My husband and I have been lucky enough to travel quite a bit, and undoubtedly, our favorite place to travel is Italy. A couple of years ago, we spent three-and-a-half months traveling around Europe, and two out of those 3+ months we spent in Italy. We began to feel almost like locals.
Having spent so much time there, and loving the way Italians live and eat, we are always surprised to hear that some people haven’t enjoyed the food they have eaten while traveling in Italy. The first time someone told me that she thought the food in Italy was awful, I pressed her to explain. “We couldn’t even find spaghetti and meatballs,” she whined.
Inwardly I groaned, but patiently, I explained to her that spaghetti and meatballs really aren’t an Italian dish, but more of an Italian-American dish. When Italians immigrated to the United States, they took the ingredients that were plentiful here (such as ground beef) and, in familiar fashion, turned them into something wonderful to eat. But you are unlikely to find meatballs on a menu at any restaurant in Italy.
Out of all the wonderful things you can eat in Italy, my husband’s unqualified favorite thing is the pizza. Rome and Naples have a continuing argument on who makes the best pizza, but I like them both.
Italian pizzas are simple, with few ingredients. You won’t find pizza crust loaded with a tomato sauce, handfuls of mozzarella cheese, and piles of meat and vegetables. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love those kinds of pizzas as well. But the simplicity of a thin-crust pizza charred in the wood-fired oven and topped with maybe some slices of prosciutto and handful of arugula make for good eating. Oh, and of course, a glass of vino rosso.
It’s hard to find that kind of pizza here. There’s a restaurant a few miles down the road that comes close. But I have found that I can do a pretty good job of making a typical Roman-style pizza at home by making it on my grill.
Most of the recipes that I have found call for a homemade pizza crust. Far be it from me to discourage you from making a homemade crust if you so desire and have the time. I buy my crust at my neighborhood Whole Foods. Most pizza places will sell you their crust as well. And, if all else fails, you can use the refrigerated crusts sold in all grocery stores.
The key to a successful grilled pizza is having everything prepared in advance. It all goes very quickly, and you don’t have time to mess around or your crust will go from charred to black. Yuck.
Here’s how you do it:
Preheat your grill while you prepare your ingredients. Divide your crust into individual portions and roll it out as thin as you can.
While your grill is getting hot, warm some olive oil in a pan, and throw in a crushed garlic clove. Let the oils from the garlic flavor the olive oil, and then brush the olive oil on both sides of your individual crusts.
Put your ingredients in bowls and take them with you out to the grill, along with the crusts. I recommend very simple ingredients. Maybe you will want to brush a little tomato sauce on the crust after it has cooked on one side. Perhaps you will put on a little cheese. You can add some garlic or maybe a little prosciutto or few slices of pepperoni (but not both).
Once your grill is preheated, carefully place the crusts (on which you have brushed some garlic-infused oil) directly onto the grill rack. One web site recommends that you put your crust on a piece of aluminum foil that you have floured and slide it from the foil onto the grill. I have generally just used my hands. However you do it, this is probably the trickiest part. But you can do it!
At this point, don’t walk away from the grill. Keep your eyes open as you watch the crust begin to bubble. It really only takes a minute or so. Once the bottom of the crust has gotten a little charred, turn the crust over using tongs. Brush more oil onto the crust, and quickly put on your ingredients. Close the lid and let the pizzas cook and the cheese melt (if you used cheese) for a few more minutes – probably no more than five. Keep your eye on the pie. The result is almost as good as pizzas we ate in Italy.
Our dream is to build an actual wood-burning pizza oven in our back yard. In the meantime, we will continue to use our grill.
No comments:
Post a Comment