Entries tagged with 'grilled pizza'
Posted by Adam Kuban, March 4, 2008 at 11:15 AM
From left: A pizza Margherita from Zero Otto Nove and the Margherita from Coals.
When you're on a pizza crawl, it's a rare that even one in five places you hit up is any good. Last night, on a mini crawl in the Bronx, we batted a thousand. (If you're slow with the baseball metaphors, that's a 100 percent success rate, folks.)
Not that we went to even five places last night—just two. So who the hell knows if that even counts as a "crawl," but whatevs. It was our main objective—Ed Levine's and mine—to finally meet the mysterious DJ Bubbles, who until Wednesday night we had only known through email and his manic and awesomely entertaining pizza manifestos and reviews. Even if the pizza we ate sucked (and it didn't), the evening still would have been a success.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 9, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Editor's note: A short time ago, homeslice Philip G. got in touch, telling me there was a post on pizzamaking.com that was making quite a stir: Reverse-Engineered Coal-Fired Brick Oven. Apparently, a Michigan man had invented a grill insert that he claimed simulated a coal- or wood-fired oven. I clicked over and became fascinated by the metal-and-stone device (pictured below). Could something so simple-looking achieve the holy grail of at-home pizza-making—hot enough and consistent enough temperatures to perfectly cook a pie? I don't know yet, because my 2stone Pizza Grill has only today begun its UPS journey to my home in Brooklyn. Anyway, Philip has been in on the 2stone discussion thread on pizzamaking.com since the beginning, so he offered to do a Q &A with the inventor, Willard Gustavsen. Here 'tis. Many thanks to Philip! —Adam
Name: Willard Gustavsen
Location: Southwest Michigan
Occupation: Designer, manufacturer, builder
URL: 2stonepizzagrill.com
Tell us a little bit about where this project came from—where did you initially get the idea to make a pizza-oven insert for grills?
Most of the design work I have done has been related to specialty tools for the building industry. I have either sold the patent rights or have manufactured products and private-labeled them for companies. I have always liked good pizza and thought it would be a fun project; to see if I could design a simple oven or tool that could duplicate the results of an authentic wood-fired hearth oven. Essentially the 2stone Pizza Grill is just another tool of sorts.
At first, all of my prototypes were wood-burning and were a combination of steel and fire bricks. I tried many different styles, mostly looking for a way to reduce the number of bricks it took and also trying to find ways to shorten the fire-up time. Since I genuinely like pizza and pizza-making, it was more interesting than some of the other projects I've worked on. I kind of had my doubts about making something saleable, because it could be really expensive to ship a lot of bricks around the country.
I guess that's where I started thinking about a grill insert. I already had a grill "the heat source" and I figured most people do, so why bother reinventing "the heat part"? I also got tired of having to burn all that slab wood just for two pizzas.
How long has it taken to get all the kinks out of the system, from start to finish?
I started 5 or 6 years ago. I didn't work on it all the time but kept thinking about it in the back of my mind. I would scrap the last prototype and build a new one, always looking for a way to do more with less—fewer firebricks and shorter fire-up times, for example. Once the final concept was down, it did boil down to ironing out the kinks, as you say.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 31, 2007 at 1:15 PM
This entry originally ran on Slice on August 09, 2004, and has inevitably resurfaced twice a year—just before Memorial Day weekend and, as now, just prior to Labor Day Weekend. With each passing "reheat," it looks more and more dog-earred. I'm not sure whether this post is exhausted or just endearingly dated. Take your pick.
I guess your takeaway from it should be, Hey! I can grill pizza! While that's not so novel a concept in 2007, it seemed to be in 2004, when I first read about it and threw some dough over hot coals for myself (right).
It's not like the idea was new even then (here's a 2002 article on the stuff from New York magazine), but since 2004, I've seen a steady rise in articles about grilled pizza in grub magazines and newspaper food sections each summer. I still think it's a novelty for most people, but I get more and more emails each year asking about the process. And so I hope this post encourages you to try it for yourself.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 14, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Over lunch, a Serious Eats colleague told me about the opening of Accademia di Vino.
"What's that? Some kinda wine bar? Not interested," I said.
"But it's got grilled pizza," she said.
"Well, why diddincha say so?"
