Pretty mundane and pointless, but last week when I was in El Lay, I bought a pizza oven. Also made a run to costco and bought a few pounds of cheese. Today have a houseful of the Chinese relatives and fired up the imitation Weber. First try came out a little burnt, but the second and third pies were pretty dang good. Nice and crispy crust thanks to that pizza stone, but it was a new experience to everyone who’s pizza experience is limited to Pizza Hut.
BTW I’m not a masochist, but since I don’t own an oven I have to substitute the BBQ on occaision.
Now I have the leftover and left out all night pizza to look forward to for breakfast.
If I make a small pizza for myself I don’t bother with the oven either. I make up the pizza and put on the toppings. Then I spray a frying pan with olive oil and fry the base and then stick it under the grill to do the toppings. Works just fine.
Brilliant! Now why did I never think of this?
I’ve got all sizes of cast iron pans, plus pizza stones.
Never deep-dished before! Thank you thank you thank you!
Do you put any oil in the pan to simulate the Pizzeria-Uno experience?
If so, how much? Please describe your method!
(sigh - I really should hurry up & subscribe so I can be a Charter Member)
The recipe book I bought for my smoker actually has a pizza recipe in it. It’s basically a regular pizza, but uses a pizza pan instead of the stone. I like the stone idea though. Might try it myself.
My wife has made pizza on the BBQ at a couple of parties at our house and it was a huge hit. She premade the dough and cooked it a little bit first. The doughs were small so every one got to make their own personal pizzas. She laid out cheese, sauces and toppings and people mixed and matched.
This is the kind of smoker I have. It’s a “wet” smoker, that is there is a water pan above the charcoal, which can also have beer, wine, or marinade added to it for extra flavor.
It’s pretty versatile. There are two levels of grills, one right below the lid and the other above the water pan, about center with the unit. At the bottom is another pan which holds the charcoal. The charcoal pan can be moved to the upper grill position so the unit can be used as a regular grill. It can also be used as a steamer by omitting the wood chips and otherwise using it in the smoker configuration.
IIRC, the pizza was cooked on a pizza pan placed on the upper grill, with the charcoal pan in the bottom position and no water pan. It’s been awhile since I’ve cooked one and my cookbook isn’t accessable at this time to verify my memory.
The pizza recipe was more of a “California” type. It used refrigerator pizza dough and had roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts on it. Can’t remember what kind of cheese, but I think it was something other than mozerella. The pizza was kind of rich tasting with the ingredients and wood smoke.
I put a good drizzle of oil–no more than a tablespoon’s worth–on the bottom of the pan. I preheat my oven to 450, make sure it’s plenty hot. I put the dough in the pan, fill it up, then put it on the stove on high heat for a few minutes, to start the cooking process. I leave it on the fire for about 3 or 4 minutes, to start toasting the bottom of the crust, then throw it in the oven for another 20 minutes or so, when everything is bubbling and the crust is good and brown. I give it a rest for about 10 minutes, to let everything rest (it’ll stay hot if it stays inside the pan) before cutting into it.
I, too, thought this would be about BBQ chicken pizza, which is available at several fine pizzerias around here. This city will put barbecue sauce on anything; at baseball games downtown you can get barbecue nachos. (I was skeptical, but they’re delicious.)
I too was expecting a thread on BBQ chicken pizza…
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Ever try a taco pizza? Now thats good eatin. Instead of tomato sauce you use taco sauce. Mixture of cheeses, and ground beef goes into the oven, on the BBQ grill, ect. Once its done add more cheese, black olives, tomatos, and sour cream to the top…
