Jan Braai's grid pizza recipe

Braai grid pizza

Makes 2

Pizza made in a wood-fired pizza oven is great, but it is surprisingly easy and you get very close by simply braaiing your pizza on a grid. Topping choice and the order of adding the ingredients is important. You only need to flip the base once and the first topping to go on is the mozzarella cheese (the heat of the base will melt it). Then you add the rest of the toppings – stay away from things that still need to be cooked, for example bacon.

Ingredients

For the pizza dough

2 cups (250g) cake wheat flour
1 tsp (5ml) salt
½ sachet (5g) instant yeast
¾ cup (180ml) lukewarm water
1 tot (25ml) olive oil

For the toppings

200g mozzarella
2 tomatoes
200g feta cheese
200g pitted olives
Olive oil
Handful fresh herbs, such as basil or oregano
Black pepper

Method

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and yeast. Then add the water and olive oil. Use your hands to mix until everything is combined, and the dough comes together.
Cover the dough in the bowl with cling wrap so that the cling wrap sticks directly onto the top of the dough. Leave the dough to rise for 1 hour.
While you wait for your dough, get all your toppings ready to build your pizza. Grate the cheese, slice the tomatoes, crumble the feta and drain the olives. If the olives are not pitted yet, do so.
After 1 hour, sprinkle some extra flour onto the surface of a table or work area. Remove the cling wrap from the dough. Scrape the dough out of the mixing bowl onto the floured surface. Add more flour onto and over the dough. This extra flour makes the dough easy to handle.
Divide the dough into two balls and use a rolling pin to roll the dough into thin pizza bases. They do not have to be perfectly round.
Use a brush and paint one side of your pizza base with olive oil. Place the dough, oiled-side down, onto your grid, then on the fire over medium heat. Let the base braai for about 2 minutes while brushing the top with olive oil.
Turn the pizza base over and immediately start to layer your toppings onto the now braaied side. First the cheese, then tomato slices. Top with crumbled feta cheese, then olives and fresh herbs. By the time you are done with your toppings, the other side of the pizza will have baked, and the cheese will start to melt.
When everything is heated through and melted, simply take the pizza by one end and gently pull it off the grid and onto a wooden cutting board. Slice, dress with olive oil and some ground black pepper, then serve.
Repeat all the steps to make the second pizza using the other half of the ingredients.