During a conversation with a chef friend I came up with a zany idea for a new Pizza flavour, the ‘Barn Me’. Playing on recent church themed pizza names, the ‘Barn Me’ is based on the ubiquitous Vietnamese sandwich, the Bahn Mi.
Gaining traction on our taste buds, the Bahn Mi can be found on most western, and southern suburban street corners in Adelaide and most probably in their respective corners of all our capitals. It’s a delicious blend of French and Vietnamese cuisine. A French style crunchy baguette filled with pulled pork and crackling, topped with pickled vegetables, coriander, fresh chilli and a spicy mayonnaise or a nam-jin style sauce.
Of course as I write this, I want to rip down to Hanson Road, grab a couple and demolish them right there and then. But alas, Hanson Road is 20 minutes away and the wood oven is 10 seconds away. So bring on the Barn Me pizza and all it’s Frankensteiny goodness!
Step One: Pulled Pork
Ingredients
- 2 Kg pork leg
- 50 g soft dark brown sugar
- 4 tbsp smoked smoky paprika
- 3 tbsp flaked sea salt
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- 1 tbsp dried Tasmanian pepperberries (substitute with peppercorns if required)
- 1 tbsp mustard seeds
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- 3 star anise
- 1 x 375ml The Hills Cider Company Apple Cider
- 1 x 375ml The Hills Cider Company Pear Cider
Pre-heat kitchen oven to 140º. In my case i lit a fire the night before in the wood oven. After the fire is nothing but small coals close the door and go to bed. The residual heat in the oven in the morning is 170º and will slowly reduce to 130º over the course of the day.
Place all spice ingredients except for the sugar and star anise in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle and grind into a fine powder. Mix into a bowl with the sugar. Find a large, deep oven tray for the pork leg. Massage spice mix all over the pork leg, place a trivet in the pan and place the pork leg on top so it is elevated, skin side up. Next mix the 2 cider flavours together and pour 3/4 of the cider over the pork leg into the pan. Drop the 3 star anise into the coder liquid in the pan. With the remaining, use a meat injector and infuse the cider into the meat. Next seal the pan tightly with 2 layers of foil. Place in oven for 6-8hrs.
Once the leg is cooked, remove from oven and carefully remove the foil, trying not to burn yourself! The leg will be amaze balls, the meat will only need the slightest encouragement to fall from the bone. First sieve the juices into a jug and reserve (this will remove some the spices, star anise and bit of fat etc that has fallen in). Using a knife, tease the skin from the meat and place into a foiled grill tray and put aside. Using tongs transfer hunks of meat to a board and with 2 x forks pull the pork apart. Once you’ve pulled all the pork, place back into oven dish and ladle in 1 1/2 cups of the reserved liquid. Massage the liquid through the meat with your hands. Pork is now ready. Place tray with skin on, under griller on high heat and keep a watchful eye. This will be the crackling component. NB: Sometimes the skin will get too gelatinous from the steam and long cook time, so if doesn’t crackle up like you expect then discard. Ive had mixed results depending on cook times / oven heat etc. If by chance your crackling is awesome then cut up and reserve for your pizza build.
Save any remaining liquid as the bestest, most kickass pork stock. I regularly use in paellas, watered down with some white wine.
Step Two: Pickled Vegetables
Ingredients
- 2 Large carrots
- 1/2 Daikon Radish
- 1/4 cup castor sugar
- 1 tbsp fine salt
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
Combine carrots, radish, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Using fingertips, massage salt and sugar into vegetables until dissolved. Add water and rice vinegar. Pack vegetables into a large jar (i used a Dolmio Sauce jar). Pickles can be used immediately, or for best results, seal jar and refrigerate at least overnight.
Step Three: Spicy Mayonnaise
Ingredients
- 3/4 empty bottle of Kewpie Mayonnaise
- Sriracha Chilli Sauce
I found the best results for applying the sauce at the end of the pizza build was to use a 3/4 empty Kewpie Mayonnaise bottle with added chilli sauce to taste. Of course you could squirt a 1/4 bottle amount into a sandwich bag, add Sriracha Sauce and then by snipping a corner off the bag, use it as you would a piping bag. My mayonnaise turned a beautiful pink colour and tasted amazing, albeit a little hot for some.
Step Four: Anchovy Oil
Ingredients
- 4 Anchovy Fillets
- 1 clove minced garlic
- 1 cup olive oil
Finely cut up the anchovy fillets and place into a small jar with olive oil and garlic. Give it a good shake and put aside for the pizza build.
Step Five : Build the Goddamned Thing!
Ingredients
- 1 x 275gm dough ball
- 2 tbsp of anchovy oil
- olive oil
- A good handful (120gm) of pulled pork
- 3 bocconcini balls (100gm of mozzarella)
- 2 large spoonfuls of pickled vegetables
- 1 thai chilli (sliced)
- coriander and fresh mint
- a decorative squirt of the spicy mayonnaise
- crackling to finish
Pizza Method
Dust your work area with flour. Take one dough ball and flatten out. Liberally brush on the anchovy oil, leaving the oil 1cm from the edge. Scatter the pulled pork and place the ripped balls of cheese amongst the porky goodness. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until done (90 seconds in 500º wood oven, highest temperature in pre-heated gas oven for 10 minutes).
Remove pizza, dress with pickled vegetables, coriander, mint and crackling. To finish, decoratively zig zag the Barn Me with spicy mayonnaise. Slice and serve. And trust me your friends, family and pet dog won’t believe what is happening to their taste buds. A revelation of which I’m sure I will see in a pizza joint very soon!
