Grilled Pizza with Spicy Italian Sausage

Last week I posted about Grilled Pizza with Bacon and Tomatoes. Kim, one of the moderators on the SlowTravel message board suggested that I try out a recipe from Bon Appetit that she has made with great success.

I asked her for the link and she shared.

While the recipe looked great there was one part which frightened me - it required me to make my own pizza dough. Confession time - yeast frightens me. No, I'm not worried that it will rise up and attack me like some misguided beast from a 1950'3 D grade horror flick, rather I have never had any success making things with yeast. While I think of myself as an adventurous cook - I don't do bread.

Previously when I have made pizza on the grill (with great success I might add) I have always used store bought dough. Kim said that this one was easy because the dough was made in the food processor - how difficult could that be? It turns out - not at all. We has success with yeast. I feel chuffed!

As stated, this recipe is from Bob Appetit and can be found it its entirety here.

Dough
1 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 envelope dry yeast
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups (or more) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

Combine water and sugar in a food processor. Sprinkle yeast over; let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.

Add oil, then 3 cups flour and salt. Process until dough comes together, about 1 minute.

Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Sprinkle with rosemary.

Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, adding more flour by tablespoonfuls if dough is sticky, about 5 minutes.

Lightly oil large bowl. Add dough; turn to coat with oil.

Cover bowl with plastic, then towel. Let stand in warm draft-free area until dough doubles, about 1 hour. To test that the dough has risen sufficiently, push two fingers into it. The depressions should remain.

Punch down dough. Knead dough in bowl until smooth, about 2 minutes. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Stretch out each piece on floured surface to 9-inch round. To prevent the dough from sticking as you stretch it, use flour sparingly; too much will result in a tough crust.

Toppings
3/4 cup olive oil
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

1 pound spicy Italian sausages
2 yellow or red bell peppers, cored, lengthwise
1 large red onion, peeled, cut through root end into 1/2-inch thick wedges

Whisk first 4 ingredients in medium bowl. Let vinaigrette stand 15 minutes at room temperature or refrigerate up to 2 hours.

Prepare barbecue (medium heat). Arrange sausages, peppers and onion on baking sheet. Brush with some of vinaigrette. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill sausages until cooked through and peppers and onion until slightly charred and crisp-tender, turning and basting occasionally, about 12 minutes for sausages and 8 minutes for peppers and onion.

Transfer sausages and vegetables to cutting board. Cut sausages into 1/2-inch pieces and peppers into thin strips.

Final preparation
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups crumbled chilled soft fresh goat cheese (such as Montrachet)
4 plum tomatoes, halved, seeded, chopped
3/4 cup chopped green onion tops Add coals to barbecue if necessary. Place 2 dough rounds on grill. Grill over medium heat until top of dough puffs and underside is crisp, about 3 minutes. Turn rounds over. Grill 1 minute. Transfer to baking sheet with well-grilled side up. This side of the dough becomes the surface that will hold the toppings.

Repeat with the remaining 2 dough rounds. Sprinkle each with 1/4 of mozzarella and Parmesan. Top each with 1/4 of sausage, peppers and onion, then with 1/4 of goat cheese, tomatoes and green onions. Drizzle each with 1 1/2 teaspoons vinaigrette.

Using large metal spatula, return 2 pizzas to grill. Close grill or cover pizzas loosely with foil. Grill until cheeses melt and dough is cooked through and browned, using tongs to rotate pizzas for Transfer to plates. Repeat grilling for remaining 2 pizzas.

Makes four 8-inch pizzas.

The sausage pizzas are the ones at the back in the pic above. The two in the front are smoked turkey, caramelized onion, and roasted pepper.

Comments

[Kim]

Jerry - I forgot to ask, did you make four pizzas or divide the dough into six? The six didn't come out half bad if you want to try that sometime, smaller portion but definitely enough. We had two left over, so the next night, I took a grilled crust, made a ceasar salad with shrimp, and ate it folded in between the crust(think taco) - darn good.

[Jerry]

Kim - this recipe rocks!

I made 4 pizzas but will try six the next time. We didn't eat an entire pizza. I had a slice of easch and Paul had 2 slices of each.

Essentially these are a type of flatbread (I saw Bobby Flay do a thing on flatbreads on teh food network). Your idea for the leftover crusts sounds great!