Yeah, this is completely off topic and about 180 degrees from television technology that I usually write about, but for those that know me well, you know I love, love, LOVE to cook. I had my dream job for five seasons working with Alton Brown on “Good Eats” for the Food Network. Needless to say, I got tons of tips and ideas working on that show. I especially love it when grill season comes along.
Yesterday Kylee Wall tweeted a photo of her pizza on the grill using my recipe and technique and I got a bunch of requests for the recipe.
Kylee Wall’s awesome looking pizza on the grill. Nicely done Kylee!
I figured I’ll just share it up here along with some info on a spiffy Smoker Box I just started using too.
Pizza On The Grill
The most important thing to know about Pizza on the Grill is that you MUST use fresh dough. Can be store bought if you want, but it can NEVER have been frozen. Previously frozen dough will fall through the grill, if that’s what you have, then use a pizza stone on top of the grill.
Whenever we do the pizza with friends, we always have everyone bring their own toppings so it turns into a pizza party. I’ll make the sauce and provide the mozzarella cheese and then everyone just brings whatever, it’s fun!
Semolina Pizza Dough (From Eating Well magazine)
1 tsp Honey
2 pkg active dry yeast (2 Tbsp)
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
Pinch of salt
2 cups Semolina Flour (also known as pasta flour)
2 to 2 1/2 cups all purpose white flour (more for the board)
In large bowl, dissolve the honey in 2 cups warm water.
Sprinkle in the yeast and let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy.
Stir in oil and salt, then stir in the semolina flour.
Stir in enough white flour to make a firm soft dough. Turn out onto a floured, wooden board or counter.
Knead for 8 to 10 minutes, adding flour as needed to prevent from sticking to everything, until you have a smooth and elastic dough.
Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a towel and let rise for at least 2 hours.
You can now refrigerate the dough for four days or freeze it if you want.
Pizza On Grill Cooking Instructions
Prepare the Semolina Pizza Dough above. Place in a refrigerator for at least 2 hours prior to cooking if possible to cool the dough.
First turn on the grill and set all the burners to low, maybe medium on some grills, but I find low works the best on gas grills. You can use smoke chips too if you want.
Break off a small piece of dough, generally about the size of a tennis ball or maybe smaller, depending on how large / small, thin / thick you want them. Personal sized pizzas work the best, no larger than a dinner plate.
First stretch and shape into a disc in your hands.
Now roll it out on a floured board or table, being sure to add flour as necessary to keep it from sticking to the roller and table. I flip it after a couple of rolls and keep flipping as a I go.
If you want to show off, you can flip it in the air like a pizza shop. I only do this to have fun, the pizzas are kind of small to make this really work…..
When it’s the size you want, place it on to a dinner plate, I find real dinner plates work best for preparing the pizzas, not paper plates. You can serve the finished pizza on paper plates, but use real plates for the prep work.
You can usually fit at least two pizzas on a gas grill at time, sometimes three, so prep as many pizzas as will fit at a time on the grill before the next step.
Brush some olive oil on the top side of the dough, you don’t need to cover the entire dough, just spread some around to keep it from sticking to the grill.
Now flip the dough right onto the hot grill with the oil side down.
Allow to cook until it starts to turn golden brown on the bottom, anywhere from 1 – 3 minutes depending on the heat of the grill. You will most likely need to “pop” the dough as you will get very large air pockets that will form. Just pop them as they appear.
Remove the dough from the grill and if you’re making a bunch of pizzas, repeat this procedure of cooking one side of each until you have enough ready for everyone.
Now when you’re ready for the toppings, brush the UNCOOKED side of the pizza with some more olive oil.
FLIP the pizza on the plate (again a real plate) so the oiled side is down and prepare all your toppings on the cooked side.
See how the cooked side is up on the plates. We put some oil on the uncooked side, flipped it up and now you put your toppings on top of the cooked side.
A pizza is prepped and ready to go back on the grill
Slide the pizza back on to the grill and close the cover, again for 1 – 3 minutes depending on the heat of the grill.
When the bottom is golden brown, remove from the grill to a cutting board.
When done, you can slide off to a paper plate for serving.
My New Toy, the Smoker Box.
A few weeks ago my wife bought me a new toy for the grill. A Williams Sonoma Smoker box
I’ve always wanted a smoker and this one is a nice size because it fits easily on my grill and I don’t need a separate cooking unit just for a smoker. It can hold a couple of steaks or four boneless chicken breasts on the tray and I simply cook the food inside the box I can also just use the bottom tray to smoke my entire grill instead of just the box. I’m planning to do this next time when I make pizzas.
I’ve been testing it with some chicken and I’ll tell you, it’s the most incredibly most and flavorful chicken I’ve ever made.
I let the smoker heat up for about 15 minutes or so until I can really smell the chips smoking inside the box. This chicken I seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder and cumin and let it sit while the box was warming up. Then I seared the chicken for about 2 minutes per side and put it inside on the cooking tray the smoker for 20 minutes. Unbelievably moist and tasty.
This is a great little smoker box if you’re like me and want to have a smoker without the expense of buying a completely separate unit.
Making pizza dough was such a nice change from all the pie crust I’ve been making lately. You can manhandle pizza dough, whereas pie crust is similar to handling a live bomb.
As an aside, when I doubled the dough recipe I got about 14 pizzas..if that’s helpful to anyone that comes across this. Definitely going to do this a couple more times before summer is through. With smoking chips!
Glad you enjoyed it Kylee!
I tend to make 2 to 4 batches of dough each time we make it. Seems like once folks find out where doing the pizza, more and more show up! Yes, the smoking chips is my next step now that I have the smoker box.
I got one of these smoker boxes after reading this 🙂 Works great, but do you have any issues with “warping” as it heats up? I find after about 10-15 minutes it will bend a bit and the lid won’t sit right any more. Still works fine and goes back to normal when it cools down but I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong with it.
Yep I get the same thing. I’m going to start putting a brick on either side of the top handle this Spring to see if that holds it flat.
Still works well but yeah mine warps too.
Good to know it’s not just me. Definitely works good though. Cooked some amazing bison burgers in it. While I was on the Williams-Sonoma site I also picked up a pretty cool gadget for grilling potatoes.