Gaz Oakley's Smoked Pea & Chickpea Pizza

Gaz Oakley's Vegan 100 cookbook was released just over two years ago now, so you could say I'm a little late to the party reviewing it. Funnily enough, I've been following Gaz or Avant Garde Vegan for quite a while now but it wasn't until Christmas that I was actually gifted my now new favourite recipe book. One of the first recipes I tried from there was the Smoked Pea & Chickpea Pizza. I mean, it definitely doesn't sound like the usual pizza I would go for, but it was unlike any other recipes I had really heard of before so I decided to give it a go.

The recipe makes 2 x 25cm (10 inch) pizzas which served two.

Ingredients

Chickpea Flatbreads

• 135g chickpea (gram) flour
• pinch sea salt and pepper
• 353ml water
• 1 tbsp. olive oil

Smoked Peas

• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• olive oil, for frying
• 195g frozen peas
• 60ml vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• ½ tsp liquid smoke (or ½ tsp smoked paprika)
• pinch of salt and pepper

Toppings

• 8 asparagus tips, trimmed and washed
• 8 spring onions, topped and tailed
• 80g frozen broad beans, defrosted and skinned
• zest of ½ a lemon
• 3 tbsp. cream cheese (find recipe in Vegan 100 page 15)

To Garnish

• Pea shoots
• Fresh mint leaves

Instructions

1. First make the chickpea flatbread batter. Put the flour and seasoning into a mixing bowl. Whisk the water and olive oil into the flour. The mixture should have a thick batter. Cover the bowl and pop in the fridge for 20 mins while you make your toppings.



2. To make the smoked peas, saute the shallots in small saucepan over med heat, until soft.



3. Add the peas, stock and lemon juice and heat through until the peas are piping hot. Using a hand mixer, blend until smooth. Gaz likes a bit of texture, so he doesn't blitz it all the way.



4. Add the liquid smoke and the seasoning, stir to combine.



5. Heat the griddle pan until smoking hot, then add a little olive oil.



6. Grill the asparagus and spring onions quickly until lightly charred, then remove from the heat and set aside. Make sure your pan is really hot - you just want to char the outside of the asparagus, not cook it.



7. Preheat the grill and head a 28cm (11 inch) ovenproof, non-stick frying pan over low heat. Add a little olive oil and ladle in all of the chickpea batter and cook for two minutes.



8. Carefully transfer the pan and place under the grill for two minutes (this saves you having to flip it!)



9. After two minutes, carefully remove the pan from the grill, the flatbread should be nice and golden.



10. Spoon over the smoked pea mixture, then top with the grilled onions and asparagus. Sprinkle over the broad beans and lemon zest and add a few dollops of cashew cream cheese.



11. Place the topped pizza back under the grill and cook for a further two minutes.

The first thing I will say about this recipe is that I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to make! I'm not sure why I thought it was going to be more complicated! It took a total of around an hour to create, but I'm sure I could have done it in less time as the actual cooking time was minimal. Taste wise, it was great and I particularly loved the smoked pea puree.

I did however have to slightly adapt the recipe with some of the toppings, adding some fresh red chilli, but omitting the pea shoots and fresh mint. I can' say I feel as though this would have made all too much difference to the taste though, but maybe a nice garnish could have improved on the aesthetics... I'm working on presentation!