One of the dudes behind this place—executive chef Kevin Garcia—came up through Al Forno, my colleague said, where he worked as something called a tournant, or a roundsman. Al Forno is, of course, the grilled-pizza mothership—the joint in Providence, Rhode Island, where George Germon came up the idea of slapping pizza dough on a grate over coals. Mr. Garcia also did a turn under the late Vinny Scotto at New York City's Gonzo, the place credited with bringing grilled pizza to the Big Apple. (Mr. Scotto himself learned the art of the grilled pie at Al Forno.)
Accademia di Vino, will open to the public tomorrow night (August 15) in the old Mainland space at 1081 Third Avenue, on the Upper East Side, at 64th Street.
So, lo and behold, we get back from throwing down some slices (what else did you think I'd be eating?), and there's a flack attack in my inbox. I'll let it do all the non-intriguing non-pizza talking, after the jump.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 30, 2006 at 11:48 AM
Pity poor Ed Levine. When his workday doesn't involve ordering one of each doughnut at a well-regarded New York City doughnuttery, he gets to eat pizza from some of the country's best pizzerias and write about it for Details magazine. His findings cover some familiar ground to readers of Slice and of Mr. Levine's 2005 book PIzza: A Slice of Heaven, but there are some new entries to be savored.
Pizzeria Bianco [623 East Adams Street, Phoenix AZ 85004; map]
"The sauce tastes like a distillation of the ripest tomatoes."
Di Fara[1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn NY 11230; map]
"... a Di Fara slice has a one-of-a-kind flavor."
Totonno's [1524 Neptune Ave., Brooklyn NY 11224; map]
"Order the white pie, made with ricotta, mozzarella, and enough fresh garlic to ward off a roomful of vampires."
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Posted by Adam Kuban, September 12, 2006 at 10:54 AM
In the September issue of Cooking Light, a "Pizza buffet."
Stories include
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 13, 2005 at 8:18 PM
Über foodblogger Chez Pim recently unveiled the Menu for Hope II over on her site. I'll let her explain it:
Last year, we raised a substantial sum to support the victims of the Tsunami in Southeast Asia. This year, a group of us food bloggers would like to ask our readers—that would be you—to help us raise funds to support the victims of the devastating earthquake in the Kashmir region of India and Pakistan. ... We are once again using the site Just Giving to collect the donation. In the interest of transparency, Just Giving will do all the collection and forward the funds directly to Unicef, our recipient organization. The fund will be earmarked to support the victims of the Kashmir earthquake.
Foodbloggers by the bushelful are donating prizes to help Pim raise money for the earthquake victims, and this year, Slice is throwing its chef's toque in the ring. Donate as little as $5 to the cause, and you'll be entered in a raffle to win the "menu" item of your choice. There are many. (Click here for Pim's Menu for Hope so far).
This being a pizza site, you're probably interested in our offerings. They are (drumroll, please):
A pizza party for four (4) at Slice HQ: I know it's cold out now, and the last thing anyone can probably imagine doing is grilling, but don't the best things come to those who wait? I have a sparse but welcoming garden space attached to my apartment, and the winner and his/her companions will be guests of honor at a grilled-pizza cookout when the weather turns nice (I'll work out a date with the finalist). My fellow Slice editors will be on hand, and we can all shoot the breeze about pizza while eating some delicious (if I do say so myself) fresh-from-the-grill pies.
A pizza-making kit: For those of you who are not in New York City, unable to travel here, or who just find the idea of dining with Slice all too odious, we'll send you a pizza stone, pizza peel, and Peter Reinhart's American Pie, which is chocked full of great pizza recipes and inspiration.
ENTER THE RAFFLE HERE. $5 minimum per prize (but more is welcome if you can afford it). As per your preference, type either "Slice Pizza Party" or "Slice Pizza-Making Kit" in the comment/notes field when you arrive at that screen.
ENTER MENU FOR HOPE RAFFLE
Slice on grilled pizza
Grill Skills [A Slice how-to for grilling pizza]
Grilled-pizza photo montage by Tien Mao
Posted by Adam Kuban, August 9, 2005 at 12:15 AM
It's a week old already, and a lot of you have probably read this already, but the New York Times visits Coals, a grilled-pizza joint in the Morris Park section of the Bronx.
