Not “Russian” in terms of the toppings, but the crust is made with my sourdough starter from Russia. This is a very powerful starter which I normally reserve for whole grain doughs to keep them from being too dense. But it made a sensational pizza. My Italian starter cultures may end up sleeping in the back of the fridge for a while.
This month’s challenge at pizzamaking.com was to make a pizza without dough. Without dough? That sure isn’t anything I would ever call a pizza, but I decided to give it a try.
My “crust” was made from sticks of sweet potato soaked in slaked lime (calcium hydroxide).
These sticks were then combined with a binder/batter of rice and tapioca flours and fried into a disk in peanut oil:
Then topped with shrimp, mint leaves, cilantro, roasted peanuts, red onion and a sauce made of lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, sugar, and thai chiles.
Eaten wrapped in lettuce leaf.
A friend recently served us some of the best potato pancakes I have ever had. They were based on a Wolfgang Puck recipe; I was very surprised at some of the ingredients (milk? butter? caviar garnish? …. ), but they were excellent. We made them today. Highly recommended, even for purists.