Restaurant Recreation–CPK Thai Chicken Pizza

My sister Kate, with her ever discerning palate, extraordinary cooking skills and love for the finest restaurant, is in many ways,  a simple woman when it comes to food.

For one, she absolutely lives for popcorn.  I have never met someone who needs to have popcorn in order to watch a movie (in the theater or not).  She also includes Dominos pizza and sunflower seeds among her can’t-live-without items.  See what I mean? Simple woman.

Additionally, for years, Kate would also couldn’t live without frozen CPK Thai Chicken Pizza.  In fact, she recently reminded me that for an entire year in high school, she would come home during a free period and eat one of these frozen pizzas for her lunch.

I can’t say that I blame her, because well, CPK Thai Chicken Pizza is delicious.  Really what’s not to love? Peanut sauce – Amazing! Lots of shredded cheese – Can’t live without it! Fresh carrots, scallions and bean sprouts for crunch – icing on the cake!

So in Kate’s honor, I decided I wanted to try and recreate her high school lunch experience.  But instead of feeding her a frozen pizza that has a laundry list of ingredients, I decided to recreate it using less than ten ingredients and made it healthier!

The result was amazing and tasted a lot like the original.  I think the key to making it taste authentic was by adding  some sweetness to the peanut sauce.  My typical peanut sauce is really simple and includes peanut butter, soy sauce, sriracha and either water or chicken broth to thin it out.  For the sauce I used on the pizza, I added some coconut butter and agave nectar for some added sweetness.  If you don’t have either of these on hand, I would recommend substituting brown sugar or honey.  With that said, I don’t think the added sweetness is necessary, I just wanted to make it as similar to the CPK pizza as I could, so feel free to omit it.

The last thing I will say about this pizza is that it really is a “one dish” dinner.  What I mean by that, is that if you use a lot of veggies as the topping (I chose carrots, scallions and bean sprouts but bell peppers, cucumbers or celery could work too!), you essentially have all of your nutritional needs satisfied – protein from the chicken, carbs from the dough, healthy fats from the reduced fat mozzarella cheese and peanut butter, and of course lots of veggies. 

So if you are in the mood for this CPK original, but not in the mood to deal with the hoards of high school students that make that restaurant their home (myself in high school included – I used to go at least twice a month!), then this recipe should be right up your alley!

Thai Chicken Pizza (CPK Restaurant Recreation) – Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 pizza dough (I buy mine at Whole Foods and typically get the multigrain variety!)
• 3 cups grated mozzarella cheese
• 3/4 lb chicken meat, shredded or cut into large cubes (I used the meat from a rotisserie chicken, but feel free to cook off some boneless breasts or thighs and shred it)
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1.5 cups sliced scallions
• 1.5 cups bean sprouts
• 1/2 cup peanuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 2 TB sriracha, plus more to taste
• 1/2 cup chicken stock, plus more to thin out sauce as needed
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 TB coconut butter
• 2 TB agave or honey
• Cornmeal + Flour for the pizza

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.  If using a pizza stone, you want to pre-heat the pizza stone while you are heating the oven.  Otherwise, if you put a cold pizza stone in a hot oven, you risk cracking the stone.

Roll out your pizza dough to desired thickness on a floured surface.  The CPK original is actually pretty thick, but because I like my pizzas a bit thinner, I rolled my dough pretty thin.  To do this, I actually cut the pizza dough in half and made two thinner pizzas instead of one thick pizza.  If you like your dough thicker, I would recommend just doing one larger pizza. 

After you roll your out your dough, remove the pizza stone (if using) from the oven and sprinkle with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking.  Place the raw dough on the stone and spray with a bit of cooking spray.  Sprinkle the dough with salt and pepper.

Place the dough back in the oven and precook for 7-10 minutes, or until the dough is slightly browned.   Remove the dough and pizza stone from the oven, flip the dough and cook on the other side for 2-3 minutes.  Remove from oven.

While the dough is precooking, prepare the peanut sauce by adding all ingredients in a small sauce pan and cooking until incorporated, about 5 minutes.  You want the peanut sauce to be thin enough to spread, so add more chicken broth or water to get to desired consistency.

Spread the peanut sauce on top of the precooked dough.

Add 1/3 of the cheese atop the peanut sauce.

Top with the shredded chicken and the remaining cheese.

Cook the pizza for approximately 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and slightly browned.

Add the cilantro, carrots, bean sprouts and chopped peanuts to the cooked pizza.

Serve the pizza with some extra sriracha and enjoy!!