Vegan Pepperoni Pan Pizza
[Vegan]

For the Daikon Radish “Pepperoni.”:

1. Start by peeling the radish and cutting it into very evenly thin, round disks. Use a Mandoline if you have one.
2. The thinner you cut them, the crispier they will get.
3. Lay all the daikon radish pieces on your work surface and lightly salt them.
4. Let stand for 15 minutes so that the salt will draw out its moisture. After 15 minutes, use a paper towel to wipe off all the excess salt and moisture.
5. Place them into a bowl along with all the Daikon radish marinade ingredients. Give it a good mix and let the radish slices marinate for at least an hour, or even overnight.
6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the radish slices onto a parchment-lined baking tray and drizzle them with a little bit of vegetable oil.
7. Once the oven is pre-heated, bake them for around 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them because they easily burn (trust me, I’ve made a batch of completely black pepperoni before).
8. Flip them around halfway (5-6 minutes). At the end of the baking, they should be dried up and slightly crisp.
9. Alternatively, you can shallow-fry the radish slices as well (which is easier in my opinion, but a bit more oily/less healthy). Simply fry them in a shallow pan with a generous amount of oil until they crisp up.

For the Pizza Dough:

1. In a bowl, combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add water and keep mixing until a dough just comes together.
2. Oil another bowl with the olive oil and place the dough inside.
3. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 20-24 hours (Pan-Pizza Dough adapted from Binging with Babish).
4. Once 20-24 hours have passed (the dough should have risen significantly), remove the dough from the bowl.
5. Place the dough into a cast iron pan (preferred) or a non-stick pan and stretch it out to fill the whole pan.
6. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise for another 30 minutes to 1 hour.

For the Vegan Mozzarella:

1. Make sure the cashews have been softened by either 1) boiling in water for at least 10 minutes 2) soaked in room temperature water for at least 4 hours.
2. In a food processor, blend together all the vegan mozzarella ingredients until smooth.
3. Pour the cheese mixture out into a pot and slowly bring it to a boil while stirring. Once the cheese mixture starts to buble, remove it from the heat and pour it into a glass jar. Let it cool completely in the fridge to set.

For the Tomato Sauce:

1. Add all the tomato sauce ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.

To Assemble:

1. Pre-heat the oven at maximum temperature (mine was 230 degrees C or 450 F) with a pizza stone inside (optional, but will halve the baking time).
2. Spread the tomato sauce evenly on the dough, and scoop dollops of the mozzarella cheese onto the pizza.
3. Once the oven is pre-heated, place the entire pan into the oven to bake. This should take around 15-30 minutes, depending on the oven, the pan, whether or not you have a pizza stone, etc (optional: Towards the end of the cooking, I like to move the pizza onto the top wrack and turn on the broiler to get browning on the cheese).
4. When the pizza is done, finish it with a few fresh basil leaves and a sprinkle of flakey sea salt.