What I Ate: Grilled Pizza & Hot Wings

Like I said, I have a lot of grilling posts to share. Today, it's grilled pizza (and hot wings). This post is a 'What I Ate' so it's not a recipe post but I do share my technique for grilling pizzas. The trick is to pre-grill the crust.

I started by making some pizza dough. I made a double batch because I wanted double the pizzas.

Then, I split the dough into my desired portion sizes (4 thin pizzas) and rolled out into a square shape. I find that the square shape works best on the grill but if you exclusively eat circular pizzas, go ahead and make a circle. I slapped the dough onto my hot grill and closed the lid. Then I walked away for 2 to 3 minutes. When I came back to my grill, the dough was bubbly and looked awesome.

After grilling the crust on one side only - that's right, one side only - I removed it from the grill and let it cool on a cooling rack.

While the half-raw crusts were cooling, I made a quick tomato sauce. I just used some canned San Marzano tomatoes, minced garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, oregano, and chopped basil. I didn't cook it or anything. Why bother? It's summer.

Then, I drizzled some olive oil onto the grilled side of my crusts.

And then I used a brush to evenly distribute the oil all over the surface. The oil serves two purposes: it adds flavor and it also creates a 'waterproof' barrier so that the pizza doesn't get soggy once it's slathered in sauce.

Once the pizza was brushed with oil, I spread on a bit of sauce (not too much!) and sprinkled on some shredded mozzarella cheese.

Then, it was back to the grill to cook the raw side of the crust and to warm up the sauce and melt the cheese.

To make the hot wings, I just grabbed a pack of chicken wings and coated them in some potato starch. Potato starch makes the best crunchy crust for chicken wings with v. little effort. I bought mine from a Korean market but you can find potato starch at Whole Foods. By the way, I fried my chicken before I put the pizza on the grill for the second time so that the pizza wouldn't end up cold by the time the chicken was done. However, for the sake of continuity, I'm showing the pizza stuff at once and then all of the wing stuff at once.

I shallow fried the wings, just a few at a time, at a lower temperature (350 F) to cook them through.

As one batch was finished cooking, I would let them drain while I continued to cook the rest.

Then, I pumped up the heat to get the oil to around 450 F and then cooked the chicken a second time to get the skin golden brown and extra crispy.

To make the sauce, I just mixed together 2 tablespoons of butter with 1/4 of hot sauce and 2 drops of this 'Beware' hot sauce that I got in Belize. It was seriously spicy and that's why I was so stingy with it. I like Texas Pete's hot sauce because it's a little less acidic than Tabasco and more delicious than Frank's.

Then, I coated a few of the wings in hot sauce and plated them up.

To serve, I sliced up each pizza (which was probably more like a flatbread) into four square pieces. And I served it right on the cutting board.

And because our meal needed a little green, I made a quick baby kale salad that was simply tossed in meyer lemon olive oil, salt, and pepper.

And I decided that I wanted every wing we ate to be nice and crispy so instead of serving them pre-tossed, I served the fried chicken and the sauce separately.

And nothing completes a summer meal better than a glass of limeade.

Grill pizza. Do it.

Here's the recipe page for the dough: