Wafu Pizza 1: 4 Kinoko (Mushroom) creamy pizza

I've been on a pizza kick for about 5 months. After I got my pizza stone, I started making my dough from scratch and after that I wanted to keep making more and more pizza. Recently, I started coming up with Wafu (Japanese style) pizza recipes. I know, Japanese pizza sounds weird but it's surprisingly good. If you've ever been to a Japanese pizza place, you're probably thinking ewwww that weird pizza with corn and spaghetti noodles. Nooooo, these recipes are inspired by Japanese ingredients and popular Japanese dishes.

This first Wafu pizza is my Kinoko (Japanese mushroom) pizza. I use four types of Japanese mushrooms: Shitake, maitake, eringi, shimeji. I use a soy based cream sauce instead of a tomato sauce and drizzled a soy sauce and mushroom sauce on top.

Ingredients:
3 sliced Shitake mushrooms
1 medium Eringi sliced and chopped in half
1/2 cluster of Maitake
1/2 cluster of shimeji
300 grams of pizza dough. (This will be a thin crust pizza)
1 (1/2) to 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese

Soy Bechamel Sauce
1 Tablespoon of butter
1 Tablespoon of flour
1/4 cup of dashijiru (you can substitute with chicken stock)
1/2 cup of soy milk (you can substitute with milk)
pinch of salt

Flavoring for the mushrooms
1/2 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of soy sauce
1/2 Tablespoon of dashijiru
1/2 Mirin
1 Tablespoon of butter
salt and pepper to taste

1) Make your dough or get the store bought dough and take it out of the bag and let it sit at room temp for about 45 minutes.
2) Wash and cut up your mushrooms and set them aside. The maitake and shimeji are delicate so be careful with those. You'll also want to break them up since they will come clustered together.
3) Heat up your frying pan and add the butter. When the butter starts to melt add in the eringi and the shitake first. Stir fry them for about a minute and then add the maitake and shimeji. Add the rest of the mushroom flavoring ingredients and be careful not to break up the maitake and cook for about 2 minutes until the mushrooms are soft. Set aside.
4) In a small sauce pot, start your creamy bechamel sauce. Add the flour to the pot on low heat and toast the flour. This step isn't absolutely necessary but I think it helps to give the sauce a nice roasted flavor as opposed to raw floury flavor.
5) Add the butter and mix quickly. Before it balls up into a solid ball, start adding the dashijiru and mix quickly until it's all incorporated but before it completely thickens, start adding the soy milk.
6) Simmer on low until the sauce thickens up again.
7) On a 17 inch x 11 inch cookie sheet, sprinkle a little flour. If you have bread flour that will work best. I tried this with corn meal but it didn't seem to go well with the wafu theme.
8) Roll out your dough across the entire baking sheet. Try to roll from the center out to the edges so that the edges will have a thicker crust that you can hold on to. Use a fork to poke holes in the center and don't poke holes by the crust.
9) Brush the crust area with a little olive oil and sprinkle with some mozzarella cheese.
10) Prebake the crust at 450 degrees for 7 minutes. This process really helps prevent a soggy crust. Unless you have one of those brick ovens, this step is crucial for a nice crust.
11) Now that your crust is baked, add the creamy sauce. This recipe calls for a little extra sauce so you can taste it while you cook but add most of it to the pizza.
12) Next layer with the mozzarella cheese.
13) Add the mushroom, making sure that you evenly distribute all the different types of mushrooms across the entire pizza.
14) Back in the oven at 450 degrees for 9 minutes.
15) Add 1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce to the left over mushroom sauce in the frying pan. There should be plenty from cooking them down. This stuff is so good.
16) Once your pizza is cut and served, drizzle a spoonful of the mushroom soy sauce on top.

If your pizza dough is refrigerated, let it sit out for 45 minutes while you prep everything.


4 types of mushrooms. From left to right: Eringi, maitake, shimeji, shitake.


Prep your mushrooms.


Don't let the butter burn. Add the shitake and eringi right away.


Add shitake and eringi first.


Add the rest of the mushrooms, the mushroom seasoning and let it cook down until soft.


Toast the flour. (Optional step)


The right side is the toasted side. Don't burn the flour though. It should just get a little toasted to get rid of that raw flour taste.


Add the butter but don't let it ball up into one ball.


Add the dashijiru and stir until blended.


That looks good already.


Add the soy milk or regular milk.


The cream sauce is done. After simmering on low heat, the sauce should thicken back up. Make sure to stir constantly so the sauce doesn't burn.


Prep your dough.


Pre-baked pizza dough


Spread a generous amount of the sauce across the pizza.


Next comes the cheese.


Yay it's almost done! Add the mushrooms.


Out of the oven.


Cutting your square pizza in triangles.


Drizzle some of the sauce on.


Digging in.