I’ve been experimenting, trying to make the best thin base pizza I can at home. I’d heard that Italian pizza is about the crust, not the topping, the same way Italian pasta is about the pasta, not the sauce. I wanted on board. With much trial and error, using me Dad’s basic bread-in-a-breadmaker* recipe:
…I’ve been able to consistently produce a tasty, if slightly doughy-crusted pizza like this:
…in our oven at home in about 15 minutes, cranking the heat up as far as it’ll go and using a pizza stone.
What I REALLY want is a thinner, crispier pizza base, Italian / New York style, the kind of thing Tom Ripley would have in Napoli.
So, when I was entertaining at the beach, with access to a BBQ with a hood, it was time to try out my theory that a hooded BBQ would produce enough heat to really get a pizza cranking. I used friend-of-sportreview.net.nz Giovanni Tiso‘s fine pizza recipe to produce four adult size bases, and one for the bambina, using the trusty wine-bottle-as-rolling-pin method.
With hood down and all three burners cranked right up for about ten minutes, we were ready. Using one of those non-stick BBQ / baking sheets to cover the flames, the first couple of bases took five minutes each and were a little charred on the bottom – but still came out proper crispy and light. After turning the heat down, the last three came out just fine after six or seven minutes each, if a little under-done on top. A couple of minutes under the grill would have finished the job nicely, but everyone was too hungry for any of that carry-on.
I was pleased with the results, and feedback from the diners was encouraging. I’ll try this again, probably using a pizza stone.
Next experiments at home include using the fancy ‘0’ type flour I picked up at Farro’s and the NY Times’ ‘fry it in a frypan and stick it under the grill’ recipe.
* minus the wholemeal
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