Rhode Island · Main
Rhode Island Grilled Pizza
- Intermediate
- 2 h
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with char used as punctuation, richness that coats and comforts, on a drift of smoke.
Ingredients
- 500g pizza dough, at room temperature
- Olive oil for brushing
- 250ml crushed tomatoes, seasoned
- 200g fresh mozzarella, torn
- Parmesan, grated
- Fresh basil
- Salt, pepper, chili flakes
Equipment
Grill · Sheet pan · Rolling pin · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Grilling over live coalsShaping by hand
Allergen screen
Found: dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Heat a grill to high on one side, medium on the other.
- Stretch the dough thin and free-form on an oiled tray: no rolling pin.
- Lay it directly on the hot grates, oiled side down. Grill 2-3 min until the underside is marked and it releases. 3 min
- Flip onto the cooler side, brush with oil, then top quickly with tomato, cheeses, and seasoning.
- Cover and grill 4-5 min until the cheese melts and the base crisps. Finish with basil off the fire. 5 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Grilling over live coals 77 recipes
- The fire was ready before the food was: coals evenly covered in grey ash with no flames licking through and no raw smoke coming off, and a hot zone and a cooler one both available.
- The grate was hot and clean when the food landed, and the food released cleanly from it when the time came to turn rather than tearing away.
- Marks are browned, not burnt: deep colour where the metal touched, with no carbon flaking off and no soot transferred onto the food.
- The interior reaches its target with a thin gradient, not charred outside and cold within, and not driven through by a flare-up.
- What comes off the fire smells of fire and food only: no raw wood smoke, no fuel, nothing acrid at the back of the nose.
Where it goes wrong It went on over live flames instead of settled coals, so the outside charred bitter in the flare-ups while the middle stayed cold, and everything on the plate tastes of soot.
Shaping by hand 85 recipes
- The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
- Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
- The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
- Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
- They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.
Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Chianti Classico or Barbera d’Alba
- Also Right
- Vermentino for the lighter plates
- From the Taps
- Italian pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- San Pellegrino Sanbittèr
Tomato’s acid demands equal acid: Italian reds evolved beside the sauce, and the regional pairing is the safest law in wine.
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