Did I mention I love a good road trip? Our food-inspired road trips started well before our love affair with the Garden Route (or risotto, for that matter). Back in the last 1980's when we lived on Canada's west coast, we used to drive the 510 km's to Portland, Oregon just to visit the nearest location of our favourite pizza chain, California Pizza Kitchen (aka CPK). Six hours of salivating on the drive down, we could barely get the words out to place our order, but somehow we managed. Then, after gobbling up our gourmet pizzas, we'd wait a few minutes for our eyeballs to roll back to the fronts of our heads, pay the bill and clamber back into the car for the return drive home - another 510 km's.
So, whether it was a flash of inspiration or nostalgia, when the missus pulled our our faded CPK cookbooks this afternoon, it was a foregone conclusion: I'd be braaiing pizzas tonight.
We cheated a bit this time - we didn't make our own pizza dough like we have with previous patio pizzas. Instead, we bought a bag of bread dough (which does tend to rise a bit more, BTW). But all the slicing and dicing of various toppings is time-consuming, so this was a handy shortcut.
Tonight we had two different types: prosciutto with figs and rocket; and buffalo wings chicken (using chicken breast, not wings, of course) with blue cheese. Both delectable!
So, how do you do it? Well, first you roll out your dough - thin is good (though rather wobbly when using bread dough...). It helps if you stick it in the freezer for a few minutes to help firm it up while you're working on organizing your toppings.
So, whether it was a flash of inspiration or nostalgia, when the missus pulled our our faded CPK cookbooks this afternoon, it was a foregone conclusion: I'd be braaiing pizzas tonight.
We cheated a bit this time - we didn't make our own pizza dough like we have with previous patio pizzas. Instead, we bought a bag of bread dough (which does tend to rise a bit more, BTW). But all the slicing and dicing of various toppings is time-consuming, so this was a handy shortcut.
Tonight we had two different types: prosciutto with figs and rocket; and buffalo wings chicken (using chicken breast, not wings, of course) with blue cheese. Both delectable!
So, how do you do it? Well, first you roll out your dough - thin is good (though rather wobbly when using bread dough...). It helps if you stick it in the freezer for a few minutes to help firm it up while you're working on organizing your toppings.
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Then, when you're ready to go, pull the dough out of the freezer, baste one side with some olive oil, and then slap it on the ol' braai for about 3 minutes on med-low heat.
That done, you slide it off, oil the other side, flip it over to add the toppings (including any tomato sauce) and stick it back on for another 5 minutes. And voila, dinner is served!
Fresh from the braai! Next, you flip it over and baste the other (uncooked) side
 Sprinkle some cheese (not all pizzas need a tomato base!) |  Toss on a few halved figs |  Add a few slithers of prosciutto (I actually think parma ham works a bit better...) |
Duelling pizzas!
 The final product - good enough to eat! |  Don't forget to add a few sprigs of rocket as a last step to the fig & prosciutto pizza! |
