter. As I use a dough starter it won’t dissolve easily. You will need to just mash it into the water with the back of a spoon but it does not need to be completely dissolved.

• Add the flour and roughly bring it all together like a lumpy mass. Don’t knead just yet. For the wild yeast to work effectively I prefer to leave this lumpy mass for about an hour before I add salt. Salt can hinder fermentation. After an hour or hour and a half, add the salt. Don’t leave it for longer than two hours before adding salt.

• Once salt has been added, knead the dough till it is silky smooth – about 5 to 10 mins should be sufficient.

• Leave at least four hours to proof. After proofing you are ready to shape it. For pizza, I never use a rolling pin. I just pull off enough dough to make a round ball and then press down on the ball of dough starting from the middle outwards, evenly on all sides into the shape of a disc. Don’t worry if it is not a perfect round shape. In fact true artisan pizzas are irregular shapes. This is more rustic and does not conform to the standard, uniform round shapes you would get from pizza parlours.

• Leave the shaped dough anywhere from 30 mins to an hour [depending on how warm your kitchen is] for the final rise. If it is very warm 30 mins will do. Meanwhile heat the oven to 200°C for at least 15 mins. Then bake the pizza bases only till it rises and NOT till it browns. It should take about 10 mins. Then take out the bases.

• spread the Tom Yam sauce over the pizza bases.

• Slice the steamed pumpkin and spread out over the pizza base on top of the Tom Yam sauce. Add red onions and mushrooms. Finally the cheese.

• Return the pizza to the oven to complete the baking. Rotate the pizza around so the bread will bake evenly and bake through until bread base is brown and cheese melted. Then turn off oven and take out the pizza and garnish with basil leaves and let it sit in the heat of the oven that is turned off for five minutes. Now the pizza is ready.