Kimchi Pizza: When you take things for granted

Thanks to Project Food Blog, the competition that pushed me to create this.  (It's always been a recipe I've wanted to do, but just haven't been motivated to attack it until the food competition.)  I'm no longer in the competition, but still completed this post.

Growing up, kimchi was a part of my daily life.  As my father couldn't survive a meal without it, it appeared daily at my dinner table, if not also lunch and breakfast.  The pungent smell was so much a part of my childhood that even now, when I smell it I think back to the happy days of being fed my mother's good food and the carefree way in which I was able to enjoy food.  I loved kimchee back then and would ask to eat in non-traditional ways, like with fried chicken or pizza.  In fact, a Saturday ritual for our family was my mom making homemade pizza for the family; I would demand that she also put some kimchee on the table.  I'd take the big chunks of kimchi and place it on top of the pizza and just gobble down slice after slice.  It was the perfect pairing for me.

I've always just taken the presence of kimchi for granted.  In any place I've lived, I've always found a way to get it, even make it (when I lived in Hong Kong) and just have it in my fridge.  It is the food that I assume will always be there for me to eat.  It's just always expect it to be there.  If there is no kimchi in my house, I just go and get it somewhere.  But right now, in Korea, motherland of kimchi, there is a major kimchi shortage due to a problem with the napa cabbage crop this fall.  Normally fall is the time for making massive amounts of kimchi to store up and save for the winter - only now, it is not available.  What was normally about $1 for a head of napa cabbage now costs upwards of $10 to $14 for each head.  Suddenly what was a staple and readily available for making and consuming has become costly and precious because of scarcity.  (Read about this national crisis in the Korea here.)

I tried to consider what the equivalent of scarcity of kimchi in Korea would be in the US.  I narrowed it down to two commodities that could potentially seriously deprive the US diet.  If the entire supply of US grown tomatoes was destroyed or if an entire crop of US potatoes were destroyed, I think that eaters in the United States would be in an uproar.  Of course we could always import the missing food products, but if that wasn't an option, or if that pushed food prices unbearably high, what would our food world be like if we didn't' have tomatoes?  Pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, lasagne, salads, tomato soup, sliced tomatoes for sandwiches and burgers, and let's not forget ketchup would suddenly be so expensive that you would actually have to stop and think before you bought it.  But if it was something your family absolutely expected and wanted with their meal, what would you do?  If you consider the same thing with potatoes that would be costly, suddenly french fries, mashed potatoes, potato chips, home fries, and hash browns taken on a whole new identity of being luxury items.  This is the calamity facing Koreans right now and it is a situation that made me pause.

I know that I often take the food and ingredients I have at my fingertips for granted.  Therefore, when I made this pizza dish, I thought of how fortunate and lucky I am to have available to me what I have.  Every single ingredient is wonderfully needed and appreciated and that is what I thought of when I made it.  Never mind the fact that it is actually REALLY yummy to eat this pizza, or that your friends will be clamoring for you to make more (as mine did).  Enjoy all the precious ingredients that go into this dish and taste every single flavor.  Savor it, enjoy it and make this one often.

Kimchi Pizza
Enough to make 4 pizzas (you can make 2 immediately and then refrigerate remaining ingredients and make two more later - or simply cut the recipe in half if needed.)

Sesame Oil Pizza Dough (adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)
Makes 4 1lb loaves. This recipe is easily doubled or halved

2 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (I bought the Fleishman's Yeast in a jar, and then stored it in my fridge after opening)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar (I substituted 2 tablespoons of honey)
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Mix the yeast, salt, sugar and olive oil with the water in a 5-qt bowl, or a lidded (not airtight) food container or in the stand mixer with the dough hook attached.

Mix in the flour without kneading, using a large wooden spoon. (because of my hand problem, I did use my stand mixer with the dough hook. You do NOT need a stand mixer, just mix with a large wooden spoon.)

Cover (not airtight) and allow to rest at room temperature for about 2 hours. It will rise and get super big. You can use the dough at this point, or refrigerate and use over next 12 days.To make one pizza, pinch off a grapefruit sized piece of dough. When you do this, your dough will deflate. This is okay, as it will rise again later. Loosely cover and refrigerate the rest to use over the next 12 days.

Tomato Sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger
3 tablespoons sake
2 tablespoons honey
1 28 oz can tomatoes

Heat a saucepan over medium heat. Add oil and diced onions. Cook until onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and cook for an additional 2 minutes, to release their flavors. Add 3 tablespoons of sake and cook until sake coats the onions, another 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and honey and bring to a simmer.. Use a hand blender and puree all the ingredients so that you have a smooth uniform sauce. Alternatively you can use a regular blender or food processor to process the sauce.

Kimchee Pork Topping
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 lb of Korean pork belly (samgyupsahl), cut into small pieces (about 1 inch) **you can substitute bacon if you wish, but it will increase salty factor considerably
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger
4 cups of kimchi, roughly chopped

In a fry pan over medium heat, add both sesame and vegetable oil, pork belly ginger and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally rendering fat from pork belly about 4 minutes. Add all of kimchi and continue to cook, until kimchi pieces have a slightly translucent quality, anywhere from 5-10 minutes, depending on the ripeness of your kimchee. Remove from heat when translucency is met.

Assembly
1/2 cup scallions chopped
1/2 cup cilantro chopped
1 lb shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 500. Place pizza stone OR an inverted cookie sheet in the oven to also preheat.

Take 1/4 of the dough and with a bit of flour begin working it into a flat shape. I've tried stretching the dough but I have had the most luck getting the dough round and flat with a rolling pin. Don't worry about a perfectly round shape (I can't do it) and instead focus on getting a nice even base. (I don't do this well all the time either.)

I assemble pizzas once they are in the oven because I am not a pizza master. I open the oven and one by one lay down the necessary components onto the preheated pizza stone or cookie sheet. First lay down the pizza dough.

Spread about 3/4 a cup of sauce all the way around the pizza.

Spread a heaping cup of kimchee pork mixture evenly on top.

Sprinkle 3/4 cup to 1 cup of mozzarella cheese on top. Finish by sprinkling a handful of the scallions and cilantro.

Bake at 500 degrees until cheese is melted and lightly golden brown. Remove from oven carefully and then wait 3 minutes before cutting. Slice and serve.

Printable recipe

As an additional note - I did another version with sweet potato rounds on top.  The sweet potato rounds cook with all the other toppings at the same time.  But you need to make the sweet potato rounds ahead of time.

You can make sweet potato rounds easily.  Recipe here.  This is really all the effort that goes into it.