Grilling pizza. Wow, what an addition of flavor to pizza I can’t describe. You’ve GOT to try this.
Because I was making pizza dough by hand for the first time, I watched this very helpful video from Food Network. If you’re uneasy about making your own dough this will be very helpful and put you at ease! I used the same method in the video. What I liked the most was that I could do it all by hand! I didn’t need a mixer. The video doesn’t share the quantities of any ingredients used, to I turned to grill-master Bobby Flay for that.
His recipe calls for bread flour and I highly recommend using it. Bread flour has a higher gluten content (about 14-16% gluten) than all-purpose flour (about 10-12% gluten). Gluten is a SUPER hot topic right now, so I shared a post yesterday to help you decide if you should be among those avoiding gluten. It really is king when it comes to baking because it provides structure to dough. For a nice crispness to your cooked pizza, you will need the extra gluten of the bread flour. If you prefer a chewy dough, however, all purpose flour might work just fine for you. For me, a good crunch is the way to go!
As for how much it makes, what you see pictured (two larger personal pizzas) is half of the dough the recipe (or each pizza is 1/4 of the dough recipe). A whole recipe would feed 4 hungry folks or 6-8 people with lighter appetites in general or if you’re offering other sides/appetizers/dessert at the meal.
As far as the other half of the dough we made and didn’t use right away, I refrigerated it in a lightly olive-oiled plastic bag for a week. When we were ready to make this again a week later, I pulled the dough right from the fridge to try and shape into pizza. Fail. They were very elastic and wouldn’t stay in the shape I was trying to stretch them into. I learned later that I should have let them come to room temp before trying to shape the dough. If it does that to you, let it rest at room temp covered with a damp towel. To see if the dough is ready use the ever-official “poke method”. If you poke it and your indentation stays, it’s ready. If where you poked bounces back, it’s not ready and you should keep letting it rest. Lesson learned! We still made and ate the delicious pizzas, they just weren’t as thin as we wanted (or the shape we wanted) cause I had major shaping/rolling issues with my cold dough.
The day we made the dough and ate the pizza you see here, we had no issues stretching out the dough! I was afraid to make them too thin because I just wasn’t sure how well they were going to hold up on the grill. Next time I would go a liiiittle thinner even. But the flavors. Wow. Glorious beyond belief.
Seriously. Try grilling pizza!! This was a huge hit for us. Definitely something we’ll repeat.
- 1½ cups water at 110 degrees F.
- 1 packet instant dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3/12 cups bread flour plus more for rolling
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil plus more for oiling your bowl
- Extra bread flour, semolina flour, or fine cornmeal for dusting the bottom of the pizza
- 1 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 3 oz prosciutto
- 4 cups arugula
- salt and pepper
- For the pizza crust, add sugar and yeast to water, stirring to combine. Then set aside. Lightly oil the inside of a medium bowl with olive oil and set aside. In a large bowl combine flour and salt. Make a well in the center. Add the yeast mixture and olive oil. Using your hands, pull the dry ingredients into the wet. Once it comes together, transfer to a floured board and knead the dough for a couple minutes. Place the dough in the oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm spot until it has doubled in size (about 1-2 hours). When you poke the dough at this point, it should make an indentation that remains there. That means it's done! Divide the dough. We cut ours into four pieces. Form them into a ball, set them on a plate, and cover them with a damp towel. They are ready when you poke them and it leaves an indent. If the dough bounces back immediately, continue to let the dough rest.
- Heat your grill to 500 F. (Ours fluctuated between 450-550 F).
- In a small saucepan, bring the balsamic vinegar to a a boil. Turn down and simmer for 15 minutes or until the volume is reduced by about half. As the balsamic cools, it will continue to thicken. Set aside.
- To form the pizza, liberally sprinkle a cutting board or pizza peel with semolina, very fine cornmeal, or more flour. Spread and shape the dough with your hands. Add tomato sauce and top with cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Take the board or peel to the grill and slide the pizza onto the grill. Cover and cook for 2½ - 3 minutes or until the bottom is browned and the cheese is melted.
- Off the grill, top pizza first with prosciutto, followed by arugula, then the balsamic glaze, salt and pepper. DIG IN!
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