Sunday, February 20, 2011

BBQ Pizza

I think that my pizza preferences have definitely marked milestones in my maturation.  As a kid I would only eat cheese pizza (to be more specific I only truly loved Jack's frozen cheese pizza).  In my adolescence I learned to appreciate tomatoes, and eventually discovered how awesome Neapolitan pizza is.  Now that I'm the big 2-1 I feel like I can move on to even more mature pizza, hence the pesto pizza from not too long ago. 

Last Wednesday was another big pizza maturation marker, I had BBQ pizza for the first time!  I was at a workshop for tutoring English to non-native speakers and we were provided with Glass Nickel pizza (num!).  I figured that we would be provided with the usual pepperoni and sausage snooze fest that I've come to expect at events like these, but NONE OF THE PIZZAS LOOKED SAFE.  Feta cheese on pizza?  Woah, I almost passed out from the excitement.  That one I didn't like too much (it had mushrooms- not my favorite!), but the BBQ pizza?  Oh man, I almost wished that I hadn't told Alex to make dinner that night so I could properly pig out on the awesomeness that is BBQ pizza.  I canceled my menu for Saturday night so I could introduce Alex to this bad boy.  I knew that this would be great on my newly-acquired pizza crust recipe and made a mental note of the ingredients.  I need to figure out what brand Glass Nickel uses, since neither of the sauces that I had seemed to fit the bill.  I used Sweet Baby Ray's, which does the trick but isn't quite as good as my inspiration.  Rating 9.5/10
Do you like my square crust?  This was my attempt at a circle.  

Ingredients
  • Premade herbed dough
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays)
  • 1/2 red onion- diced, sliced into half-rings, whatever
  • 1 red pepper- diced
  • 1 roma tomato- seeded and chopped
  • 1 pre-cooked chicken breast- cubed
  • cilantro to taste- rinsed and chopped
  • shredded cheese to taste (I used a pizza double cheese from Sargento)

Preheat oven to 500 degrees with a pizza stone inside
Spread out dough into desired size/shape and bake on a cornmeal-smothered pizza stone for four minutes. 
Depending on how thick you toss your dough you may need to cook for more or less time, you don't want to overcook this delicious crust.
Remove dough from oven with a pizza peel.
Brush on a layer of extra virgin olive oil over the entire surface.
Spread BBQ sauce over the toppings region.
Top with everything but cheese and cilantro.
Reduce temperature to 400 degrees.
Replace pizza in oven. 
Bake for about 4-5 more minutes (or until veggie toppings are moderately cooked and the dough is almost cooked completely) and then add the cheese. If your cheese is finely shredded you can add the cheese after you take the pizza out, this way you won't overcook the cheese.
Cook until the cheese has melted slightly and add the cilantro.  Bake until the cilantro has wilted a bit (about 1 minute).
Add more cheese if needed, enjoy!

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