One of the best parts about barbecue – or cooking in general – is that sense of accomplishment when I make something I really love, but up until then thought I could only get the best version at a restaurant. Cast iron steak is a perfect example. Since I’ve done it a few times, I feel really good about making a NY strip or ribeye with the flavor, tenderness, and overall quality I can get at a good steakhouse.
Another example is pizza. Not regular, floppy pizza (which I’m not knocking!), but brick oven, wood fire pizza. The kind with some char on it that lets you know, “This was made with real fire. Not gas, not propane, but wood-fed fire!”
I don’t remember the exact day, but I recall seeing an online ad for something called KettlePizza. The video showed someone turning their Weber grill into a real pizza oven. My immediate thought was, “Oh! This exists? Shut up and take my money!”
Ever since I started using it, my satisfaction levels have gone through the roof. There were some snags along the way – rookie mistakes. But I can confidently say that now I’ve got this process down pretty well and can make some damn good pizza.
Out of Hibernation
Now while I felt confident in my skills, last week was the first time since fall 2020 that I brought out the KettlePizza attachment, and the thought crossed my mind that I’d forget a step and screw up something. But I was pleasantly surprised that the whole process went as well as ever.
Since I don’t have a Weber grill, the bottom part of my Weber Smokey Mountain makes a good substitute. Same radius, just a different depth, which doesn’t really make a difference.
In the bottom, I placed charcoal in a quarter-moon shape. A few feet away, a chimney full of briquettes was heating up. Once they became white hot, I poured them on the charcoal in the grill.
To get some heat building up, I placed a cover on top (a cover for a Weber grill that I bought locally online just for this purpose). All vents open to get that air circulating.
After about 15 minutes, I placed cooking wood on the hot charcoal, attached the KettlePizza attachment (grill from the WSM inserted at the bottom), then put in my pizza stone.
While the oven was heating, I made my pizza: one Margherita and one pepperoni. Before I even put the grill together, I made sure to slice the mozzarella cheese, pull the basil leaves, and make the sauce:
- 1 can whole peeled tomatoes
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
All of the ingredients went into a mixer and blended until I got a nice, saucy consistency.
The dough was store bought. Yes. From scratch would have been better, but there are only so many hours in the day.
I let the dough rise in bowls for about 4 hours, which made them very pliable and easy to shape. I made rounds that were about 15 inches, rolled them with a docker, then spread on my garlic oil:
- 1 cup olive oil
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
All the fixings were on and the oven was raging hot. You want to get the temperature of the stone to about 550-600 degrees. The oven itself was over 700. So it was time to put on the pizzas.
One note: I’ve had several instances of the dough sticking to the stone. I tried cornmeal, which can get messy and it can give a gritty taste in the pizza. So now I use parchment paper – place the dough on top, fixings, then I cut around so that the paper is the shape of the dough. I know… but it saves me a lot of headache.
About 90 seconds, rotate, and repeat about three or four times. In just a few minutes, you have a beautiful, delicious pizza.
And since it was the weekend leading up to the NFL draft, I broke out my Philadelphia Eagles pizza cutter! E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES! Dallas sucks!
Sorry.
Back to that sense of accomplishment – once you do your first pizza this way, you’ll feel like a full-on Italian chef.
Pro tip: For the Margherita pizza, grind on some Himalayan pink salt. You’ll thank me later.
The Wine: 2012 Porter Creek Zinfandel
There are many options available to you when you’re doing traditional pizza when it comes to wine. You’ll never go wrong with a Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Pinot Noir. But I always think of Zinfandel when I think about what to have with pizza.
I wasn’t sure if I had any in my wine collection, but lo and behold! While I thought we had exhausted the wine we bought the last time we were in California (2014), here was a 2012 Porter Creek Zinfandel staring right at me.
We visited this winery, located in the Russian River Valley. There were no tours available, but the tasting room was a quaint, charming cottage, with a big dog napping in the corner. The wines were outstanding – it was the first time I had tasted a Carignan, which I learned then was mostly a blending grape, and not widely sold as a varietal.
The Russian River Valley really came into prominence in the early 1980s, fueled by a group of farmers and winemakers passionate about their craft and committed to making the best quality wine possible. As Alex Davis, winemaker at Porter Creek explains on the winery’s website:
I see winemaking simply as the completion of the growing process and my winemaking approach is best explained as “traditional old world.” I ferment all of the wines using native yeast and malolactic cultures. The red wines are hand punched down and we use an older manually controlled wine press. I do, however, enjoy a few modern conveniences such as temperature control for fermentation tanks and tools to help pinpoint harvest dates, such as detailed weather forecasting and the ability to test for sugar, acidity, and pH.
The Zinfandel was rich on the nose with a lot of red and blackberry notes. Same on the palate, but with a good acidity and burst of flavor. It’s not a high-alcohol wine, so it really lets the fruit flavors come out.
It was a great match with both of these pizzas. I was fortunate to have found this when I was unsure of my Zinfandel supply.
Next time you see me, I’ll be making not one, but TWO recipes I learned while attending Myron Mixon’s BBQ Cooking School. Keep your eyes open for the recaps of those cooks and pairings!
Cheers!