In Italy and elsewhere, the best pizzas come out of wood-burning ovens that cook at a very high temperature. Open grilling over a hot fire emulates the approach better at home than oven baking or the closely related practice of covered cooking on a grill. Keep the crust thin, as they do in Italy, and grill it quickly directly above the fire, without a baking sheet or other container. The goal is a crust good enough to eat on its own, a crisp, crunchy bread that provides much of the ultimate flavor in the pizza rather than serving as a puffy, bland base for the toppings. This is how we prepare a trim and tasty crust, the foundation for most of the following pizza recipes.
MAKES TWO THIN 10- to 11-INCH PIZZA CAUSTS
| 1 | envelope active dry yeast (about 2½ teaspoons) |
| ½ | teaspoon sugar |
| ⅔ | cup lukewarm water, 105°F to 115°F |
| About 2 cups bread flour (see Technique Tip) | |
| ¼ | cup stone-ground cornmeal |
| 1½ | teaspoons kosher salt or other coarse salt |
| 2 | tablespoons olive oil |
| 1 | garlic clove, minced, optional |
Combine the yeast and sugar with the water in a small bowl and let sit for a few minutes until foamy. With a heavy-duty mixer or in a food processor, mix the yeast with a scant 2 cups of flour and the rest of the dough ingredients for several minutes, until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.
Transfer the dough to a floured pastry board or counter, and knead at least 2 more minutes, adding in another tablespoon or two of flour if needed to get a mass that is no longer sticky. Dough on the dry side is a bit more challenging to work with, but yields a crisper crust. Form the dough into a ball, then place it in a greased bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Set the dough in a warm, draft-free spot and let it rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Punch the dough down on the floured pastry board and let it rest for 10 minutes. Roll out the dough into two thin disks, about ⅛ inch thick and 10 to 11 inches in diameter, stretching and prodding it with your fingers, too. (A lip isn't necessary on the dough because when you're grilling a pizza, you don't want to pile it with toppings that might spill off the side.)
The dough is ready to use at this point, but also can be saved for later in any other the refrigerator or freezer. To carry the crusts from your pastry board to the grill, stack them on a baking sheet covered with waxed paper, with more waxed paper layered between the crusts. Do the same if you plan to refrigerate or freeze the crusts. If freezing, first chill the crusts on the baking sheet for about 30 minutes to firm the dough, wrap the crusts, and freeze. Bring the crusts back to room temperature before proceeding.
TECHNIQUE TIP: Standard all-purpose flour is designed to cover a broad range of culinary needs. It works well in many dishes, but the higher gluten content of bread flour ensures stronger, more elastic dough for the thin, crisp pizza crusts and flour tortillas we favor for the grill. For rolling the dough, an inexpensive flour-tortilla roller—a simple fat dowel the thickness of a broomstick—is easier to use than a conventional rolling pin.
Pizzas and tortillas are America's favorite types of flatbread, a style of bread common throughout the world in multiple forms, from Middle Eastern pitas to Indian chapatis. We focus in this chapter on the flatbreads most popular in the United States, but also include a couple of other varieties to illustrate the range of ways that grilling can enhance foods made with wheat and corn crusts.
Flatbreads derive their generic name from the lack or scantiness of leavening. With little or no baking powder, baking soda, or yeast, they stay flat instead of rising like other breads. Traditionally, they are usually baked in a wood oven or fried above a wood fire on some type of griddle, such as the Mexican comal or the Indian tava. Versions with a firm dough that's rolled thin can also be grilled directly on the grate without a griddle or other supporting pan because the hot fire instantly stiffens the dough and pulls it away from the cooking surface to prevent sticking. With pizzas in particular, the method adds a layer of flavor to the crust that's difficult to achieve at home in any other way.
The appropriate temperature level in the grilling varies with the thickness and density of the bread. We make thin flour tortillas from scratch on high heat, but crank down to medium-high for corn tortillas, which start from a more compressed dough. Both set quickly and will remain supple if removed from the fire at that point, but can be cooked further at the same temperature to a crusty, chip-like stage. Slightly thicker pizzas benefit from a two-level fire. We begin the grilling on high, to crisp the surface of the crust, and then alternate between high and medium-low to cook the dough through and warm the toppings. Chewier breads with a bit of leavening, such as the cornmeal cake at the end of the chapter, grill best at a steady medium or medium-low heat, browning spots on the surface while retaining some softness in the center. Experiment with other flatbreads on your own. As long as the dough is firm and the cooked thickness doesn't exceed ½ to ¾ inch, grilling offers a new dimension of flavor and fun in bread making.