Wood fired pizza

Pizza is one of those strange foods that i personally do not care for one iota! I have always had problems with soggy dough,to much sauce to much this and that. As a great philospopher from the 1800's once said "“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution” With that new knowledge, i set out for just that... a solution!




On this quest for a solution, you can imagine there were many failures. From burnt pizza dough, to the wrong sauce all the way to just pure disgust with the product. My first attempts were to use pre made dough from a tube. The dough just smelled weird and did not conform the way i wanted it to. After it was cooked, it just tasted like plastic. 

I have an awesome pizza stone that i won from a pampered chef party. I love the thing to death. Works great to cook bread on and its just amazing at what it can do. However, using this stone on the grill is not an option because i am not to certain it can take temps greater than 450-500*F. So the beginning of my adventure was to find the perfect pizza stone for the grill. After a few months of searching, i found it. It is a product created by Red Sky Grilling products. It is designed for kettle grills but works fantastically on gas grills as well. Check it out! Im glad i did!


As i continued my journey for this perfect pizza, I stumbled upon the most interesting catering service i have seen. I was sitting at a concert in our local park and i could smell this sweet smelling aroma. I looked over and i saw, no joke, a mobile woodfired pizza oven. They used cherry wood as there fuel source. Check this out!

This oven cooks at a blaring 800*F. It takes 4 days for it cool down. I want one BAD! They run about 11 grand. Luckily, there are plans on the internet to build one. But for now, the red sky grilling stone produces a pizza that i would say is just as good as this oven. It is made from the same material. The advantage of the big oven, is it can cook 5 or 6 at a time vs 1 or 2 on the kettle.

Seeing this cool mobile pizza oven was the last bit of motivation i needed to finish my great race for the perfect grilled pizza. 

So to start this all out, i decided to make a basic boule bread dough. This recipe is from my other blog i have created for all my baking adventures. Follow the recipe. Its easy to double and half if needs be. I preferre to use my hands for this rather than a machine.

Next was the sauce. I used a can of crushed tomatoes, about 1/4 cup of  roasted almonds that have been broken into small pieces, 2 pieces of whole wheat and multi grain toasted bread, a small jar of roasted red peppers, a we bit of garlic, some distilled vinegar to taste, salt and pepper and some olive oil. This was a total experiment so im not sure on quantities. Take all the ingredients and mix in a blender or food processor until smooth.

 




As the grill was getting nice and hot with my newly made cherry lump charcoal, i shaped the dough and got it ready for grilling. For this first attempt, i did not use the stone. I wanted to make sure i could grill over the direct heat so that i could learn how the dough reacts and works with the high heat of cherry. Ill just say that 30 seconds with a thin crust is to long... haha. 

I took the shaped dough ad placed it right above the hot coals. MAKE SURE TO ROTATE every 15 seconds or so. Brown the one side and then take off the heat. Top it with the sauce or homemade pesto then any other flavor agents you wish. For my pizza, i used pesto sauce, mozzarella cheese and greek olives. AWESOME stuff. For the wife, she used the roasted pepper sauce, mozzarella cheese, pesto, and greek olives.

Once topped, place back on the grill and continue to cook until the cheese has melted and the bottom is cooked.

PERFECTION! this turned out to be an awesome dinner for the misses and I. Love her to death and was delighted to have her help me with this quest. Made it worth its weight in gold!.