Monday, September 25, 2006

Pizza on a gas grill

We bought a fancy pizza stone a couple of months ago. It sits on our gas grill and does a very nice job of cooking pizzas, even though it doesn't do 800-degree cooking. However, I've had a hard time finding just the right dough for pizzas. Pita dough is okay but not quite right. Neapolitan dough is okay, but ends up too tough on the bottom due to the longer cooking time at the lower temp, and it's way too salty. Finally, yesterday I think I got the right thing. It involves Caputo 00 flour, which I picked up at PFI. I did a lot of searching to do a survey of recipes, and this is what I came up with: Pizza dough for four indiviual or two large pizzas 211 g water 430 g flour (Caputo 00 flour, or bread flour) 5 g salt 32 g starter (I use the same starter I use for my bread, which is 50/50 flour and water) 1 g dry yeast Mix 300 g of flour with the rest of the ingredients until just blended. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes. In mixer (I use a KitchenAid), mix with dough hook on low speed for 5 minutes, then gradually add rest of flour and mix for another three minutes. Scrape down bowl as necessary. Put dough into oiled bowl, cover and let rise for about two hours. Divide into two or four portions. For four portions, I put them into 16-oz plastic containers and cover them, set them aside for an hour. Now they are ready to stretch into crusts. Bake on a hot stone, either in your oven heated as high as it will go or in a gas grill. Instead of using cornmeal on my pizza peel, I use Wondra flour. It's nice and granular and I prefer the texture.

No comments: