June 23, 2008

BBQ Pizza "do it yourself" style


I was on a boat this weekend with a bunch of friends....all with different tastes in food AND high expectation of what i could create on a boat for lunch.

There were some vegetarians and some die hard meat lovers. I had to think of something fun and exciting to serve that would please everyone. Burgers and dogs always seem like the easiest option but I'm not the kind of person to settle on the easy option.... especially when there is pressure for the chef to come up with a creative alternative. It was my first time using the brand new boat BBQ so i kept my fingers crossed as i had no clue if i was capable of pulling off “do it yourself” individual pizzas on the boat while anchored in a quiet bay with NO contingency plan...... But it worked like a charm !!!

Here is how to do it ....

Buy a ball of ready made pizza dough from your supermarket or pre-make dough the day before. (A pound of dough stretched out made 3 pizza bases) To stretch the dough out i find the easiest way is to hold onto the edge and let gravity do your work for you. Simply rotate your dough slowly around in a circle until it is your desired thickness. Then either drizzle with olive oil - or on the boat i actually sprayed mine with olive oil for less mess.

Before placing it on the grill make sure your grill has been heated as hot as possible ! Then right before placing the dough on the grill turn it down to low/medium.

Place the dough directly on the grill. place anything you like on pizza on top of your dough - tomato sauce, artichokes, mushrooms, pepperoni, pesto, goats cheese... anything ! After you’ve placed your toppings on the dough, close the BBQ to keep all the heat in for the dough to cook and the cheese to really melt. Every BBQ is a bit different but it should take anywhere from 8-12 minutes for your pizza to cook fully. On our little portable boat BBQ it took about 10 minutes and we could do 2 individual pizzas at a time.

Note: I like my pizza a little soft and doughy in the centre so i don’t flip mine before adding toppings. But if you like your pizza crispy, flip your pizza dough over before putting on toppings.

Let me know if this works just as well for you as it did for my BBQ alternative !

x Adele