Man oh man, I didn’t think it was possible to be sick of braaing, but let me tell you, it totally is.
Last week alone 6 out of 7 dinner meals were braaied.
Don’t get me wrong. There is almost NOTHING better than a good braai, but there is only so much meat and sides that this girl can take without craving a pizza.
So when I saw Raising Men’s post the other day, about doing pizza on the braai, I just could not get it out of my head. After having friends over the day before for another braai (which was really lovely) I wanted to try out the pizza thing and seeing as though it was one of my besties (and her family) coming over for supper, I figured they would be the best guinea pigs, uh… I mean, I was sure they would like it.
So I Googled/Pinterested it like any normal person and everything that I read said that you kind of have to have a Weber or you know, a braai that you can put the lid on. We don’t have that. But I figured we would do it anyway, what’s life without living on the wild side every now and then.
As you can see, it turned out pretty well but I’m letting the pictures get ahead of me.
I didn’t even have a recipe for the dough, so I Pinterested that as well and found one on Creative Juice. It worked! And here is the recipe that I tweaked slightly (I didn’t have a mixer so I did it by hand and also I used way more flour):
- 3¾ cups bread flour (I think I used about 4 and a half cups)
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1 packet dry active yeast (instant)
- 1½ cups of hot (not boiling) water
- 2 Tbsp. oil
- 2 tsp. salt
- Combine the flour, sugar, and yeast by hand, or into a stand mixer with the hook attachment if you have one. Stir to combine.
- With the mixer on low, slowly add the hot water and oil. If you are doing it by hand, add a little then mix and add a bit more and mix… And keep repeating that process until it’s all mixed in.
- When the dough starts to come together, add the salt.
- Continue to mix on low until the dough comes together to form a ball on the hook and the bowl looks ‘clean’. You may need to add a bit of water or flour to find the right balance for the dough. So I had no idea what the right consistency should be but thankfully Liz did, so in our case I had to add a whole extra cup of flour. Turns out that it should not be too wet and sticky.
- Remove the ball of dough from the hook and knead it by hand on a lightly floured surface. At this point I had run out of regular cake flour and so I used whole wheat flour instead.
- Oil a large bowl and place the dough inside and cover it with plastic wrap.
- Keep the dough in a warm place and allow the dough to double in size – this takes about 45 min-1 hour
- When the dough is doubled in size, turn it out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface.
- Cut the dough into 8 pieces. Roll it out as thin as possible to have it a close to a thin base pizza as possible (it will still rise on the braai).
- Place on a lightly floured surface and take it to the braai.
- We placed a tile on top of the grid to cook the pizza’s on. We put them on until they were able to be picked up and remain their shape, so not soft at all. In hind sight we would have removed it while it was still slightly uncooked to avoid burning the bottom and also to stop it being too crispy.
- Add your tomato paste (definitely necessary otherwise it is far to dry) and toppings (which I precooked) and then put it back on the braai till the cheese is melted.
- Enjoy!!
I promise you, this will be a huge hit at any dinner party you throw in the future, it was so yum that I still think about it. Although that could be the diet talking.
The kids LOVED it!
(These photo’s are from the braai night with the Finchams and the Kohns and then pizza night the following day)