Peter Meehan, whose lede is built around the mispronunciation of New York Yankee Al Leiter's name, writes:
Coals is unlike any other pizza place in the borough - or in the rest of the city, for that matter - in that it looks for inspiration to Rhode Island, not to Italy. And the pies it slings are not coal oven, wood oven or oven baked at all. They are grilled.
Bill Etzel, the restaurant's chef, said he knew after his first trip to Al Forno, the restaurant in Providence, R.I., that is widely credited with pioneering grilled pizza, that he wanted to bring it home to the Bronx. He bode his time, working the pizza station at Waldy Malouf's Beacon and traveling with his business partner, Paul Harnish, to, in Mr. Harnish's words, "anywhere that served grilled pizza within 300 miles" of New York City.
Maybe I'm not reading closely enough here, but, uh, isn't Coals not unlike Gonzo, which has been doing grilled pizza since 2002?
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 4, 2005 at 2:56 PM
Slice is happy to see Martha Stewart sprung from prison. We've admired Ms. Stewart's penchant for hard work and her great sense of humor for a few years now, and it's nice to see she's back in New York, the home of pizza, going about her business.
We actually owe Ms. Stewart a debt of gratitude for various and sundry bits of pizza information we've gleaned from her magazine. Slice's editor in chief often uses her recipe for pizza sauce in making pies of his own. (Though recent pizza literature suggests that an uncooked sauce is preferable to simmered recipes, which hers is; Slice may have to experiment.)
The May 2004 issue of Ms. Stewart's magazine Living (subscribe here) also inspired us to try our hand at grilled pizza, which is actually quite tasty and easier to make than you'd think.
So, thanks, Martha! And welcome home.
FURTHER READING
Slice grills pizza
Pizza features on marthastewart.com
Pizza recipes from marthastewart.com
Posted by Adam Kuban, August 15, 2004 at 8:05 PM
Saturday was the umpteenth-annual Garfield-Place-Between-Fourth-and-Fifth-Avenues Block Party in Park Slope. This stretch is home to Slice HQ, so we were out on the street, grill on the sidewalk, dishing up some delectable pies. Slice editors Adam K., E-Rock, and Seltzerboy were on hand—in addition to some friends who stopped by.
We reported last week on our experiments with grilled pizza, saying they had been mixed. Saturday's pies, however, were more hit than miss, as guest Tien Mao can verify.
I made two batches of dough in the morning, which gave us seven doughballs (one batch split into quarters and one into thirds). Wanting to keep things simple, I grabbed a zesty stick of pepperoni from Rocco at the pork store just around the corner, along with freshly made fresh mozzarella (he said he'd made it not more than two hours prior) and some pecorino romano. Our friend Janelle brought some little portobello mushrooms and a red pepper. We roasted both vegetables on the grill along with hamburger "appetizers."
Here are some photos:
Slice & Co. hang out on the sidewalk (left), just a few doors up from Al Capone's boyhood home ("Scarface" grew up on the street). To make grilled pizza, roll out the dough to no thinner than 1/8 inch (right).
After rolling out the dough to the desired size, brush olive oil on it to keep it from sticking to the grill (left). Using pizza peels (right) makes it easy to transport dough to the grill—if you're fast and skillful, you can turn the peel over to transfer the round to the grate.
Little portobellos and pepperoni. Let the grill do your prep work for you: Coat the mushroom caps with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Grill them for about 5 minutes per side. We used the stovetop, however, to briefly precook the pepperoni.
As we said in our grilled-pizza post last week, you really have to take your prep work seriously. Make sure your mise en place is down pat. I have a large enameled tray that I like to assemble my supplies and ingredients on; it's easy to take grillside. In the foreground are the sauce and romano, with a bowlful of thinly sliced fresh mozzarella, a dish of mushrooms, and a small jar of olive oil along with a brush for application. The sauce itself is easy to make. In a large saucepot, heat four tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Throw in a couple 2lb. cans of whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes (with their pur�e), breaking them up with your hands as you add them. Add 1.5 teaspoons oregano, a couple teaspoons salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. Stir and simmer, reduce heat to low, and let cook down until sauce is thick, about an hour.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 9, 2004 at 3:38 PM
Inspired by a story about grilled pizza in the Daily News, Slice friend LW and I have been experimenting with the concoction invented by George Germon at Providence, R.I., pizzeria Al Forno.
