Margherita, Not Margarita

The Bride and I wanted something "fresh and light" for dinner tonight, so an easy solution was to try Pizza Margherita on page 337, which required the Pizza Dough recipe on page 339.  I have enough bread-making experience to know what would help pull the dough together.  Thus, I gathered my ingredients:

The dough worked well, I formed a boule, tossed it in a light coat of oil, covered it with plastic wrap, and figured on about an hour and a half for it to rise. 

With the weather being what it is, I knew that the dough would not rise well downstairs.  The AC is on max which creates a cooler climate and (perhaps even worse) circulating air.  Yeast prefers a warmer climate with still air.  The solution was to move the bowl upstairs to the third floor where the temperature is about twenty to twenty-five degrees warmer than the downstairs and the air is completely still.  In short, this worked well, and the yeast was ready in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

I was ready to gather my ingredients for the pizza margherita.

Pizza margherita is all about VERY simple red, green, and white, representing the colors of the Italian flag.  The pizza is usually sauceless, opting for freshly cut tomotoes (red), freshly torn  - never cut as it leads to black edges - basil (green), and a light coating of mozzarella cheese (white).  I prepped the mixture and then readied the dough. 

I oiled one side and placed this side down on the grill, covered the grill, and waited until I could just begin to smell the dough cooking.  The yeast will go into overdrive at this point, and this causes massive bubbles to form.  I pinched the bubbles to deflate them, and pulled the dough off the grill.  Below is how each side looked, the side that was down and grilled, and the side that was facing up that was bubbled:

The next step was the put the toppings on the grilled side, and to then place the bubbly side down on the grill.  Weber suggested to put the pizzas on direct medium heat for four to six minutes.  I was apprehensive about this in a big way.  The first side had toasted itself in about one minute.  I knew that grilling the other side for four to six minutes would probably burn the bottoms.  However, only one minute would not warm the toppings, let alone melt the cheese.  I scattered the coals to create low direct heat, and gave the first two pizzas a whirl.  Still, after only two and a half minutes, I could smell burning.  The toppings looked okay:

but the bottom clearly was unedible:

I needed a new strategy.  I decided to boot Weber's instructions and moved ALL of the coals as far to one side as possible and placed the second batch of pizzas as far to the other side of the grill as I could and went with indirect medium heat.  This worked.  After about six minutes they smelled delicious.

The bottoms of the pizzas were perfectly golden brown and not charred at all.  I really liked this dish, especially after the modification of instructions.  This recipe provided The Bride and I with exactly what we wanted: something light and fresh.  The dough was well-seasoned, airy, and crisp.  The tomato and basil were in excellent harmony, with neither ingredient dominating the other.  For the mozarella I made a minor substitution.  I've done grilled pizzas in the past on my gas grill where I used a smoked mozzarella with terrific results.  This tradition continued in today's meal and it continues to be a wonderful idea.  I highly encourage everyone else to do the same.