Friday, June 20, 2008

What's Better Than Pizza in the Oven? On the Grill!!

Pizza is my absolute favorite food, I've only made it once on the grill, but I used a pre-made Boboli shell. I have made homemade dough before (soooo much better than store bought) but I've only ever used it on my pizza stone in the oven. This was my first time trying this dough recipe from Epicurious, and grilling homemade dough...it was almost a complete success....

...but I made a slight mistake when turning the dough over, my tongs took a chunk of dough out, causing those edges to cook faster. So it wasn't as pretty as it couldn't have been, but it was so much better than the oven, and practice makes perfect, stay tuned for my next grilled pizza creation....

Pizza Dough
From Bon Apeitit March 2007/Giada De Laurentiis

Ingredients
3/4 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 envelope active dry yeast
2 cups (or more) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
I added 1 tbsp of dried Italian herbs

Preparation
Pour 3/4 cup warm water into small bowl; stir in yeast. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 5 minutes. Brush large bowl lightly with olive oil.

Mix 2 cups flour, sugar, and salt in processor. (Add yeast mixture and 3 tablespoons oil; process until dough forms a sticky ball. Transfer to lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth, adding more flour by tablespoonfuls if dough is very sticky, about 1 minute. Transfer to prepared bowl; turn dough in bowl to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Punch down dough.(Can be made 1 day ahead, store in airtight container in refrigerator.) Roll out dough to desired thickness. (Start in center of dough, working outward toward edges but not rolling over them.)

Heat the grill to high, then turn down to med-high.
Have all pizza toppings ready to go beside the grill. You have to work quickly!

Carefully lay dough on a floured pan or pizza paddle, brush the dough with some olive oil, and flip the oiled side onto the grill. Leave on for about 3 minutes, then using tongs, flip pizza over.

Layer sauce and toppings on pizza crust. If using fresh herbs, put on at the very end. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

I topped all the pizza with homemade sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh parmigiano- reggiano & fresh basil. On one half I added some turkey pepperoni. The other half, I topped with thinly sliced red onions, mushrooms and roma tomatoes.


Pizza Sauce

8 oz tomato sauce
3 oz tomato paste
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes (or more for a kick)
pinch of sugar
pinch of salt & pepper

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and let flavors blend before using.

2 comments:

What's Cookin Chicago said...

Yum! Grilling pizza is on my to do list this summer - yours came out great!

Shauna said...

That looks so good! I love making homemade dough and pizza, I have never grilled it though so that will have to be something that I try.