Yesterday I bought two pairs of socks and a pizza stone. I’ve got one of the pairs of socks on today; the green pair. I couldn’t wait nearly as long to try the pizza stone; that was much more exciting, so we had pizza for dinner.
A pizza stone, in case you don’t know, is just that: a large stone that lets you cook pizza using your grill. It protects the pizza from the direct heat of the fire, and helps crisp up the base. And homemade pizza, proper thin, crispy pizza is like nothing you have ever tasted. It’s fantastic stuff. And cooking it outdoors, on the grill, with a glass of rose, is just one of the best ways to spend a summer evening.
Pizza is always a big hit in our family, but because we all eat it together, I usually keep it child-friendly. Yesterday Pia and I were home alone; an occurrence that happens not nearly as often as I change my socks.
Because of this I wanted to make our pizza a bit more grown-up. I wanted to give it a summery, BBQ touch, too, as it was such a nice evening. So I made a smoky, spicy tomato and oregano sauce and topped the pizza with Tuscan salami, buffalo mozzarella, goat cheese, red onion and basil. The tomatoes, red onion and goat cheese were all Swedish. The oregano and basil were from my garden. Lovely.
Ready to blitz. The secret is in the sauce
The whole thing took minutes to make (if you don’t include the time waiting for the dough to rise) and tasted amazing. Seriously, I can’t recommend this pizza enough. You should try it. Below is the recipe. I didn’t weigh and measure all the ingredients so the amounts are approximate and from memory. And if you can’t find fresh yeast, I guess you can use dried, but you’re on your own there – I’ve never used the stuff.
Before...
...after
Rob’s Summer BBQ Pizza
(serves 4)
For the dough
- 12g fresh yeast
- ½ tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2,5 dl warm (37C) water
- 2 tblsp olive oil
- 6dl plain flour
For the topping
- 5 Tomatoes, quartered
- A couple of spoonfulls sun dried tomatoes (I found some fresh dried cherry toms that were a little softer than the ones is a jar)
- 2 tsp chipotle paste
- A dash of liquid smoke (available by the bottle)
- A handful of fresh oregano leaves
- 1 red onion, halved and sliced
- 8-10 thin slices of good salami
- 2 buffalo mozzarella
- 2 rounds of creamy goat cheese
- 10 fresh cherry tomatoes
- A bunch of fresh basil, leaves torn
Put your oven on to 200C. Mix the tomatoes, and oregano leaves with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Put them in the oven for 30 minutes
To make the dough, dissolve the yeast, sugar and salt in a little of the warm water. Add the oil and the rest of the water. Add the flour, a bit at a time, whilst stirring continuously to make a dough. If you have a machine with a dough hook this will lighten the load considerably. Work the dough by hand for 10 minutes (man) or 5 minutes (machine) . Cover with a dry cloth and leave it to rise for half an hour.
When the tomatoes are done, remove from the oven, cool a little and blitz to a sauce in a food processor.
Knead the dough back into shape for a minute or two, and spin, stretch and roll it out to your desired shape. I like to do an oblong-shaped pizza, but you can make four round ones or whatever takes your fancy.
Spread the tomato sauce on the pizza base then artfully and liberally spread the other ingredients around (except the basil). Tear the two cheeses into rough lumps for best effect.
If you grilling your pizza, wait till the grill is v hot, heat up the stone for 10 minutes, then whack in the pizza and close the lid. If you’re doing it in the oven, get it up to about 230C.
Cook the pizza for 7-10 minutes, adding the torn basil leaves at about the halfway point.
And my new socks. In case you're interested
