Okay, I made the pizza from this grilling issue of Cook's Illustrated

The dough is different and they top them differently from an oven baked pizza. The dough has much more sugar in it and a goodly bit of olive oil.

One grills the dough right on the grate, on just one side. Remove it, top the grilled side, put the pizza back on the grill with the uncooked side down and cook that.

We found that we needed a double temp fire. We had the burners on the right side at blast furnace level and the left side was on as low as we could get it. We cooked the first side of the pizzas on the balst furnace. After topping, we put the pizza over the slow fire and closed the lid. In about 2 or 3 minutes the cheeze was melted and the pizza crust very nicely charred.

I found some fresh mozz that was in grape sized balls. That was perfect. No need to slice the cheese. I sliced the tomatoes a few hours beforehand and slated them prety generously. This drew off the water. The drier tomato slices allowed the crust to cook nicely with no sogginess at all. I did paint he crust with olive oil before topping, so that helped too. We used the oil, then the tomato slices, then the mozz, then some grated grana padano, then some chiffonade basil and parsley.

GET THIS MAGAZINE!!!! It's Hugh!!1!!

I didn't take any pictures, but they looked a lot like these ... mostly like the one at the right rear with the sliced tomatoes .... intentionally irregular and rustic looking.

grilled pizza. It's a great thing for outdoor parties too. Have all sorts of topping ready, and of course the individual "pizzas" ready for grilling. That way every one stands around the grill making the pizza of their choice. It's great fun!

The mag sounds good too, maybe I'll just have to pick up an issue and check it out.

glad to hear it was a success - I will definitely try it

I have grilled pizza before - with mixed success.

magazine great, the TV show is excellent--America's Test Kitchen. I have learned a lot from the episodes I've managed to catch, as they do a good job of explaining why things cook the way they do.

No matter how busy I am, I take the time to watch their show. Definitely the best cooking magazine I've ever read.

Both were lightly grilled on one side and then not used further. They're in the refrigerator now.

Tonight I'm going to try one with a light wash of olive oil, then I'll sprinkle some salt and some sesame seeds on it and grill it. Kinda like a flat bread. We'll see how that goes.

For the other one, I'll do sorta the same thing, but top it with the bit of leftover mozz, maybe some grana padano, and maybe some aged sharp provolone, and some salt, if needed. Like a cheesey flat bread.

I'm going to have to consider moving my pizza experiments outside since it's getting too hot to crank the oven up to 550!

I made a very respectable pan pizza the other night, but it's just too much dough to have to eat -- thin pizza rules!

It is sufficiently different from oven pizza that you shouldn't try to even consider how it works in an oven.

Mix 2 packages of dry yeast (not instant ... regular) with two cups of warmish water and four teaspoons of sugar and allow it to proff for at least 25 minutes. It should get real foamy and smell rich and yeasty.

I used my Kitchenaid, but I suppose you could mix it by hand, too. In any case, combine 4 cups of bread flour (I used King Arthur's, which is higher in gluten than most soopemarket bread flours), 2 more teaspoons of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Mix it to combine the dry stuff.

Add 4 tablespoons of olive oil and part of the water/yeast mix. Start to knead and add water until you get a smooth, very slightly sticky dough. The dough should feel light and tender. You may or may not use all the water. If the dough stays too wet, add more flour, a few tablespoons at a time.

The high oil content prevents sticking to the grill and the high sugar content aids in the **very desirable** char.

Knead for about 4 minutes by machine or 8 minutes or so by hand.

**Generously** oil a bowl and put the dough in, coat it all over with the oil, and top with some loosely applied plastic warp pressed right onto the douhg to prevent a dry crust from forming. Allow to proof to at least double. Mine proofed to about 2-and-a-half times.

Punch the dough down and divide into six equal parts and form into balls.

Let the balls rest for maybe 20 or 30 minutes.

Roll each ball out flat to maybe a 1/4 inch thick. Once rolled, put the dough right on the grill and let one side grill to a point where it gets pretty charred, but not burnt. If there's a lot of flour on the dough, the flour will fall off and catch fire. You really don't want that as the flames will burn the dough, so be sure to shake the dough before you put in on the grill.

When cooked on one side, remove from the grill and do the next ball. Continue untkl all six are grilled on one side. Remove from the grill with a metal peel or a suitable substitute (a cookie sheet with no sides will do nicely).

Place the grilled dough, raw side down/grilled side up on a wood peel dusted very lightly with flour. Paint the dough with a thin coat of olive oil and top as you wish. Place the topped pizza on the grill, on the cool side, and cover the grill. They'll need maybe two or three minutes, depending on your fire.

Let the cooked pizza stand for a minute or two before you cut it. You want the cheese to sorta cool and settle down or it will just slide off the piza.

I'm strictly a kettle grill guy, so it sounds like I'd need TWO grills going to do it though.

BUt yeah ... it really worked best with one side well cooler than the other. The first pie we did kinda got a bit too much char. It was still edible, but the bottom was pretty black the toppings barely cooked ..... as I said .... edible but not great. The later pies were really great.

Last night I cooked them on just one side and then kept 'em in the fridge overnight. I allowed them to warm to room temp and then put the cooked side back on the gril just to heat 'em up a bit.

I made two differet kinds. The first was rosemary and garlic, with a goodly bit of olive oil smashed in the mortar and pestle. I then put this all over the cooked side of one and sprinkled the top with kosher salt.

The second one was brushed lightly with olive oil and then I put the rest of the mozz and some grana padono on it. No salt, not garlic. Just cheese and oil.

Both got the bottom side cooked enough to get some char and melt the tops.

More flat-bready than pizza but really great. The douhg had deteriorated a bit from being in the fridge half cooked, but not that bad at all. The flavor was pretty much the same, but they lost all the tenderness the fresh batch of pizzas had.

Tonight he made the grilled pizzas. I got a lesson in cooking them, as well! He's not lying. Whatever recipe he's got, it's just DELICIOUS. :) A real unique, fresh taste.

The best part, of course, is seeing his "Pizza Dance" when they're done. Almost as entertaining as the pizzas themselves.

.... this was our second grilled pizza session in the last week. The first was an experiment using the dough recipe from the Cooks Illustrated gilling issue.

This time, out experiment was in the toppings. We made two flatbreads and four pizzas. The pizzas were really good with a wonderful smokey char to them. The same sort of char one might get in a very hot (700+) oven.

The flatbreads were topped with cheese in one case (mozz and parm), and with Alouette in the other.



You could also use Boursin.



Our only problem with this was the Alouette we spread on the dough was too thin and the flavor was barely noticeable. We spread it more or less like butter. It needs to go on much heavier. No less than 1/8 inch thick, and maybe even 1/4. We're gunna try this again, because even with the thin layer of cheese, we could see the flavor will be great!

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