Japanese pizza

There are several ways of making pizzas at home. The easiest would be to buy a ready-made pizza base and add your own toppings. Alternatively, you can make the pizza base from scratch (for this, I would recommend SC's recipe for home-made pizza). If, however, you have a breadmaker machine, then let the machine do the work of making the dough.

The pizza base that you see in the photographs in this post were made using my breadmaker machine. As I wanted to make a large rectangular-shaped pizza, I did not separate the dough into smaller portions. If you prefer, you can separate the dough into two and shape them into round shape to make regular pizzas. The dough will rise quite a lot after you have shaped them, so if you prefer thinner crust pizzas, I would recommend that you separate the dough into four portions instead.

Whenever I make Japanese pizza, I would usually also cook miso soup and fry yaki udon. This is because I use the miso soup to cook the ingredients for the Japanese pizza. Also, I use the same ingredients as that of the yaki udon for the Japanese pizza. So, at one go, I end up with three dishes. It is convenient and a time-saver.

INGREDIENTS (pizza base)

1 cup + 2 tbsp water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
1 tsp castor sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp mixed Italian herbs
2 tsp grated parmesan cheese
3 cups bread flour
2 1/2 tsp instant dry yeast


INGREDIENTS (toppings)

assorted vegetables and some sausages (cut into small pieces)
miso soup
tonkatsu sauce
mayonnaise
seasoned dried seaweed (cut into strips)

METHOD (pizza base)

1. Place all the ingredients (except the bread flour and the yeast) in the bucket of the breadmaker machine.

2. Add the bread flour, making sure that all the wet ingredients are totally covered.

3. Add the yeast.

4. Place the bucket in the breadmaker machine and set to "dough" cycle. Start the cycle.

5. When the dough cycle has been completed, turn the dough onto a floured board. Using floured hands, knead the dough for 5 minutes.

6. Place the dough on a 11 " x 9" baking tray that has been lined with baking paper. Spread out the dough such that it fills up the entire baking tray.

7. Cover the tray with a damp cloth and leave for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

METHOD (toppings)

1. Cut the vegetables and sausages into bite-sized pieces. Place them in a microwaveable container and add enough miso soup to cover the ingredients. Cover the container with the lid and microwave on HIGH for 10 minutes.

2. Drain off the miso soup. (I would usually add the drained miso soup back to the pot of miso soup that I have cooked. The cooked vegetables add more flavour to the miso soup.)

3. Spread the tonkatsu sauce over the pizza base. Add the vegetables and sausages. Spread the mayonnaise on top and sprinkle liberally with the seaweed.

4. Bake at 200 degrees celsius for 20 minutes.