Recipes / Bread
Pizza on the braai
A simple yeast dough rolled thin, cooked directly on the grid over hot coals, then topped and finished with the lid on as the coals drop.
- Prep
- 30 min
- On the fire
- 20 min
- Plan ahead
- about 2 1/2 hours for the dough to rise
- Serves
- makes 4 pizzas
Ingredients
Dough
Topping
Method
Cooking on gas?
- Set up for indirect heat: light the outside burners (or one side of a two-burner grill) and leave the burner under the food off.
- Close the lid and adjust the lit burners until the lid thermometer reads the temperature in the recipe. Put a drip tray under meat.
- Gas holds a steady heat, so you can skip any step that adds fresh coals. Go by a thermometer in the food rather than the clock.
- Mix the yeast, water and sugar and leave for 5 minutes until foamy.
- Add the flour, maize meal, salt and oil. Knead for 5 minutes into a smooth, soft dough.
- Cover and leave in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours until doubled. Knock it back, divide into 4 balls and rest them for 45 minutes.
- Roll each ball out about 5 mm (1/4 inch) thick. Slide it onto the grid over hot, spread-out coals from an oiled upside-down baking tray.
- Cook for 1 to 2 minutes a side until set and marked. Take the bases off.
- Wait for the coals to drop to medium. Spread the bases thinly with tomato, then add the onions, spinach, feta and mozzarella.
- Put them back on the grid and close the kettle lid, or cover loosely with foil, for 2 to 4 minutes until the cheese melts.
Done when: the base is crisp and charred in spots underneath and the cheese has melted.
Tips
- Keep the topping light. Too much sauce soaks the base before the cheese melts.
- Have everything ready next to the fire before the first base goes on. The bases cook in a couple of minutes.
- A pizza stone on the grid of a kettle braai gives a crisper, more even base. Heat it with the lid closed for 20 minutes first.
Cooking the base straight on the grid is the trick that makes pizza work on an ordinary braai. The dough sets in a minute over hot coals, and the toppings go on afterwards so nothing burns. The same dough makes good stokbrood for the children.
Source
Adapted from Exactly How To Make The Perfect Pizza On The Braai at Women's Health SA and Braai pizzas at YOU.