How to Grill Pizza

May 13, 2013

It is true? Does everything taste better grilled? I don’t know yet as I have not grilled everything. But what I have thrown over the charcoal has tasted better. Particularly an American favorite – pizza. A couple years ago I watched Alton Brown make pizza on the grill during the final season of Good Eats. At the time I sadly did not own a grill. That is no longer the case. I followed his instructions last year and the results were wonderful. I didn’t know what to expect of the crust, would it be too flat for my liking? The crust is just about as perfect as crust can turn out. It is still chewy but it has that wonderful grilled flavor that knows your taste buds into a coma!

Alton Brown’s Recipe | Print the recipe

The main thing I took from Alton Brown’s recipe is the dough. I didn’t try his Date and prosciutto pizza as that sounds awful to me, and I didn’t quite follow this Margherita pizza – I made my own. The dough itself is wonderful. The dough makes 3 small to medium pizzas depending on your definition of small and medium. I think keeping the pizza a reasonable size is a good idea considering you don’t want the pizza to be raw in the middle and burned on the bottom. A couple notes below about working with his dough.

1. I used honey instead of malted barley syrup. This substitution worked out perfectly fine.

2. I had to add more flour when making the dough. My dough ball wasn’t really coming together so I add a little more flour at a time until the dough starting forming a ball.

3. The one hour rising time was perfect. The dough has doubled.

4. When you get to the second rise start getting your toppings ready and the grill fired up.

5. Each side of the pizza took about the 3-4 minutes Alton called for. The challenge is too make sure your coals if using charcoal are spread even so that you can have even heating.

Again this dough is out of this world amazing! You can use whatever homemade dough recipe you like. Just remember you want this pizza to be no more than a medium size so if your recipe normally makes a large consider cutting the dough in half. Here is how I made my Pepperoni Grilled Pizza.

Grilled Pepperoni Pizza

: Eric Samuelson

: Pizza

Cuisine: Italian-American

Ingredients

1 recipe pizza dough divided into 3 small to medium pizzas
20-30 slices pepperoni
1 lb freshly grated mozzarella cheese
1½ cups tomato sauce (homemade if possible)
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh basil, chopped
olive oil for brushing on the dough

Instructions

Divide your pizza dough into 3 pizzas. Roll them into a ball. Cover the dough with a towel and allow it 45 minutes to rise.
Fire up the grill!
Roll out each dough out into a circle. Place on a floured pizza peel or floured cutting board.
Brush with oil. Place the dough flat onto the grill. Close the gril. Cook for 2-4 minutes or until grill marks have formed on the bottom of the dough. Brush the top of the dough with oil and flip over.
Work fast adding the ladle your sauce on top, add the cheese, herbs, and pepperoni. Close the grill as soon as your done. Allow to cook for another 2-4 minutes until the cheese has melted and the bottom has grill marks. Repeat steps for the remaining pizzas.

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Breads Pizza

Corned Beef & Cabbage Pizza

March 12, 2013

by Eric Samuelson 2 comments

What Can I Make with Leftover Corned Beef Besides Hash?
This year I decided to cook my corned beef and cabbage a week before St. Patrick’s Day, so I could come up with some leftover recipes for my readers. I wanted something unique. Hash is good and all (I will be covering that later this week). I looked at some possible ideas online. The one that inspired me the most was pizza. It would be easy to throw my leftovers as topping onto a pizza – creating a hand held corned beef meal.

The next thing I had to address before I could put this pizza together was the sauce. Tomato sauce didn’t seem like the right choice. I remember Giade de Laurentitis making a Béchamel sauce for a meatball pizza. A Bechamel is a simple white sauce made with flour, butter, milk, and some seasonings. Since I didn’t plan on adding cheese to this pizza, a nice Bechamel seemed just right. Yes I said I made a pizza without cheese. I know it sounds sacrilegious. If you must have some cheese you can also grate on some Parmesan at the end. To spice up the Bechamel I added some garlic, nutmeg, and white pepper. The nutmeg adds a surprise bite of spice that will leave people wondering what that is. I like white pepper in this case so I don’t have little flecks of black in my creamy white sauce.

For the pizza dough I used a recipe by Paula Dean that makes enough dough for two pizzas. I made a traditional pepperoni pizza for the kids since I didn’t think they would go for my “crazy” pizza.

