Martin Nordin’s Chanterelle and Sweet Potato Pizza with Sour Tomato Sauce and Pumpkin Seed Butter

With some forward planning and a little bit of time for fermentation this pizza will blow your average slice out of the water

6 Pizzas

Preparation time 30 minutes

Cooking time 45 minutes

Swedish food writer and art director Martin Nordini has partnered with the world’s number one pizza oven company, Ooni Pizza Ovens, to create a mouth-watering Chanterelle and Sweet Potato Pizza with Sour Tomato Sauce and Pumpkin Seed Butter, perfect for spring alfresco dining moments. Even if you’ve been eating chanterelles for years, this pizza will surprise and delight you. It combines layers of sweetness, creaminess, and nuttiness for a surprising depth of flavour.

Martin’s sauce blends yellow tomatoes, celery, and kimchi, the Korean fermented cabbage dish, the latter lending some of its funky bite to the sweet yellow tomatoes. This sauce is not to be skipped, although it does take 7 to 10 days to prepare, so make sure to get started well in advance. The payoff? You’ll have an unforgettable sauce that can be used for many more dishes: salad dressings, stews, pastas… you name it.

This recipe is perfected by using Ooni’s recently launched Ooni Karu 16 Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven, its most innovative product to date. It can be wood-fired, gas-powered or charcoal-fuelled, and reaches 500°C (950°F) in just 15 minutes. Better yet, Ooni Karu 16 provides a large cooking area, amazing heat retention, a glass door to monitor the bake, and is the only domestic oven certified by the AVPN - the True Neapolitan Pizza Association – as being capable of baking authentic Neapolitan pizza.

Ingredients

Pizza ingredients

  • 6 250g pizza dough balls (can be purchased via Ooni Groceries here)
  • 1 medium sweet potato, brushed and washed
  • 2 shallots
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 41g avocado oil
  • 87g plant-based crème fraiche
  • 45g pumpkin seed butter
  • 120g chanterelles

For the kimchi base

  • 500g water
  • 20g rice flour
  • 100g light miso paste
  • 4 shallots, coarsely chopped
  • 2 medium-sized white or yellow carrots, coarsely chopped
  • 100g radishes, coarsely chopped
  • 12g fresh ginger root
  • 50g coarsely chopped garlic
  • 50g mild white chilies, e.g. ajì pepper

For the sauce

  • 1kg yellow tomatoes
  • 100g celery stalks
  • 24g non-iodized salt
  • 200g white kimchi base (ingredients above)

Method

For the white kimchi base

    1. Pour the water and rice flour into a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to ensure there are no lumps. Reduce the heat and stir in the miso paste.
    2. Simmer for around 5 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool. Leave the mixture in the refrigerator overnight.
    3. Add the shallots, carrots, radishes, ginger and garlic to a food processor and mix into a fine purée. If it’s a little stiff, add a splash of water.
    4. Pour the rice flour mixture, the vegetable purée and chilies into a glass jar and mix thoroughly. Store in the refrigerator. (If you don’t intend to use it for a while, you can also freeze it.)

For the fermented yellow tomato sauce

      1. Rinse the tomatoes and cut them in half. Clean the celery and slice it thinly. Put the tomatoes and celery in a bowl and massage in the salt, applying plenty of pressure to the tomatoes so they release liquid. Leave at room temperature for at least one hour, occasionally stirring and applying pressure.
      2. Pour the kimchi base into the bowl and mix gently using your hands.
      3. Pour the mixture into the jar, leaving an inch or so (2 to 3 centimetres) of air at the top. Fill a plastic bag with some water, knot the bag and add it on top as a weight. (You’ll understand why in a few days.) Close the lid and seal tightly. Place the jar on a plate and, ideally, stand it inside a plastic bag since it will likely eject some liquid. (If you do this, make sure you don’t seal the bag at the top.) Leave the jar to stand at room temperature for 7-10 days, depending on how sour you want the sauce to turn out.
      4. Move the jar to the refrigerator. Remove it after a few days, pour it into a bowl and blend until smooth. Strain the sauce and pour into sterilised bottles, then store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Pizza method

      1. This recipe would suit a variety of pizza styles, but we think sourdough, New York, thin crust, neo-Neapolitan, or classic pizza dough would be a great fit. Make sure to prepare your dough ahead of time to ensure it rises at room temperature before lighting your oven.
      2. Fire up your Ooni Karu 16 Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven, aiming for 350-400°C on the baking stone inside. Use the infrared thermometer to quickly and accurately check the temperature inside.
      3. Using a mandoline or sharp knife, cut the sweet potato into 1- or 2-millimeter-thick slices (as thinly as possible). Finely slice the shallots, then place both in a large bowl. Grate the garlic clove over the top, then add the avocado oil and massage all ingredients together using your hands.
      4. Place a pizza dough ball on a lightly floured work surface and push the air out from the centre of the dough into the crust. Use your fingers and knuckles to gently stretch out the dough to 12 inches, or your desired size. Transfer the stretched dough to a lightly dusted peel while pulling gently at the edges to stretch it out further.
      5. Mix the crème fraîche and pumpkin seed butter together in a bowl using a fork. Take ⅙ of the mix and spread it out in a thin layer, working from the middle of the pizza base toward the edge. Scatter slices of sweet potato, shallots, and chanterelles evenly over the top.
      6. Slide the pizza off the peel and into the oven. Cook it for 1 to 2 minutes, turning the pizza every 20 seconds or so to ensure an even bake.
      7. Once the edges of the pizza have risen and taken on some colour (Martin prefers his a little blackened), it’s ready to remove.
      8. Retrieve the pizza and brush the crust with extra-virgin olive oil. Finish with a sprinkle of flaky salt and a drizzle of that show-stopping sour tomato sauce. Cut into 6 slices and serve right away. Repeat for any remaining dough balls.

Note: This recipe serves 6; however, you can reduce the number of dough balls and keep leftover toppings refrigerated in a sealed container for up to 3 days. The sour tomato sauce requires 7 to 10 days to mature, so make sure to start at least a week ahead of time.

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