Results have been mixed. After straying from our tried-and-true dough recipe (to follow), we came back to the old standby but left it in the mixer to knead for 15 minutes (instead of the 7 or so minutes we used to do) so the gluten could develop the proper elasticity. No matter on the dough and sauce, though. The real mixed results have to do with grill time.
Since the dough is cooking over an intense heat source, you have to watch it like the devil. After brushing on a generous coat of olive oil, we let our first pie sit on the first side (what will become the sauced side after flipping) for 5 minutes. There's artful charring and then there's burning. We achieved "burning" (as can be seen in the second photo here, on the pie's left-hand side). No matter. We still had 3 doughs in the hopper. The next pie, well, we learned our lesson, and let the thing sit on the first side for 2 minutes, during which time we coated it the top with another generous swatch of oil. After 2 minutes, the bottom stiffened enough to allow turning with the tongs, and we flipped it. Immediately after flipping—and as quickly as we could—we added the sauce, cheese, and toppings. I can't emphasize enough that you should have all your ingredients prepped and at grillside. The pizza will be on the rack for a short time, and you want those things to get hot in the brief span they're there.
We got the pizzas topped quickly, but we're still working on our tag-team skills here. We could always dress the thing faster. Then we lowered the grill's lid to trap the heat so it could cook the toppings and melt the cheese. You can see the result at left.
You'll notice that we have nicely cooked pepperoni slices on there. We cheated a bit. After realizing that the short time on the grill wouldn't always allow for proper cooking, we gave the slices a quick heating on the stove top, blotted the grease on paper towels, and transferred them to a little bowl along with our other little bowls of prepped ingredients. We also prepared cremini mushrooms and red peppers. In other experiments, we've found that red peppers and portabella mushrooms are ideal toppings because you can cook them on the grill while it's superhot—before it cools enough to safely put a dough disk on.
Despite the slightly burned taste of the first pie (and the resultant toughness), we were pleased with the fruits of our labor. The grilling lends the crust a predictably smokey flavor and yields a texture not unlike a fresh-from-the-oven middle-eastern pita bread (especially the thicker doughs we tried), with a hot and crisp exterior and a spongey, doughy (but not undercooked), steamy inside. An added benefit was that my apartment didn't become unbearably hot as it does when I crank the oven up to maximum temp.
For more on grilling pizza, check out this nice step-by-step grilled-pizza guide.
Here, as promised, is the dough recipe I use. I know we have some real pizzaioli who read the site; if you see something totally wack about this recipe, feel free to leave a better one in the comments section, or, better yet, discuss it on the Pizza Peel, the bulletin-board section of Slice.
ADAM K.'S PIZZA DOUGH
(makes 3 medium-thick or 4 thin pizzas)
Ingredients
2 packages active dry yeast
2 cups hot water (about 110°)
1 teaspoon sugar
6 cups high-gluten flour
2 teaspoons coarse salt
4 tablespoons olive oil
Preparation
1. In a small mixing bowl or liquid measure, mix the yeast with the hot water and add sugar. Stir until yeast and sugar dissolve. Wait for yeast to activate, about 5 minutes (it'll get foamy; this tells you your yeast is good and will provide the lift your dough will need).
2. Meanwhile, in an electric stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine 5.5 cups flour with the salt. Once the yeast mixture has become foamy, pour it in. Add the olive oil. Lower the mixer head, lock it in place, and turn it on to the slowest setting. Mix until flour and water come together into a dough. At this point, check dough for proper moisture. If it's too sticky, add some more of the flour. If it's too dry, add a tiny bit of water a little at a time till it's right. It should be slightly but not stick-to-your-fingers sticky.
3. Let machine knead dough for 15 minutes. This will develop an elastic network of gluten and allow your dough to be stretched without breaking. Test its readiness by breaking off a little quarter-size ball; tease this into a mini crust. You should be able to make it quite thin, and if you hold it up to the light, it should be translucent. It'll almost look like a bit of bubblegum ready for bubble inflation.
4. Remove dough from mixer bowl, roll into a ball, and transfer to a large, clean, oiled mixing bowl. Brush olive oil over dough (to keep it from drying out), and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Punch down dough and let rise again.
5. After second rising, punch down dough, divide into thirds or quarters, depending on desired thickness. Stretch dough to about 12 inches, and then cook as desired.