Corned Beef & Cabbage Pizza

Ingredients

Your favorite pizza dough recipe
Leftover corned beef and cabbage
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon white pepper
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cloves garlic, minced

Instructions

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan over medium high heat.
Mix in the flour and cook for about 1 minute
Add the milk, nutmeg, white pepper, salt, and garlic.
Stir until the mixture has become the consistency of tomato sauce
Remove from heat.
Spread the sauce onto your dough. Add your corned beef and cabbage.
Set your oven to the highest temperature it will go without burning your house down (500 degrees to me).
Bake until the crust has browned around the edges. About 15 minutes in my oven.
Allow to cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing.

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Beef| Cabbage| Corned Beef| Pizza| St. Patrick's Day

Breads

How to Make a Margherita Pizza

March 22, 2012

by Eric Samuelson 0 comments

We are a pepperoni pizza family. That’s our stable when it comes to pizza. However that doesn’t mean we won’t entertain other ideas. A couple years ago we were shopping at a grocery store and we looking for something to eat for lunch there. My wife spotted the Margherita pizza. She wanted to try it. Turns out she loved it. We thought it would be something we would try to make ourselves at home. For some reason it took us a couple years, but when finally gave it a whirl this month.

A Margherita pizza is a sauce less pizza. It has olive oil, fresh basil, sliced tomatoes, and cheese (typically fresh mozzarella). The pizza is named after honor of the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita. The pizza has all the color of the Italian flag. It’s a great summer time pizza, especially if your a gardener. You grab a tomato right off the vine and clip some basil from your herb garden. Doesn’t get any fresher than that. Plus I don’t know about you but on a hot summer day, I am not really up to making my own sauce, so slicing a tomato sounds a lot more appealing.

Ingredients
Fresh basil
Beefsteak tomato (or similar variety)
Good quality olive oil
Cheese of choice (fresh mozzarella, mild brick, or tuma are my favorites)
Pizza dough (I use Paula Deen’s recipe that makes two pizzas)
Fine grain corn meal

Instructions
This pizza is more about method than instructions. Make it that way you want. Here are some guidelines to follow:

1. Slice your tomatoes as thin as you can. I like to use a serrated bread knife.
2. Per pizza I use about 8 oz of cheese.
3. You have the option of putting the basil leaves down whole or you could slice them into a chiffonade, which involves rolling the basil leaves into a log and slice it, so it’s like a ribbon.

The order for ingredients goes – olive oil, then cheese, then tomato slices. I roll my pizza out into a flat rectangle and bake them on a half sheet pan. I sprinkle some corn meal on the sheet pan first. Bake your pizza on the highest temperature your oven can manage. Once the crust is golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it, the pizza is done. Let sit for 5-10 minutes before slicing.

Breads

Apple Pie Pizza

October 1, 2010

by Eric Samuelson 2 comments

I have made several different kinds of pizzas – ordinary, deep dish, bagel, pocket, and wonton. Last night I was making a deep dish pizza and I was trying to come up with something for dessert. What goes better with pizza, than pizza? I am talking about a dessert pizza. And since it’s apple season, an apple pizza would be just perfect. I read a recipe in the The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook for an apple pie pizza. I followed their baking instructions (time and temperatures) but I came up with my own ingredient list. The nice thing about this recipe is that you get the feeling of eating a pizza. You will be able to hold a slice just like you would any other pizza. The crust will be like that of a thin crust pizza.

Ingredients
1 pie crust of your choice (I like to use a recipe by Tyler Florence)

For the filling
2-3 baking apples (I used Jonathan. Check out my list of baking apples.)
cinnamon
nutmeg
cloves
brown sugar

I didn’t measure the exact amounts, since I think those things are up to your personal taste. If you like don’t like it too sweet, than only add a little sugar. If you like it spicy, then add a lot of spice. Choice is yours.

For the topping
1 part brown sugar
1 part melted butter
2 parts all-purpose flour

Start by preparing your favorite pie crust recipe. If you want to use a pre-made pie crust, fight the urge and make one yourself! Once the crust is ready, roll it into a flat circle. It should be in the neighborhood of 12-13 inches across. Crimp the edges just as you would any pizza. Place onto a lightly oil pizza pan or cookie sheet.

Now to prepare your filling, peel and slice your apples. Place them in a circle, starting in the outer edge, and working your way inward until you have a single layer of apples over the entire crust.

Sprinkle on some brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. This is a matter of personal taste, so feel free to add as much or as little of each as you want. Nutmeg and cloves can be pretty strong so don’t go too crazy!

