Ingredients
| flour, for dusting | |
| 6 balls of Leve’s pizza dough (see recipe) | |
| 6 tablespoons plant-based crème fraîche | |
| 3 tablespoons cashew butter | |
| 300g kimchi (see recipe) | |
| 600g shiitake mushrooms | |
| olive oil | |
| FOR THE SWEET & SOUR SESAME SAUCE | |
| 3 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce | |
| 3 teaspoons sesame oil | |
| 1½ tablespoons vinegar | |
| 1 tablespoon agave syrup | |
| 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds | |
| LEVE’S PIZZA DOUGH makes 6 pizzas | |
| 1kg strong plain (bread) flour | |
| 700ml + 75ml water at 40°C | |
| 200g active sourdough | |
| 20g sea salt | |
| KIMCHI makes about 1.2kg | |
| 1kg Chinese cabbage | |
| 100g daikon, peeled | |
| 100g rhubarb stalks | |
| 1¼ tablespoons salt | |
| 200ml kimchi base (see recipe) | |
| You’ll need a 1.5-litre sterilised preserving jar with a rubber seal and bracket lock | |
| KIMCHI BASE makes about 750g | |
| 500ml water | |
| 2 tablespoons rice flour | |
| 100g light miso | |
| 2 silver onions, roughly chopped | |
| 2 white or yellow medium carrots, coarsely chopped | |
| 100g radishes, coarsely chopped in 3-4cm chunks | |
| about 12g ginger root | |
| 10 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped | |
| 250g mild white chilli, such as ajì peppers |
View the recipe collection here
Instructions
| 1. | SWEET & SOUR SESAME SAUCE |
| 2. | Whisk all the ingredients for the sauce together in a bowl. |
| 3. | LEVE’S PIZZA DOUGH |
| 4. | Mix the flour, the larger quantity of water and sourdough by hand in a mixing bowl until the temperature of the dough is 30–33°C. |
| 5. | Cover in plastic wrap and leave to rest for 30 minutes. |
| 6. | Add the salt and knead it into the dough together with remaining water. |
| 7. | Leave the dough to prove at room temperature for 60 minutes. |
| 8. | Fold the dough once every 20 minutes while proving: moisten your hand and pick up the dough’s outer edge, pull it carefully and fold it towards the middle. Continue until you have gone all the way around. |
| 9. | Leave the dough in the refrigerator for 24 hours. During that time, the dough should increase in volume by 30–50% and feel airy, bubbly and lively. |
| 10. | Place the dough on a floured baking board. Divide into pieces of around 300g. |
| 11. | Shape the pieces of dough into small balls but take care not to press too much air out of them. |
| 12. | Sprinkle a little flour on each ball, cover them with a tea towel and then cover in plastic wrap. |
| 13. | Leave them to prove at room temperature for 1–2 hours. |
| 14. | When the dough balls have finished proving, they should have slackened, sunk and increased around 20% in size. |
| 15. | If you carefully push a finger into the dough and leave a small mark, the dough is ready to be made into pizzas. |
| 16. | KIMCHI BASE |
| 17. | Pour the water and rice flour into a saucepan, bring to the boil then simmer for around 5 minutes. |
| 18. | Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the mixture to cool. You can leave it in the refrigerator overnight. |
| 19. | Put the miso, onions, carrots, radishes, ginger and garlic in a food processor and mix into a fine purée. If it is too thick, you can add a dash of water. |
| 20. | Pour the rice flour mixture, the vegetable purée and chillies into a glass jar and mix thoroughly. |
| 21. | Keep in the refrigerator. If you don’t intend to use it for a while, you can also freeze it. |
| 22. | KIMCHI |
| 23. | Cut the Chinese cabbage lengthways and then cut into slices 1cm thick. Use as much of the cabbage as possible. |
| 24. | Cut the daikon and rhubarb into thin batons. |
| 25. | Put the batons in a bowl with the cabbage and massage in the salt. |
| 26. | Leave to stand at room temperature for at least 1 hour so that the vegetables have time to release liquid. |
| 27. | Occasionally turn over the cabbage and squeeze. |
| 28. | Then add the kimchi base and stir or massage with your hands to ensure it is all well mixed. |
| 29. | Put the kimchi into the glass jar a little at a time. Apply pressure with a wooden spoon to make everything fit (including the liquid). |
| 30. | Close the lid and seal with the bracket. |
| 31. | Place the jar on a plate and ideally stand it in a plastic bag since it is very likely that some liquid will be ejected. |
| 32. | Leave the jar to stand at room temperature for 5–7 days. The longer it is left, the more acidic it will be. |
| 33. | Leave the jar in the refrigerator for at least 1 week to allow the flavours time to develop. |
| 34. | TO ASSEMBLE |
| 35. | Heat a wood oven or regular oven with a pizza stone on the grill to the highest temperature possible. Leave for a while to ensure that the stone is really hot. |
| 36. | Dust a large chopping board generously with flour. |
| 37. | Take a ball of the pizza dough and shape it into a round pizza. Let it rest for a few minutes. |
| 38. | Dust the pizza paddle with flour, place the pizza base on the paddle while pulling gently at the edges to make the circle bigger. |
| 39. | Take 1 tablespoon of crème fraîche and draw it out from the middle towards the edge in a thin layer. |
| 40. | Drip a little cashew butter over it and spread it. |
| 41. | Add the kimchi and shiitake mushrooms before putting the pizza in the oven. |
| 42. | Once the edges of the pizza have bubbled up and taken on a good colour – it should preferably be a little burnt in places – it is ready. |
| 43. | Remove from the oven and brush the edges with olive oil. |
| 44. | Finish by drizzling a little of the sauce over it when serving. |
This is an edited extract
from Mushrooms
by Martin Nordin,
photography by Martin
Nordin and Oskar Falck,
Hardie Grant Books,
RRP $39.99. Available
in stores nationally.