Cookpad is easily the largest community cooking website for getting new Japanese recipes to try out in the kitchen. Started in 1997, it grew to be so popular that two years ago it expanded its user base by launching an English version.
It goes without saying that you can find a dish for pretty much anything you have lying around in your kitchen, but because most of the recipes are posted by amateurs, you might have to weed some of the stranger ones out by taking a look at their reviews.
Fortunately there seems to be a whole crew of users willing and waiting to take a hit for the team and try out the latest recipe, including a recently posted recipe for making pizza that requires putting the uncooked crust and toppings inside a box and setting the box on fire. How does it measure up? One net user decided to photograph and review the process.
This original recipe, titled “Super Easy BBQ Pizza Recipe!”, was posted by user seiraku on the popular Japanese cooking website. The pictures are encouraging enough to make it look worth a try, that is until you scroll past the list of ingredients and see that the steps to make it involve placing the pizza inside a pizza box and burning it instead of the traditional oven-baked method. With no reviews or comments to date, I guess having to take your food outside and set it on fire is a little too extreme for most users.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and one user on Twitter who goes by the name Heitaro was not to be deterred from giving it a go. He substituted a cardboard box he had lying around his house for a pizza box, and tweeted a step-by-step picture guide as he went along.
“This is pizza I saw on a Cookpad recipe. The Cookpad recipe used a box, but I just used a cardboard box I had lying around instead. I wasn’t convinced it was going to work, but it smelled great and came out delicious. Amazing!”
For those interested in trying out their own version at their next BBQ or camping trip, here’s what you need:
Ingredients
– 1 pizza crust, about 25 cm
– a little olive oil
– 1 pizza box (or a cardboard box if you’re in a pinch)
– pizza sauce, to taste
– 1/6 of an onion
– 1/2 of a tomato
– 2 spears of asparagus
– a few slices of bacon
– a dash of ground pepper
– a little bit of dried parsley
– 50 ml (1/4 cup) of cooking sake
Directions
1. Cut the onion into thin slices, the tomato and asparagus into 5mm- (0.2-inch) slices, and the bacon into 1 cm slices
2. Layer 2 sheets of aluminum foil about 70 cm (30 inches) in size on top of each other, and fold one side together to make one large sheet.
3. Grease the foil with olive oil to prevent sticking, and stretch out the pizza crust thoroughly.
4. Spread pizza sauce onto the crust, add your preferred toppings, and top with cheese.
5. Pour cooking sake or water over pizza, wrap it up in foil, and then put it in the box.
6. Take an iron plate or a concrete block, put a grill over it, and then the pizza on top, afterward putting charcoal at each of the four corners of the box before lighting on fire with a lighter.
7. Let it burn until the whole box is burnt
8. Now the pizza is finished. Only the bottom of the box should remain, so transfer it onto a plate.
9. Wipe away the ashes, open the foil, and cut the pizza.
10. Top with parsley and pepper to taste, and it’s done.
If successful, this is what it should look like this:
▼ Looks good enough for us!
Heitaro’s post quickly spread online, and spawned a thread of other ridiculously awesome, similar cooking styles, such as:
▼ Cooking hot dogs in a milk carton
▼ Baking a sweet potato in a car muffler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWVEw07Yl8
▼ This creative way of making yakitori or kebabs in winter
▼ Or how to make the most out of a dire situation when disaster strikes
We recommend giving any of these methods a try if you dare, except maybe that last one. Remember to cook responsibly!
Feature/top image: Twitter/@hietaro
Insert images: Cookpad