Not wanting to heat up the house by pre-heating a 550-degree oven for an hour or so has spawned an innovation in our home: using the grill as pizza oven.
Initial attempts at grilling pizzas destroyed several "pizza stones". As it turns out, these common items don't like high heat, and actually break apart rather violently with a nice "pingk!" when over heated.
Subsequent attempts at the cousin of the pizza, the calzone, were more successful. These could be slid directly onto the grates and flipped.
Which is exactly what we did with our pizza tonight - flip it.
Sliding a bare rolled out crust onto the grates - and flipped a couple of minutes later - then topped and finished - worked pretty well. Hot (and cool) spots on the grill must be known and accounted for.
Tonight we made two pies using ingredients we picked up at the Bozeman's All Things Italian:
Teleme (an American rif on Tallegio) and The Gracious Gourmet Balsamic Four-Onion Spread
&
Fresh Mozzarella and a mix of thinly sliced hot and sweet sopresetta
First, the Teleme and four-onion spread pizza was basically inhaled. Crack junkies likely go through their stash slower than this pizza was consumed. Okay, we were hungry and this was the first one off of the grill, but...dude...that creamy oooey-gooey melty cheese and sweet onion spread were REALLY good buddies. Spread these two ingredients on just about anything and you will make new friends and influence any people you serve it to. Not to meniotn, Jen's dough was behaving nicely - and produced a very good product tonight.
The more traditional pie of sopresetta and mozzarella was quite good - although I over-charred one corner (again...know your hot spots, kids). As for the Mozzarella, it did pretty good - but the Teleme blew it away in terms of texture and flavor. Don't get me wrong, the mozz. was very fresh and good - just not the supreme melter that the Teleme (or the other mozzarella in the case at ATI) is. This mozzarella tonight would be perfect for a Caprese salad application with it's slightly firmer texture.
I should also mention the Fra’ Mani Gentile traditional salame that started the evening off. The creamy and chewy texture of this hard salami is true to the cause. Loaded up with the Teleme and onion spread it was deadly. Yum.
Thanks to the ever-helpful folks at All Things Italian for the hookup on the great new cheese and onion spread where the fully-stocked case of meats and cheeses is one of Bozeman's best.
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