Grilling Pizza

Awhile ago I bookmarked this grilled pizza dough from Chow and we finally got around to making a batch this past week. We got six discs out of one batch of dough, similar to the Neo-Neapolitan (from The Bread Baker's Apprentice) we usually stick with. Three discs were placed in the fridge overnight while the other three were frozen for a later date.

Round One

This was definitely the test day. I ended up stretching the dough far too thin and it was difficult to get the rounds onto the grill. That said, there was sure some exciting (and possibly dangerous) tossing action...

Success! Dough on the grill.

In the end we didn't find grilling added much flavour. The plus, however, was that we avoided heating up our entire apartment with the 500° oven necessary for pizza stone utilization. Toppings were Prosciutto from Valbella (they have quite the selection at the Lendrum Sunterra), onion, yellow peppers and bocconcini on a tomato base.

Round Two

With a little experience our most recent grilled pizza attempt went much better. The pizzas were smaller and easier to handle, and I made sure to keep the dough at about a 1/2" thickness. A little more thought also went into the topping situation this time round. We rode over to Sunterra Sunday afternoon and ended up with hickory-bourbon BBQ sauce and venison smokies (again from Valbella). I caramelized some onions and after discovering a block of cheddar gone bad, we utilized a wedge of the 'Drunken Goat Cheese' from Smoky Valley Goat Cheese (which is amazing, btw).

The combination of a little more heat control and the use of canola versus olive oil made this version far more enjoyable than our first attempt (and there was no scary throwing of pizza dough). Though I still don't think the grilling adds much flavour versus the pizza stone, we both agreed the chewy texture of the dough was a nice change. And I'll certainly trade the positives of the pizza stone for a cool-ish apartment over the next couple months.

P.S. Happy Canada Day, everyone!