So what happened to the weather around here recently? There we were, having a lovely summer filled with sunny days and shorts and T shirts, then suddenly it’s all rain again. I know, so typically British to talk about the weather again, but seriously. Bring back that sun!
When we did still have some sunshine and warm sunny days, Ben and I managed to make the most of our barbecue for a few weeks. My parents bought us the barbecue last year as an early and joint birthday present – we’re both autumn babies but had been wanting a proper barbecue for a while so they bought us it early so we could make use of it during summer. So this year, we vowed we would use it as often as we could. And somehow, we did…at least in May and June!
We decided that there were plenty of meals that we cooked indoors on the hob or in the oven which would be just as good outdoors, and we started having grilled vegetables a lot more often – courgettes and carrots sliced on the barbecue are just so much more tasty. Then we saw happened to watch a programme which had a proper Neapolitan style pizza being cooked outdoors and heard someone say it could work on a barbecue if you had a pizza stone. And luckily we had a pizza stone.
Please believe me when I say that this was the Best. Pizza. Ever. Okay, I won’t take credit away from the originals, but let’s just say it was the best pizza we’ve ever made ourselves, and believe me, we’ve made a lot of pizzas. I’ve had plenty of pizza made in the traditional Neapolitan style with a thin and crispy base and basic but delicious toppings, and using this recipe, we managed to achieve this. You could have been sat in Italy with this pizza cooking fresh on the barbecue and the sun shining down!
So here’s how we did it – follow the recipe below:
Neapolitan Style Pizza on the BBQ
Ingredients
For the dough
- 875 g “00” flour
- 1.5 g fresh yeast
- 500 ml cold water
- 25 g salt
For the tomato sauce
- 400 g Italian tinned tomatoes
- Salt
- Fresh basil
- For the toppings
- Parmesan
- Mozzarella
- Olive oil
- Basil
Instructions
- Dissolve the yeast in the water then mix into the flour before adding the salt. Knead for 10-15 minutes until smooth. Rest the dough for 10 minutes then knead for 10 seconds. Leave to rest for 8 to 24 hours.
- Whazzy whazzy woo woo the tomatoes, basil and a pinch of salt in a food processor.
- If you’re using gas, turn your barbecue up high. If you’re on coal, get that thing hot. And shut the lid to keep the heat in. Leave your pizza stone to heat up inside the barbecue for a good while, just that little bit longer than you think.
- Stretch out the pizza dough by hand then add the tomato sauce, then the grated Parmesan first (important!), the basil and finally the mozzarella torn into pieces.
- Use your pizza paddle to get this onto the stones in the BBQ then shut the lid quickly and let cook until the cheese is melted and the base is crispy. Serve with a glug of olive oil and maybe a salad, if you’re feeling healthy. Which I’m not.
- Serve, and enjoy!
PS: We also made another pizza and topped it with parma ham and ricotta (pictured here too) which was also amazing, but not as good as the original.
Let me know if you try this recipe – it’s so good!
This post originally appeared at Rebel Angel.