Now onto the topping. Take 1 part brown sugar (I used 1/2 cup) and combine that with your 1 part melted butter (again I used 1/2 cup). Mix well to combine. Then add 2 parts (I used 1 cup) all-purpose flour. Mix together until a dough forms. Now take little pieces of the dough into your hands and form a ball. Then flatten that ball and place them on your pizza, just as if you were topping a regular pizza. Add as much as you like. I ended up with some leftover dough, which can be cooked up and used like in my Peaches & (Ice) Cream recipe.

If you have some in your pantry, I like to sprinkle on some coarse sugar. This gives the pie a nice shine and adds a little crunch. You can find coarse sugar at any good bulk food store.

Now it’s time to bake. For the baking instructions I am following along with the The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook recipe for apple pie pizza. So start your oven at 425 degrees. When ready place your pizza onto the lowest rack in your oven and bake for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 375 and bake for about another 30 minutes. When it gets close to 30 minutes, check to see if the pie is browning. If both the crust and the topping look nice and brown and the apples have soften, then pull your pie from the oven.

Let it cool for a moment and then slice into using a pizza slicer.

Apples| Pie| Pizza| Recipes

Dessert

Making Your Own Pan Pizza (Heart-Shaped)

February 15, 2010

by Eric Samuelson 0 comments

One of the things that Pizza Hut is known for is their personal pan pizzas. I can remember getting these pizzas when I was a kid. You don’t have to go to “the Hut” to enjoy a pan pizza, you can have one right in your very own home. All you need is the right equipment and a good pizza recipe.

To make my pan pizza, I first used a dough recipe that I got from Paula Deen of Food Network fame. Click here to read that recipe. This recipe makes enough pizza for two batches. I often take one batch, place it into a gallon size plastic bag with a little oil so it doesn’t stick and place in the freezer for later use. Once your dough is ready, you take a round or square cake pan and spray some oil on it so the pizza won’t stick. Place the dough in it. Strength the dough so that it is evenly distributed. I push up the dough put against the sides to form the crust. Let the dough rise again for 20-30 minutes before baking.

Now because a pan pizza has a thicker crust that other pizzas I recommend giving the crust a head start. So place the crust into a 450 degree oven for about 3 minutes. This way you won’t end up with a uncooked center. When your 3 minutes are up, take it out, add your sauce, cheese (I like brick cheese on my pizza), and toppings, and bake until done, 15-20 minutes depending on your oven, just keep on eye on it.

Let the pizza cool for a few minutes before you attempt to de-pan. Since you oiled the pan it should be easy to get it out. You can use a knife to around the edges to help pry it out if necessary. Then cut and enjoy!

You can try other things besides a circle or square pan. This year for Valentine’s Day, I used a heart shaped pan. It came out great. Deciding how to cut it evenly was the only challenge.

Looking for more pizza ideas, check out these recipes:
Pizza Bagels
Pizza Wontons

Cheap| Cheese| Paula Deen| Pizza

Breads

Vince and Joe’s Gourmet Market – Shelby Township, MI

February 8, 2010

by Eric Samuelson 5 comments

This is part of a series of posts on grocery stores that I have been to and would recommend to those that live in the area to check them out.

For over a year I had been seeing Vince and Joe’s Gourment Market, mentioned on segments on Channel 7′s Action News (Detroit). The store looks impressive on TV, so when I finally had the chance, I made a stop in their store. Some background information on the store: Vince and Joe’s started in November 1983 by Vince, Domenica, Joe and Maria Vitale. Their first location opened up in Clinton Township, MI. In October of 2006, they opened up a 2nd location in Shelby Township on 25 Mile Road and Van Dyke. The store is indeed impressive. It is laid out differently than the standard mega mart. You don’t get the feeling of walking up one long aisle, then turning and walking up another one.

The store has some great sales on produce, meat, and cheese. They have a great selection of cheese, with plenty to sample. One of the coolest features about the store is that they have terminals throughout the store that you can use to order what you want from the deli. So you can walk into the store, make your order, and then when you are ready to go, stop by the deli, grab your order, and go! No waiting in long lines, which is what you might otherwise do in this popular store.

In the center of the store, they have a section where you can buy pizza, sandwiches, and soup. They have a counter with chairs you can eat at too. My wife and I grabbed a couple drinks and a couple slices of pizza and ate our lunch right there. The pizza is great and you get a huge slice for $2. (See picture below of a slice my wife was enjoying!).

So if you are in Shelby Township or near their first location on Garfield and Canal in Clinton Township, stop by Vince and Joe’s and you will have a fun grocery shopping experience to tell.

Cheese| Michigan Grocery Stores| Pizza

Where I Buy Food