Japanese curry and sesame chicken pizza

Japanese pizza topped with crispy seaweed

I had the most innovative Japanese themed pizza recently in a café in Ion Orchard. The pizza base was specked with black sesame seeds, providing  an interesting crunch. The base was spread with curry sauce , topped with bits of minced meat and smoldering amount of cheddar.  Every bite sends me to Japanese  and Italian culinary heaven.

For anyone who says curry and cheese don't mix, you have got to try this.

Now I can provide an explanation for the  impulsive buy of a monster  bag of shredded cheddar cheese, a jar of  black sesame seeds  and a stash of Japanese curry cubes  for the just-in-case days earlier. These ingredients were simply waiting in the fridge just  for this dish to happen!

The introduction of sesame seeds in the early part of the kneading process deters the formation of stringy glutens. If these should bother you, incorporate the seeds during the final kneading process, though there is a danger of the seeds not being  evenly distributed.  But I would not be too bothered about the gluten formation, since this is a thin crust pizza and not a breakfast sort of bread.

For 4.makes a 12 inch pizza

Ingredients :

225g Bread flour

3 tab Black sesame seeds

1/8 tsp sea salt

1 tab fine sugar

3 tsp olive oil

110ml water

( Cornmeal for worktop )

Topping:

5  table spoons Japanese curry sauce

2  chicken thighs, cooked and shredded

2 cup pizza  cheese ( I used cheddar )

Garnish :

Crispy toasted Korean seaweed

Method :

To make pizza base, mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Transfer to a bread machine. Add oil and water. Set to dough mode and let the machine work the dough magic for 1.5 hours.

Preheat oven to 240C. Prepare a pizza pan ,12 inches.

Sprinkle the worktop with flour or cornmeal.

Flatten out the pizza base with a rolling pin.

Transfer rolled out dough to the pizza pan. Spread curry sauce on the pizza base.

Distribute chicken on the pizza base.

Distribute cheese evenly over chicken.

Bake pizza in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, until the pizza is browned.

Tip : to serve pizza when it is hot, it is preferable to cut out the pizza wedges and serve them from  a cooking rack . This prevents condensation which gives a soggy pizza base. Alternatively, do what the pizza people do - slid a spade under the pizza so that steam from the base can escape.

To do away with the steamy problem, I bake the pizza on a  pan with holes , cut the cooked pizza to wedges on a cutting board and transfer the pizza back to the holey pan. That way, I can take my time to eat my pizza and not worry about a 'wet bottom'.