My oven is older than I am. It’s a monster of a thing, built into my wall, with parts I’ve never seen on other ovens and enough heat leakage to make me worry about the plastic cups stored in the cabinet above it. But replacing it would be a task requiring a remodel, which isn’t in the cards right now. Still, we do our best not to use it often, especially in the summer when we’d like to keep temperatures down. So, how, you must be asking by now, do we manage to cook delicious homemade pizza all summer long?

Barbecue, my friends. Charcoal and matches.

When I first heard of this method, I wasn’t convinced. Doesn’t the dough want to slip though the grills? Won’t it burn, very quickly? Will my cheese melt before the crust is cooked?

No. No. And yes, beautifully.

It turns out that your BBQ (or gas) grill is much more like a pizza oven than what you’ve got in your kitchen - direct heat, temperatures closer to 600 than 400 degrees, a little bit of flame, and a surface that starts cooking the second your food comes in contact. All these things are vital to any non-deep dish pizza to get a crisp (yet soft and chewy inside) crust, the perfect bit of charing, nice melted cheese and hot sauce and toppings.

So, how do we do it? Start with a good, firm dough. I like to make my own (recipe below), but stores like Trader Joe’s sells it in bags you can roll and use. You’re also going to need a way to get it on to the BBQ, and back off again (the pizza’s going right on your grill) - if you’ve got a pizza peel, great. If not, a large piece of cardboard or wood, or the flat, no-edge bottom of your pizza pan should work. Roll your dough out to “small” or “medium” size (6-10 inch radius), apply a liberal amount of dry corn meal to your peel or other pizza delivery system (PDS), place the dough on it, and start building.

Anything goes good on a pizza nowadays - typically you have sauce, cheese, and veggies (or meat, ya wacky non-vegetarians), but go crazy. Almost any vegetables you can slice thin will work - zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, olives, mushrooms, and I’ve seen tofu and potatoes used, but your mileage may vary there. As for a sauce, I like tomato, but cream, pesto, or cheese sauces all work well too - homemade, or from the can/bottle. Cheese is up to you - vegans can use anything they like, as long as it melts, and the rest of us can choose from traditional choices like mozzarella and ricotta to stranger things like feta, swiss, muenster, or whatever you have on hand. Think of it this way - if you like it hot and accompanied by dough, go for it.

I will note that you should have fired up your grill by this point. You can use a bit less charcoal than you might for anything else, just make sure you’ve got good, even coverage on the bottom after they’re hot - you might even want some extra coals on the outside edge (instead of a pile, think crater). This will allow for more even heat distribution. Wait until all your coals are started before cooking. Make sure your grill’s clean, too. Now, onward…

Once your pizza is constructed, time to move it. Make sure it’s not sticking on your PDS (add some more corn meal if it is), and wiggle it a bit to make sure it’s loose all the way around. Take it out to grill, brace yourself, and slide it on. Not much will happen, at first, unless you slide a lot of your corn meal into the coals (it smokes, but that’s ok). If you’ve done it right, your pizza pretty much just looks like a pizza on your BBQ. But you’ll want to watch it carefully - the heat you’ve got on it could be anywhere from 500F to 700F or more, and this will greatly affect your cooking time.

Use your peel or a big metal turner to check its progress after 4-5 minutes. There shouldn’t be any burning yet, just a good amount of browning. You should also notice your sauce boiling, and cheese melting. That’s fine. If you see any charred bits, you might want to rotate the pie. This’ll also give you a checkerboard pattern on the bottom that’ll confuse your friends.

After a few more minutes, your pizza will be close to done. It might be slightly burned on the bottom - no problem there - but the dough should be cooked all the way through, and to the edges. Use your peel, your PDS, or some spatulas and a friend to remove the pizza from the grill. Give it a few minutes to set, then slice and enjoy in your nice, cool house.

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The Liberal Atheist Vegetarian’s simple dough
(good for pizza, breadsticks, and soft pretzels)

1 cup very warm (but not boiling) water
1 tablespoon (usually one packet) of yeast
Dash of sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
3-3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
Seasoning to taste (”Italian Seasoning”, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, etc.)

dissolve your yeast in the hot water, and add sugar, if desired (it gives the yeast something to chew on). Let that sit until dissolved, then add olive oil. Pour, while mixing, into a bowl with your bread flour (or regular flour, if that’s what you’ve got), salt, and seasonings. I use a fork here if I’m making it by hand - feel free to use a stand mixer or your hands. Mix until it’s a firm, uniform ball of dough, adding more flour if needed so it’s not too sticky. Coat the ball in a bit more olive oil, place it in your large bowl, and cover with some damp paper towels. It’ll need to rise for at least an hour in a warm place. Depending on how thick you want your crust, use between 1/2 and 3/4 of your dough for the above pizza. Alternately, you can throw everything into a bread maker on the “dough” setting, and save yourself the mess.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Recipes, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.