Grilled Pizza Success

 

Put together a super-team for pizza grilling, with results bordering on perfection. I've grilled pizza before, but never have I ended up with such magnificent pizza: Thin and crunchy crust with just a hint of smokiness, toppings like chanterelles and tallegio.

One note for future reference: mature dandelion greens are really, really bitter. The sort of bitter that no advice from Mark Bittman about braising and lemon acidity can counteract. We ended up composting it because it was simply inedible. I'm stiking to young dandelion greens from now on.

Throwing pizza dough

And I caught it, too! Uncle Paul would be so proud.

In praise of Cheeseboard Pizza

Let's just take a moment to celebrate the five-day-a-week glory of Cheeseboard Pizza.

A short and organized singing of the praises:

- The crust is a Goldilocks dream: not too thin, not too thick; crispy but not a cracker; and with a crust that makes you take a step back from the pizza as a whole and savor, for two or three bites, the perfectly baked product of a really nice dough.

- It's almost always cooked to perfection, with a golden browning of the cheese and a perfect crisping of the crust.

- Even though there's never meat, I never ever think of it as vegetarian pizza. As an added bonus, it means there's never ever chicken, an ingredient that really has no place on pizza.

- It's generally not loaded down with toppings, but out-of-the-oven, last-minute seasonings such as garlic- or lemon- olive oil and fresh herbs create complexity and draw out the flavors of the pizza.

Grilling pizza, the debriefing

Compared to the first pizza grilling experience, this time was much more successful. Ross did a great job on the dough, and it was incredibly easy to coax out into a thin round. The tricky part was getting it onto the grill in a shape that still resembled pizza and didn't have a ton of overlapping thick bits. In the first pizza grilling trial the dough was too thick and the grill too hot, so the crust actually charred before it was done all the way through. In response to that, I made these crusts very thin, too thin I think, but the happy medium will have to wait until Pizza Grill, part 3.

The photo above is of the final two pizzas (on the left, sauce and vegan cheese ["It melts!" says the package]; and on the right, mozzarella, Parmesan, red onions, yellow onions, green onions, and caramelized onions. That pizza was topped, after coming off the grill, with flat leaf parsley and marjoram). I think we hit upon something important when we divided the final pizza ball into two (to make these two smaller pizzas). Not only were they easier to handle, but they seemed to cook better and the cheese (where there was cheese) got more bubbly and delicious.

Grilling pizza is incredibly novel, and the grill (I'm sure this is even more pronounced with a charcoal grill) imparts a smoky flavor you don't get from oven-baked pizza, plus the grill lines are exciting. And though I'd certainly do this again (in the cookbook American Pie, the author assures readers that by the sixth time grilling pizza, you'll have it totally down, and based on how much better we got between time one and two, I think that's a reasonable promise), I don't think it's going to replace my love of oven-baked pizza.

A quick overview of the good and the bad:

Good: Grill marks, smoky flavor, outdoor activity, doesn't heat up the kitchen in summer

Bad: Cheese never achieves that golden brown, the cooking time is much shorter so you have to rush to add the ingredients and you don't get even coverage, difficult to get an even round onto the grill without messing up the shape.

And after pizza, another kind of pie when AJ arrived with an apricot pie. Delicious.

Grilling pizza, the preparation

Tonight I'm going to grill pizza. The quest started two weeks ago when Ross, dough aficionado and owner of a Cuisinart and a Kitchen Aid (I think), brought two bags of pizza dough sitting in olive oil to a barbeque. It was kind of a half-assed attempt though, since we rolled the dough out on paper plates and one or more of us had perhaps had a little bit too much to drink before trying to read the detailed directions for making a perfect grilled pizza.

So on to attempt two. This time, we'll be more prepared and will not begin drinking until after the pizza is done.

The resources: American Pie, by Peter Reinhart; The Cheese Board Collective Works, by, predictably, the Cheese Board Collective

The implement: A Weber Spirit two-burner gas grill

The toppings: I tend to go complicated in cooking and entertaining, I think because I often cook simply when it's just Joel and I, and I like to use other people as an excuse to experiment. But with pizza, I know that in general, the simpler, the better, with the major exception of Cheese Board pizza, which often goes in for the many-toppinged pizza and almost always does it with complete success.

So based on what I've already got in the house, what I'll buy today, and what I like to eat, and also taking into account that Ross, maker of the dough pictured above and owner of the American Pie cookbook, and his wife are vegan, my approach will be four-pronged:

• Variation* on Tomato Pizza with lemon zest (Cheese Board)


• Variation* on three-onion, four-herb, and four-cheese pizza (Cheese Board)


• If I can find an eggplant that isn't too expensive, I'll make a smoked eggplant puree that Reinhart suggests for grilled pizza.


• One page over from the smoked eggplant puree recipe is one for sweet-and-sour onion marmalade. It looks pretty easy and I like pickled onions and onions in vinegar, so if I have time I'll make that as another vegan option.

*Variation indicates that I may or may not actually follow through with the whole recipe.