ADAM FROM THE BLOCK
For those of you interested in trying pizza made from this very recipe, feel free to stop by the Garfield Place Block Party on Saturday. I'll be out front, grilling pizza (weather permitting) and doing my part to foster community on the stretch of Garfield between Fourth and Fifth avenues in Park Slope. I don't want any creepy stalkers, so I won't give the building number, but I shouldn't be too hard to find.
Posted by Adam Kuban, July 8, 2004 at 11:54 AM
The New York Daily News yesterday printed a simple recipe for grilled pizza. Those of you with grills might want to give it a go. The dough looks easy enough to make, if you have a food processor. Don't have a Cuisinart? Find a dough-by-hand recipe and adapt it. Seems like any pizza dough would work, as long as it's the right thickness—no thinner than one-eighth of an inch, to avoid making a giant cracker.
Don't have grill access or don't want to bother? Try the following grilled-pizza pizzerias recommended by New York Metro: Gonzo, Fresco by Scotto, Scopo, and Crispo. (Seems like you have to have a name ending in o to run a grilled-pizzeria in Gotham.)
Grilled pizza, which was invented in Providence, R.I., by George Germon of Al Forno, seems so easy, in fact, that Slice just may try it for ourselves this weekend. (Our grill, right, has been woefully neglected the last couple of weeks and could stand the use.) We have a recipe from the May issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine that we've been meaning to try. Or, we could go straight to the horse's mouth, and use this recipe from Germon and partner Johanne Killeen.
Armed with this handful of recipes, some good-quality ingredients, and this nice step-by-step guide we found on the web, we have no doubt we'll be enjoying smoky delicious grilled pizzas by mid-evening on Saturday.
GRILLED PIZZA MARGARITA
Ingredients
6 ounces Pizza Dough, recipe follows
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing and drizzling
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/2 cup loosely packed shredded fontina cheese
2 tablespoons freshly grated Pecorino Romano
6 tablespoons chopped canned tomatoes in heavy puree
8 basil leaves
Preparation
Prepare a hot charcoal fire, setting the grill rack 3 to 4 inches above the coals. On a large, oiled, inverted baking sheet, spread and flatten the pizza dough with your hands into a 10 to 12-inch free form circle, 1/8-inch thick. Do not make a lip. You may end up with a rectangle rather than a circle; the shape is unimportant, but do take care to maintain an even thickness.
When the fire is hot (when you can hold your hand over the coals for 3 to 4 seconds at a distance of 5 inches), use your fingertips to lift the dough gently by the two corners closest to you, and drape in onto the grill. Catch the loose edge on the grill first and slide the remaining dough into place over the fire. Within a minute the dough will puff slightly, the underside will stiffen, and grill marks will appear.
Using tongs, immediately flip the crust over, onto the coolest part of the grill. Quickly brush the grilled surface with olive oil. Scatter the garlic and cheeses over the dough, and spoon dollops of tomato over the cheese. Do not cover the entire surface of the pizza with tomatoes. Finally, drizzle the pizza with 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
Slide the pizza back toward the hot coals, but not directly over them. Using tongs, rotate the pizza frequently so that different sections receive high heat; check the underside often to see that it is not burning. The pizza is done when the top is bubbly and the cheese melted, about 6 to 8 minutes. Serve at once, topped with the basil leaves and additional olive oil, if desired.
PIZZA DOUGH
(makes 2 large or 4 small pizzas)
Ingredients
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
6 cups high-gluten flour
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
Preparation
Sprinkle the yeast over 1/2 cup warm (105 to 110 degrees) water and allow it to dissolve and activate, about 5 minutes. Combine the flour and salt and mound it onto a cool work surface creating a high walled well in the center. Combine the yeast mixture with 1 1/2 cups of cool water and pour into the well. Slowly begin to mix the water and flour, a little at a time, moving your fingers in short, counter clockwise circles around the border of the water. When the dough is firm enough to hold its shape, scrape the remaining flour over it and knead until the mass is smooth and shiny, approximately 7 minutes. Transfer the dough to a bowl that has been brushed with olive oil. Brush the top of the dough with olive oil to prevent a skin from forming, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place away from drafts until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours. Punch down the dough and knead once more. Let the dough rise again for about 40 minutes, punch down again and form into dough balls.
