Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Baking Steel. All opinions expressed and images are solely mine. Thank you for supporting brands that help make Sift & Simmer possible!
I am so excited to partner up with Baking Steel for this post. As you already know, I’m a girl who loves carbs. Noodles, pizza, dumplings, and banh mi are at the top of my list.
I’ve been making pizza regularly for the past 7 or 8 years. And my pizza dough was always made on my trusty pizza stone. But recently, I found myself in a dire situation. I had placed my pizza stone in the oven, as usual, and cranked up my oven to 500F to heat it up.
CRACK!!!!!!!
What was that sound?! I rushed to the oven. And my heart fell to the floor.
My once-white, stained pizza stone of 8 years… BROKEN. INTO. PIECES.
After I enlisted the help of my hubby to come and clean up the cooled sharp pieces, my mind kept racing. How was I going to continue making pizza without my stone? A few weeks hiatus without pizza? You might as well send me to my deathbed!
I deliberated replacing the stone with another pizza stone, but then I recalled seeing a new, revolutionary way of making pizza.
Using the Baking Steel.
Touted as “the world’s best consumer cooking surface” by Serious Eats’ J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, this Baking Steel was either seriously (no pun intended) over-hyped, or was a magical piece of equipment that transforms pizza dough into something heavenly.
I received the Original Baking Steel from Andris (thank you!) and it’s a hefty piece of steel, weighing in at 15 lbs. Made in the USA, the steel is a nice rectangular shape (dimensions are 16 x 14 x ¼″) that fits perfectly in an oven, without it being too oversized, or too small. The surface is flat, which makes it great for pizza doughs, breads, and you could use it as a griddle if you want. The best thing about this?
It’s virtually indestructible! No more broken pizza stones. Or broken hearts.
So how did it perform?
Let’s just say, that both my husband and I were awestruck at the texture of the resulting homemade pizza. I mean, it was phenomenal! Perfectly crispy, light, and bubbly. Everything that I would want in a pizza.
Once you go steel, you can’t go stone. Why? The heat conductivity in steel is much more even and faster than stone, resulting in a thin, crispy crust.
To celebrate this newfound joy of pizza perfection, I decided to go all out and make the most delicious, Asian-inspired Peking Duck Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Hoisin Sauce. It’s something you won’t be able to find at your regular pizza joint. Think of succulent, juicy BBQ duck, accentuated with the warm and sweet 5-spice flavoured caramelized onions, punctuated with the sharpness of red and green onions. And it’s so gourmet, it will do your Baking Steel justice. I promise.
If you’re a keener and want to roast your own BBQ duck, by all means, go ahead — but I like going to the Chinese BBQ shops to pick up a freshly roasted BBQ Peking duck for this recipe. You can make the caramelized onions a day ahead to ease the prep work. Other than that, it’s really quite straightforward, and you’ll be rewarded with a succulent, indulgent pizza that you’ll keep coming back for more.
Have you tried baking pizza on steel? Let me know! Tag me on Instagram @siftandsimmer or leave me a comment below!
Peking Duck Pizza With Caramelized Onions & Hoisin Sauce
Ingredients
Pizza Dough:
- 650 g bread flour
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 3 g active dry yeast
- 1 tsp granulated sugar
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 350 g warm water
Toppings:
- 1 roast BBQ Peking duck, sliced with the skin on
- 1 C caramelized onions recipe below
- 3 Tbsp garlic oil paste recipe below
- 3 green onions chopped
- 2 Tbsp red onions chopped
- 1 small bunch cilantro chopped
- 3 Tbsp hoisin sauce
Caramelized Onions:
- 2 large onions thinly sliced
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil I used avocado
- ½ tsp 5-spice powder
Garlic Oil Paste:
- 1 C garlic cloves
- ¼ C good-quality neutral oil
Instructions
Make the dough:
- In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients and knead until smooth and elastic. The dough will be slightly sticky. Add a little more flour as needed.
- Cover with plastic wrap and leave to sit for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, knead the dough again, cover, and leave to proof for 2 hours in a warm spot.
Make the caramelized onions:
- In a large pot, heat 1 T vegetable oil over medium heat.
- Add in the thinly sliced onions and stir until softened. Add in the 5-spice powder.
- Reduce the heat and continue to cook the onions, stirring every so often, until the onions are golden brown and translucent, about 40 minutes.
- Remove from the pot and let cool.
Make the garlic oil paste:
- In a food processor, add in the garlic and pulse until fine. Drizzle in the oil and continue to pulse until a smooth paste forms.
- Transfer garlic oil paste into a clean jar and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Assembly:
- Place the Baking Steel in the middle of your oven.
- Preheat the oven to 500F. (Do this about 1 hour before you plan to bake the pizzas off).
- Dust your work surface with some flour. Divide the pizza dough into 3 portions.
- Lay a piece of parchment paper and stretch out the pizza dough into a circle about 10-12" in diameter, leaving a perimeter for the crust.
- Spread 1 T garlic oil paste on the surface of the dough. Add the roast bbq duck slices, and green onions.
- Use a pizza paddle and place the pizza dough onto the Baking Steel and cook for 6-7 minutes, until golden brown. You can use the broiler for 2-3 minutes if you prefer a darker crust.
- Remove from oven. Garnish with extra green onions, cilantro, and red onions. Drizzle hoisin sauce on top. Slice the Peking Duck pizza and serve. Repeat with the remaining pizzas.
Dough recipe adapted from Baking Steel.
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