Pizza: Thai Style

I first had a thai pizza at Mellow Mushroom in Auburn, AL. I had seen it on the menu many times, and while it definitely piqued my interest, I just never had the guts to order it. Once I finally got around to it, it blew me away. While Aim and I have cut back on our dairy, we never said we were going to cut back on pizza, and this is one of our healthy alternatives.

Ingredients:

Pizza Dough
Thai Peanut Sauce
- Peanut butter
- Sesame oil
- Soy sauce
- Fish sauce
- Rice wine vinegar
- Ginger
- Garlic
- Chili paste (such as Sambal Oelek or Sriracha)
Basil
4ish boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 red bell pepper
Shredded carrots
Green onions
Crushed peanuts
Corn meal

Step 1: Marinate the chicken.

The earlier you can start this, the better. We usually start marinating chicken the morning before we plan on cooking it, which allows for the flavors to thoroughly sink in. For this recipe, I marinate the chicken in a mixture of 50:50 fish sauce and soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and crushed red pepper. Don’t add any extra salt, the fish sauce will add a fairly good amount.

Step 2: Cook the chicken and prepare the toppings.

Coat your skillet with some sesame oil and get it to just under its smoke point. Cook the chicken thighs until just browned on either side. While those are cooking, gather the other toppings for the pizza. You’ll need to slice up the basil, green onion, and red bell pepper. Crush the peanuts, if they are whole. Put these to the side for later. This is also a good time to put the pizza stone in the oven at around 475°. Once the chickens are done, take them off the heat and let them rest while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Save the caramelized garlic and ginger that are left in the pan, we’ll use those later. Once the chicken has cooled off a bit, slice it into bite sized portions.

Step 3: Make the peanut sauce.

Starting off with the ginger and garlic, use a microplane grater to shred them into a paste (or if you don’t have a microplane, dice them up as fine as you can). Add about a tablespoon each of sesame oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce, and rice wine vinegar. Now add about as much peanut butter as all the other ingredients combined. Keep mixing this until you are left with a smooth consistency. The peanut butter takes a good bit of mixing until it fully breaks apart. If you have a whisk this will go much quicker.

Step 4: Roll the pizza dough.

We like to use pre-made pizza dough from the grocery story (not the canned stuff, you can usually find it around the baker section in a cooler) for convenience, but you really can’t beat homemade. After letting this rest at room temp for a few hours, its good to punch out all the large air bubbles. Remember the caramelized ginger and garlic that is leftover in the pan? Mix that in with your dough before you roll it out, it will give it a nice kick. Roll out the dough to whatever thickness crust you like.

Step 5: Assemble the pizza.

I like to assemble the pizza directly on the pizza peeler. Before you do this, throw down some corn meal. This will help the pizza slide right off onto the stone, as well as keep it from sticking to the stone later. Put down a layer of the peanut sauce, then add chicken, basil, red bell pepper, carrots, and green onion. We like to put some more sriracha on top to give it a little more heat. Last, sprinkle the top with the crushed peanuts. Put this in the oven for about 10 minutes.