With both of the men in our lives gone for the weekend, the sister and I made plans to spend the afternoon shopping and grab lunch at Punch Pizza, this awesome Napoleon style pizza place. Somewhere along the way we both decided to spend the day cleaning our respective houses (yeah….I don’t understand how it happened either) and decided to get together in the evening instead. We still wanted the wood-fire pizza fix though, so we decided to make this Chicken, Peach & Gorgonzola pizza that we saw in a “recipe of the day” email from myrecipes.com. We decided to put own on spin on it by adding basil and making it on the Kettle Pizza
You don’t need to have a Kettle Pizza to make this pizza, you could make it and put it on a pizza stone in your oven at 450 degrees until it’s hot and bubbly, but when you’re in MN on a gorgeous summer day it’s much more fun to do this outside.
Here’s what you need:
We peeled the peach and sliced it thin to go onto the pizza.
I also shredded the grilled chicken breast (and forgot to take a picture).
Then we heated up the Kettle Pizza (if you have a Weber grill, you should look into one of these). First we started some charcoal in a chimney and then placed a few chunks of lump hardwood (we used oak) on top. After setting the Kettle Pizza on top of the grill, adding the pizza stone, and putting the lid on, all we had to do was wait for it to reach 700 degrees. Yep, a nice toasty 700 degrees.
Then you prepare the pizza. Sprinkle some cornmeal onto a pizza peel and stretch out the dough. We used Trader Joe’s pizza dough (it’s just over $1 and you can’t beat it for the time you save making your own) but you can use any kind you like. To make one pizza we divided the dough ball in half. Once the dough was stretched we topped it with some mozzarella, the grilled chicken, Gorgonzola, peach slices, and drizzle with the balsamic glaze.
Now it’s time to cook the pizza. Slide the pizza off the pizza peel onto the pizza stone using short back and forth strokes.
(If you are using an oven, I’d recommend 450 degrees for 7-10 minutes watching closely until it is golden brown and the cheese is bubbly).
The pizza will cook in 3-5 minutes, watch it closely and turn it about halfway through. The pizza is done when the cheese is melted and bubbly and the crust is brown. Some darker spots on the crust are ok and actually add great flavor.
The combination of peach, chicken and Gorgonzola tasted great. The sweet peaches were somehow made savory with the addition of the gorgonzola. The charcoal and wood chunks give the pizza that awesome wood-fire smokey flavor we were looking for in the Punch Pizza we missed out on. Yum!
- Prepared pizza crust, such as Trader Joe's, at room temparature
- 1 c shredded mozzarella
- 1 cooked chicken breast, shredded
- ⅓ c gorgonzola
- 1 ripe peach, sliced thin
- balsamic glaze
- basil, for garnish
- Start coals and set up for indirect heat. Prepare the coals for indirect cooking and add 4-5 pieces of lump hardwood (such as oak) on top of the coals. Place the Kettle Pizza on top and cover. When grill reaches 700 degrees you can start cooking.
- Divide the dough in half and prepare one pizza a time. Sprinkle a wooden pizza peel with cornmeal and stretch out the dough until it is nice and thin.
- Top with mozzarella, chicken, gorgonzola, peaches, and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.
- Use the peel to transfer the pizza to the pizza stone and cook for 3-5 minutes turning halfway through.
- Cool for a minute or two, slice and enjoy
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