PrintGrilling: Pizza
On Fridays, Joshua Bousel drops by with a recipe for you to grill over the weekend. Fire it up, Joshua!
Before you run out and grab all those burgers and hot dogs for tomorrow's great Fourth of July cookout, let me tempt you with another great American tradition that's great for the grill and revelers alike: pizza. Although the high heat of the grill produces a truly excellent pizza, it's a challenge to get a perfectly cooked crisp crust at the same time the toppings are ready, but after years of trial and error, I've developed a fairly foolproof way to get perfect pizzas every time.
This requires a two-zone fire, with all the coals piled on one side of the charcoal grate, and a process of cooking the crust in stages.
First you stretch the dough out to a personal-size pizza and place it directly over the coals, cooking it until it browns and crisps nicely. Then remove the crust to a plate, arrange the toppings on the cooked side, place it over the cool side of the grill, and cover. When the cheese is melted and the toppings are done to your liking, check the bottom of the crust; if it needs to cook a little longer, just move it over to the hot side again until it's perfect.
What comes off the grill is a real beauty of a pie. A wonderfully cooked crust, with that balance of crisp and chewiness that makes a great pizza--something to truly celebrate alongside our independence.
Perfectly Grilled Pizzas
Ingredients
Your favorite pizza dough, homemade or picked up from your local pizzeria
Your favorite pizza or marinara sauce
Toppings of your choosing
Procedure
1. Light a chimney 3/4 full of charcoal. When charcoal is fully lit and covered in gray ash, pour coals out and arrange them on one side of the charcoal grate, keeping the other side empty. After heating up for a minute, clean and oil the cooking grate.
2. Break off a piece of dough about the size of your fist and stretch to a personal sized pie, about 12 inches. Immediately place the dough on the grill on the hot side, directly over the fire. Watch the dough closely, when it crisps and becomes golden brown, remove from the grill to a plate.
3. Arrange your sauce and toppings on the grilled side of the dough. Place the pizza back on the cool side of the grill and cover. Checking the pizza every few minutes, continue to grill until the toppings are cooked to your liking. Check the bottom of the dough, if it needs a little bit more time to brown or cook, move the pizza to the hot side of the grill again and cook until the bottom is nicely browned and crisp. Remove from the grill and enjoy.
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17 Comments:
That looks fantastic!
DanaMcCauley at 9:32PM on 07/03/09
This sounds great. The crust and flavor of grilled pizza is the best!
http://ptbcooking.blogspot.com/
energystar56 at 10:34PM on 07/03/09
Isn't this basically the same thing as the Cook's Illustrated version of the grilled pizza from a few years back?
acidspit at 12:46AM on 07/04/09
@acidspit: I haven't seen Cook's Illustrated recipe, I've been making it this way since ever 2004, right after I burnt my first crust trying to assemble the pizza while keeping it on the grill.
Joshua Bousel at 9:16AM on 07/04/09
We have been unsuccessful at putting raw dough directly on the grill (I'm sure you can imagine the mess). Instead, using America's Test Kitchen's method, we first put the dough on a cookie sheet on the grill for about 2 minutes. The crust is now hardened. We remove it from the cookie sheet, top it, then place directly on the grill.
This method was discovered in a flurry of panic when we had New Year's Eve guests on their way, and an oven that suddenly stopped working!
fyrebelley at 10:47AM on 07/04/09
raw dough on the grill works fine. We put a healthy dose of olive oil on the bottom to prevent sticking. Works like a charm though I appreciate that the vision of raw dough on the grill did frighten me at first.
dasmueller at 11:50AM on 07/04/09
i never would have thought to do this-how cool!?!
i just envisioned a doughy mess too, but now i'll have to wow some people! thanks :)
gastronomeg at 1:00PM on 07/04/09
got it from Pizza On the Grill by Elizabeth Karmel available at Jessica's Biscuit
dasmueller at 1:23PM on 07/04/09
I used a pizza stone on a grill once - it too burned the crust, but that is because I had coals directly beneath the stone. After a bit of playing around, I managed to get it to work with coals around the edges of the Weber so that there was only indirect heat, and putting the lid on too.
Of course, i'd rather have a wood fired oven, but this is second best.
mrbill1234 at 10:14AM on 07/05/09
This is the method I arrived at after some trial and error this evening, before reading this post. One word of caution is that, depending on the heat of your fire, the crust can go from raw to burnt in a very short amount of time, so be ready to move it to a cooler part of the grill very quickly.
SashaK at 10:46PM on 07/05/09
We bought some kit at Williams Sonoma to grills our pizza, but it took too much effort to make it.
pizzaexpert at 10:33AM on 07/06/09
We "grilled" pizza on our smoker (Big Green Egg) last weekend. We had so much trouble getting the dough transferred off the pizza peel onto the pizza stone in the grill, we ended up just doubling it over and making calzones! I will definitely try cooking the pizza on a cookie sheet first and then transferring to grill. What a great idea - Thanks!!
mrsbeezers at 3:54PM on 07/08/09
Not to be too different, but would it be possible to just buy one of those better brands of frozen pizza's at the grocery store and put it on the grill?
I have one of those "Grill Grate's", and am thinking of experimenting using it to grill a pizza. Iam talking about a gas grill, with the lid down....
Gerome at 4:41PM on 07/08/09
We have a gas grill with 3 horizontal burners. We also use an inexpensive square kiln shelf (purchased from a pottery supply company for 25% of what you'd pay for a pizza stone that's made from the same stuff). We use a lower, indirect fire and put a generous handful of corn meal under the pizza. We also tend to use pre-formed corn meal crusts for our pizzas. However, we cook/roast a huge variety of breads, meats, veggies, etc. on the grill...often using the stone to spread the heat. Especially during the summer, this helps with keeping the house cooler and the a/c bills lower.
Scottzel at 9:14AM on 07/13/09
Just had my first attempt at grilling pizza this past weekend. I went with the cookie sheet method and it worked wonderfully. I erred on the side of caution and was generous with the olive oil on both sides of the crust but had absolutely no sticking. Another advantage of the cookie sheet method is that flipping it is super easy - just pick up the sheet and dump the crust on the grill on the other side.
For the dough I used that 101 cookbooks recipe, but used about half whole wheat bread flour.
This weekend I'm going be courageous and go for grilling directly on the grate! Thanks for this post and the other helpful comments~
fatcat at 12:50PM on 07/13/09
We tryed grilled pizza on the gasser this weekend. Prepared a simple dough with 3 c. flour, 1 c. water, 1 tsp. yest, salt and a couple of Tbsp. olive oil. One rising, then divided into 4 balls and refridgerated for about 6 hours. Brought to room temp before grilling.
Set grill on high one side and other off. Pressed out dough on parchment strips. Oiled top well, then flipped over onto cool side. Dragged over to hot side with tongs. Cooked up beautifully. Topped and place bakc on grill. Started on hot side until dough was done, then moved over to cool side to finishing melting cheese.
Yum Yum
maduckie at 7:40PM on 07/13/09
I have a gas and also a Weber charcoal grill. I purchased a Grilled Pizza Stone from this website, www.redskygrilling.com. It works great on both grills. The dough recipe they have seems to work a lot better than our older dough recipe, and the pizza comes out amazing. It has that nice wood smoked taste. Also, the dough is crispy on the bottom, really crunchy actually. In fact, if I remember correctly, the company put a piece of pecan wood in the box for our first grill session.
IllSortemOut at 9:51AM on 01/21/10