Who doesn’t love pizza? Ever since I quit my job to spend more time with my son, we have made pizza from scratch at least twice a week….consistently. My son’s diet rotates between rice (cơm) and pizza. Pizza is one of those dishes that you can pretty much dress it up with anything. So today when he asked me for pizza, I was scrambling for kid-friendly pizza toppings. Luckily, I came across left over Chinese sausage (lập xưởng) in the freezer from my previous “fried rice with Chinese sausage” post, dried mushrooms in the pantry and cheese in the fridge. The only thing I was missing was the red, marinara sauce, but then I noticed a bottle of garlic olive oil staring back at me in the pantry…so why not use that instead and turn it into a white pizza?
What is Chinese sausage pizza?
Chinese sausage pizza uses the normal pizza crust made from scratch and topped with Asian ingredients like Chinese sausage (lập xưởng) and dried mushrooms. Don’t forget to soak the dried mushroom in water for approximately 8 minutes. This will soften the dried mushrooms making it easier to handle.
Traditionally when it comes to making dough, there’s always a “waiting period” for the dough to rise. However, today’s pizza craving came from a toddler, so there is no “waiting period”. I had to come up with a dough fast, which meant using frozen dough or just winging it.
We didn’t have any frozen dough in the freezer, so I toss together some yeast, sugar, water, salt and oil to make dough. Instead of using water, I decided to use almond milk before it expired. But you can use water instead if you’re not a fan of almond milk, or you can use regular milk.
Why make homemade pizza?
I love making homemade pizza from scratch because it tastes better, costs less and allows you to use up left over ingredients. However, the main reason is that it’s an activity that the whole family can participate in. My son loves making pizza from scratch. His favorite part is rolling out the dough and sprinkling cheese on the pizza…while consuming a large amount of cheese as well 🙂 Plus it is an excellent way to introduce your little ones to new ingredients.
How to make the pizza
Water temperature for the yeast
The hardest part of making any dough is to make sure you don’t kill the yeast. I will heat the milk (or water) in the microwave for 30-45 seconds, then stick a thermometer in to make sure the liquid is not too hot. The liquid should be around 105oF. After the liquid is at the right temperature, I add in the sugar and the yeast. Gently stir the mixture then leave it alone for 10 minutes. As the mixture sits, you will see tiny bubbles appear. This is good because it means the yeast is active and the dough will come out delicious and airy. On the contrary, if you don’t see any bubbles, you will need to start over because it means the yeast is not active. Either it has expired or the water/milk was too warm for it.
Kneading the dough
When it comes to making dough, it is best to use the Kitchen aid stand mixer because you can knead the dough in the stand mixer using the dough hook. This eliminates you having to knead the dough by hand on the counter top.
After the 10 minutes, add the liquid yeast mixture into the stand mixer containing the flour, oil and salt. Turn the stand mixer on with the dough hook attached and let it mix for 8 minutes. Keep an eye on the dough, if the dough looks too dry, add 1 tablespoon of water, or milk at a time. Likewise, if it looks too wet, sprinkle some flour in. I’m not a dough making expert by any means. But in my experience, you want to be able to pull the dough off the hook without it sticking.
Rolling the dough
After the crust is made, sprinkle a generous amount of cornmeal on a flat surface. Roll the dough out to a desired diameter/size. Then brush some garlic infused olive oil on top of the dough. This will serve as the “marinara sauce” for the pizza. Sprinkle a generous amount of shredded cheese on top of the garlic oil. You can use any shredded cheese. However, I find that the shredded mozzarella complements the Chinese sausage best. Place the thinly sliced cooked Chinese sausage (lập xưởng), and soaked dried mushrooms over the layer of shredded cheese. Now the pizza is ready to go in the oven, on a pizza stone and bake until the crust is nice and golden brown.
The pizza will have a salty-sweet taste from the presence of the shredded cheese and Chinese sausage. While the mushroom and cornmeal adds a bit of a crunch to the pizza.
Pizza with Chinese sausage & dried mushrooms.
Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Pizza stone
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 2½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 package of yeast or 2¼ teaspoon from the jar of yeast.
- ¼ tsp sugar use ½ if you want a sweeter dough.
- 3 tbsp garlic olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup almond milk warm to the touch to activate the yeast. You can also use water or regular milk here as a substitute for almond milk.
For the pizza toppings:
- 2 links of cooked Chinese sausage thinly sliced and set aside.
- 4 grams dried mushrooms soaked for approximately 8 minutes then coarsely cut.
- 1 cup shredded cheese more or less depending on taste.
- garlic olive oil to spread on the dough in place of marinara sauce.
- 1 tsp salt to sprinkle on top of the pizza after its cooked (optional).
Instructions
Instructions for the crust:
- Preheat the oven to 475oF.
- Put the package of yeast, sugar and warm almond milk in a bowl.
- Mix well and set mixture aside for 10 minutes. You will notice bubbles forming in the mixture. If bubbles do not form, discard mixture and make a new one because it means the yeast are not activated.
- In the meantime, add flour, salt, olive oil to a stand mixer.
- After 10 minutes, add the yeast, sugar, and almond milk mixture to the stand mixer with a dough hook attached. Turn the stand mixture on and let it mix for 8 minutes until everything is well combined. Using the stand mixer will eliminate the need for kneading the dough, which will save you time. You may need to adjust the dough texture here. If it looks to wet, sprinkle a teaspoon of flour in, if it looks too dry, add some more garlic olive oil, water or milk.
- Place some cornmeal on a flat surface and place the dough on top and start rolling out the dough to the desired diameter/size.
Instructions for the toppings:
- Add garlic olive oil onto the pizza dough using a brush. This will serve as the sauce.
- Sprinkle shredded cheese on top.
- Add the soaked dried mushrooms…
- Then add the thinly sliced cooked Chinese sausage. You want to keep the Chinese sausage on top so that it gets cooked thoroughly and browns nicely.
- Bake the pizza until crust is golden brown in 475 degree Fahrenheit Oven.
- After the pizza is nice and golden brown, you can sprinkle some sea salt on top (optional).
The next time your toddler wants pizza for lunch or dinner, why not make it from scratch and involve your toddler, instead of ordering out? Do you have a favorite pizza topping? Leave me a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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