Check it folks, Roger Williamson, our favourite local BBQ-guy is back with this yummy recipe for pizza on the grill. There’s nothing like fresh melted cheese on grilled dough!! This is making me hungry just looking at it.
Pizza. Yum. I learned over the summer to make great pizza on the grill. And there is something about a pizza made over live fire. Sure you can grab a slice just about anywhere, but the truly great pizza’s are made in stone fire ovens, there are a few spots around town that do that. I am going to show you how you can make great pizza’s at home and get that great live fire flavor you would get in a gourmet pizza restaurant.
There are a few tools you need in order to make this happen. I grabbed a kit at a local hardware store to get started. You need a cordierite pizza stone, cordierite can withstand the high heat of the grill and wont crack under the high temperatures. The kit I grabbed came with a pizza stone, and the other important piece, a pizza peel. A pizza peel is the flat wooden thingy that you make your pizza on and slide it off onto the hot stone. The other important ingredient to this is corn meal, you need to sprinkle that on the peel and the stone so the dough wont stick.
Lets get started and be sure to get the kids involved, they love making their own!
The dough
Now you can easily skip this step for saving time and go up to your local pizza shop and buy some uncooked dough. But if you have the time, I do recommend making your own. Here is a simple recipe, this will make about 2 14” pizzas, or 4 “personal” size: Time. 2 minutes to make the dough, 1 to 2 hours to rise.
1 teaspoon instant dried yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
4 1/2 cups all-purpose wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons olive oil
First wake the yeast, by putting it in a separate bowl with the warm water, let it foam up, about 4 minutes. Then mix in with the flour, salt and olive oil. Mix it all together until you have a consistent ball. Cover the bowl and let it sit for 2 hours, it will rise during this time and when ready punch it down and pinch off a good amount to make your pizza.
The Sauce
I like fresh sauce, so I generally just take a jar of tomato sauce and add some flavor to it.
1 jar tomato sauce
¼ cup of butter
3 cloves of garlic
½ onion
2 tablespoons of oregano
Melt the butter in a pan, toss in the finely chopped onion and garlic, once the onion has softened, toss in the oregano and then the tomato sauce. Bring to boil then reduce and simmer for 15 min.
Ingredients
Whatever you like! I chop up some fresh veggies, green pepper, onion, whatever tickles your fancy. As far as meat toppings go, make sure they are pre-cooked. I have used Italian sausage (awesome on pizza), bacon, some leftover grilled chicken, whatever. One very important ingredient is the cheese, use Mozzarella. If your local grocery store has the fresh Mozza balls they are the best.
Now you are ready!
Fire up your grill and get it as hot as you can. Put the Pizza stone on the grill to get hot. Make sure your pizza stone is not directly over your heat, if it is it may burn the pizza crust. On my charcoal grill I can get it up to 550 or so before putting on the pizza, and make sure the pizza stone is on all the time in order to cook the bottom of the dough.
While the grill and stone is heating up, make your first pizza, get the kids involved! Flatten out your pizza dough and once it is the size and thickness you want (thinner is better) sprinkle liberal amounts of corn meal on the pizza peel before you put the dough on it, you want it to slide right off on to the hot pizza stone.
Put on the sauce, cheese and toppings, now you are ready to hit the grill.
On the Grill
Sprinkle more corn meal on the pizza stone so the pizza can slide off easily when done. Now carefully slide the pizza off the peel onto the hot stone, pulling it off the peel with your fingers onto the stone. Cover the BBQ and wait about 5 min before peeking.
At this time you can turn the pizza 180 if necessary, cover it back up and depending on how hot your grill can get the pizza will be ready in 5 to 8 minutes. Its done when it looks done – nice bubbly cheese melted all through.
Enjoy! I hope you try this out, your BBQ / grill is much more versatile than most folks use it for. If you have questions or comments let me know at FallRiverBBQ@gmail.com !
Roger Williamson is a professional technology geek, a father of 3 and an avid live fire cooking enthusiast who spends his free time in Fall River cooking outside.