Pizza on the Grill

Yes, that's right. Pizza on the grill. Directly on the rack. Never tried it? It's delicious! It's like getting a wood-fired pizza in a restaurant.

Nate and I started doing this last year. I can't remember why we started doing it, but I'm glad we did. We've tried a bunch of different pizzas on the grill. One favorite is BBQ chicken. But this time, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to combine my love of Thai food with my loved of grilled pizza. Thus, Thai Grilled Pizza was born.

To come up with the ingredients, I consulted some online recipes and just thought of things I knew we would like. Here is what we used and how we grill pizza.

Thai Grilled Pizza

Already-made pizza dough (Sentry in Tosa carries Peter Sciortino's Bakery dough, which is really good. The Pillsbury cans of dough would work, too)

1 chicken breast

Bottle of spicy Thai peanut sauce

1 carrot, shredded

Some roasted red pepper strips from a jar, chopped

About a half cup of cilantro, chopped

About 5 green onions, chopped

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Olive oil

Red pepper flakes

1. Take dough out of fridge at least an hour before you want to use it. It's much easier to work with when it's a little warm. Heat grill to low and let it warm up.

2. Cube chicken and cook with some of the Thai sauce, garlic and spices until done.

3. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface and make into a shape that will fit well on the grill. Roll it out pretty well, but don't make it too thin. Coat one side with olive oil.

4. Place on grill rack (we use the top rack in our gas grill) olive oil-side down. Cook until dough gets a bit crispy (usually only a matter of minutes).

5. Coat top side of pizza with olive oil and then flip pizza over so olive oil side is down. Top with ingredients--spread some Thai sauce all around, top with chicken, cilantro, carrots, peppers and onions. Sprinkle cheese on top. Sprinkle red pepper flakes.

6. Put grill cover down. Let cook for about 10 minutes, or until cheese melts or to your preferred level of doneness.

Making pizza this way works really well with our gas grill. It may be a little trickier on a coal grill, but I know it can be done. No matter what toppings you put on the pizza, just don't do too much. I've found that too many ingredients, especially too much sauce, makes it really soggy.