Monday, August 10, 2009

Pizza Crust

Our Sunday started out as a "Reuben Sunday", as you already know...I'm in L-O-V-E with the Reuben Sandwich. As for the rest of the afternoon...

Originally we had plans to go hiking in Fayetteville, and then visit the famous Pies n Pints. Slim and I have not yet partaken in the goodness that we've come to understand that this place holds. Instead, we decided to make our own pizza. We've done this before, but we've never made our OWN crust. I started in on my research, which is typically where you will find me prior to a grocery trip. For me, I start with foodtv.com (read all of the comments about a recipe, so far they are 99% true), I usually end up in google images and on youtube. These aren't the only places that I look, however this will get you started with a good base recipe. After a little research, I decided to kick it up and GRILL the pizzas. I soon had visions of pizza dough seeping through the grate of our grill.

Let's start with the recipe (I modified the original recipe from research, making it, and based on the ingredients I already had in the house).


Pizza Dough ~ Makes 4 (10-inch) Pizzas
2/3 cup lukewarm Water
1 Packet of Active Dry Yeast

1/2 teaspoon Sugar
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil, plus additional for oiling bowl
2 cups All Purpose Flour

1/4 cup Jiffy Cornbread Mix

~ Note here: the original recipe calls for cornmeal, you will NEVER use cornmeal enough to buy an entire sack of it - just by a box of Jiffy cornbread mix. I keep several boxes in the house...my Nana always did.
2 teaspoons coarse salt

In a Large Bowl stir together 1/3 cup water, yeast, and sugar -
let stand til foamy, about 10 minutes.









Stir in the remaining 1/3 cup water, 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil, 1 3/4 cups flour, corn meal and salt blend until the mixture forms a dough. Knead dough on a floured surface, incorporating the remaining 1/4 cup flour, to prevent dough from sticking, until smooth - about 5 to 10 minutes. Form the dough into a ball.














Wash and dry the bowl you used to mix the dough, lightly oil the sides and bottom of the bowl with Olive Oil. Add the dough, turn to coat in the oil, cover and let rise in a warm place (your
counter top will do just fine), until doubled in size - about 1 hour.

Before:












After:









Gently punch the dough down and divide into 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece on a lightly floured surface into a 10-inch circle that is about 1/8th of an inch thick. At this point I pulled out a sheet of plastic wrap and lined a cookie sheet. I took the rolled out pizza dough, placed it in the middle of the plastic wrap and folded the sides over to seal. Then repeated the process, thus ending up with individually wrapped stacked pizza doughs. Refrigerate your stack of doughs for about 20 minutes, or until you are ready to grill.










I took advantage of the hour I had while I was waiting for the dough to rise, and prepared my toppings... I made two different kinds of pizza:
Chicken, Bacon, Ranch & Tomato, Mozzarella, Basil, Balsamic Drizzle




























And we are READY TO GRILL...









Now, this is where I got a little anxious about the dough seeping through. Don't be afraid, it WON'T seep through...that would have been funny though. Bring your stack of wrapped doughs out to the grill, as a matter of fact, you probably want to bring all of your toppings to the grill - you'll need them at hand.

Spray your grill down with Pam Grilling Spray, then preheat the grill on LOW. Throw on all four pizza dough rounds, if you can fit them.









I kept my spatula handy so that I could peek under the crusts, to make sure they weren't burning. This really reminded me of pancakes, once they start to bubble on top, they are about ready to flip. Flip 'em over and you are ready for the toppings.










Now that your pizzas are topped, TURN OFF THE GRILL AND CLOSE THE LID.
Leave the lid closed for about 5-10 minutes, this will give everything a chance to
heat through and melt the cheese. Grab your cookie sheets, you'll need 2.

Slide the pizzas off the grill and onto your cookie sheets. Finish topping with any remaining ingredients, cut into slices and SERVE.

Wah Lah!














I highly recommend making your OWN pizza crust, it was completely worth it. And really, not that hard at all.
Not to mention that it was WICKED yummee!




Next time on Urban Dive...

Join me in my adventures of what I will call "Pocket Cooking".
I will be exploring Papillotes de Poisson AND Papillotes de Poulet.

1 comment:

Lynnderful said...

Yum! I love homemade pizza! I may have to try it on the grill. Sounds really yummy!