Italian/American cooking:Drunken BBQ chicken pizza
Every now and then, I make my own pizza from scratch.
Our family, including our stumpy little Corgi “Palette”, loves my home-made pizza, and when we have pizza night, she becomes naughty dog.
She keeps whining at the side of the table and sometimes, she pops up trying to tell us she is there,waiting for the pizza bone (pizza crust nibble).
I like making my own pizza because I can be creative in many ways from topping, sauce, and the dough and I really enjoy coming up with new flavor of the pizza.
Freshly baked bread/pizza right out from the oven is really tasty.It takes time to make one, but it is worth it. There is something about the fresh made bread/pizza I love and you do not get those from local bakery store or pizza stores.
I think that pizza is probably the most versatile and popular food in the states, and many of you would enjoy my pizzas too. Therefore, I thought I would share the recipe with you one flavor at a time every time I make a new one.
This time, it is Drunken BBQ chicken pizza. It got Whiskey in the BBQ sauce and the sauce goes well with chicken on the pizza dough.
I cannot drink alcohol but,I sure enjoy using wine/liqueur in my cooking/baking because it adds the great flavor in the dish, and I really like them.
I was inspired by the Jack Daniel sauce dish at TGI Friday, and I wondered if I could combine the flavor into the BBQ sauce and this is the result of it.
Drunken BBQ chicken pizza ..
** To make pizza, if you were pressed with time, you can buy fresh pizza dough or use flat bread instead.
Ingredients for the dough;
1.5 C water
1.5 tsp dry yeast
1 1/2C Unbleached All purpose flour
1 1/2C Unbleached bread flour
1 tsp salt
Extra virgin olive oil
Ingredients for toppings;
4 oz wt shredded boiled/roasted chicken
1/8 Green pepper sliced
1/8 Red pepper sliced
1/2 Sweet onion sliced
1/2 carrot shredded
Extra virgin olive oil
Fresh mozzarella
low moisture shredded mozzarella cheese
chopped green onions
Ingredients for drunken BBQ sauce;
1 C ketchup
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/2
tsp Ancho chili powder
1/2C Jack Daniel whiskey
1/2C Scotch whisky
4 tbs red wine vinegar
6 tbs dark brown sugar
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbs A1 sauce
lemon juice
from 1/2 lemon (about 1/8C juice)
4 cloves of garlic grated
3 tbs tomato paste
2 tbs Dark
molasses
dash of hot sauce
0.1 oz wt ginger grated
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2C pineapple juice
1/2chipotle chili in adobo sauce chopped fine
liquid smoke
<Pizza dough>
0. Preheat the oven at 200F and when it reached to 200F,turn the oven off
1. To a bowl, pour 1 C room temperature water, 1.5 tsp of dry yeast, 1C unbleached all purpose flour and mix well, and cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit for about 30 minutes.
** If you use jar of dry yeast, make sure the yeast is at room temperature. Cold yeast would not make your dough rise properly.
2. To the flour-yeast-water mixture, add 1/2C room temperature water,1/2 C unbleached all purpose flour, 1.5 C unbleached bread flour and 1 tsp salt and mix well
3. When dough became to form a ball, toss
them onto lightly floured surface, and start kneading the dough
** Using silpat mat is easy to work with
4. Knead the dough until it is not sticky, but smooth surface and elastic. I usually knead for about 8 minutes.
You can test your dough to see if you knead it more. Do the Windowpane test.
What is windowpane test??
Windowpane test is the test the gluten development in the dough.
What
you do is to cut off small piece of dough,and gently stretch
out/pulling to see if it will hold a paper-thin membrane.If it tore
apart,you would knead a bit more and do the test again.
5. When dough became smooth surface and elastic and not sticky, drizzle
Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto empty bowl and smear it around side and
inside bottom to make easy for you to take the dough out later to roll
out
6. Place the dough into the bowl,drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the dough and smear the oil all around the dough
7. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and place the dough in the turned off oven,set the timer for 90 minutes
** Using the preheated/turned off oven to rise the dough (proof the dough) is perfect weather proof method.
8. 90 minutes later, dough should be double in volume
Dough should be double in volume..
9. Once the dough gets double, punch down the dough to let the gas out
from the dough and make the inner/outer dough temperature equal
10. Toss the dough onto lightly floured surface, and roll out the dough to the shape you like, and preheat the oven at 450F
** There are many kinds of rolling pin but I like the French rolling pin
** If you were to make a crispy pizza, roll out thin and bake at higher temperature
** If you have pizza stone, use the pizza stone to bake it,but if you do not have one,use the cookie sheet or half sheet pan
11. To the half sheet pan/cookie sheet,place non stick foil,sprinkle yellow corn meal
** Sprinkling yellow corn meal before placing the dough onto the foiled half sheet pan is my little secret to make a nice crusty bottom
12. Place the dough onto foiled half sheet pan/cookie sheet, make a little wedge around at about 1″ away from the edge using side of your hand
15. Blush the dough with extra virgin olive oil
16. Place the toppings/sauce and let it rest for 5 – 10 minutes or so on the counter, covering the pizza with plastic wrap loosely for the dough to rest and poof a little
17. Bake the pizza at 450F till the edge become brown;about 15-18 minutes.
<Drunken BBQ chicken pizza topping preparation>
1. Pour enough cold water into a sauce pan to cover boneless,skinless chicken breast, add splash of sherry,and some McCormick’s steak seasoning and bring it to boil
2. When chicken is cooked through, let it come to room temperature in the water in the sauce pan,and shred them and keep them in a Tupperware
OR..
Buy a whole roasted chicken,shred them and keep them in the tupperware
You would want about 4 oz of shredded chicken per pizza
3. To a new sauce pan, add 1C ketchup, 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp Ancho chili powder, 1/2C Jack Daniel whiskey, 1/2C Scotch whisky, 4 tbs red wine vinegar, 6 tbs dark brown sugar, 2 tsp Dijon mustard, 2 tbs A1 sauce, lemon juice from 1/2 lemon, 4 cloves of garlic grated, 3 tbs tomato paste, 2 tbs Dark molasses, dash of hot sauce, 0.1 oz ginger grated, 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1/2C pineapple juice and 1/2 chipotle chili in adobo sauce chopped fine and mix well and taste it and,adjust the taste if needed, and let it come to boil and turn it down to simmer and add some liquid smoke.
4. Stir the sauce occasionally,and reduce it down and, when sauce got thicken, turn off the heat.
5. Slice 1/2 sweet onion thin,green pepper,red onion slice thin, and shred the carrot thin and set it aside in the fridge.
** If you did not use all onion you have sliced for pizza, you can use them in salad, sandwich and so forth.I like to wash the sliced onion under the running water,and store the sliced onion in the water in the Tupperware.It removes zing that makes your eyes watery.
6. Cut the fresh Mozzarella. You would want 6-9 of 1/2″ dice
** You cannot use
fresh mozzarella cheese 100% because it hold lots of moisture and it
makes puddle of water pool on top of pizza,so it is best to mix with low
moisture shredded cheese with low ratio for fresh mozzarella cheese
<Assembling the topping>
1. Once the dough gets double, punch down the dough to let the gas out
from the dough and make the inner/outer dough temperature equal
2. Toss the dough onto lightly floured surface, and roll out the dough
to the shape you like, and preheat the oven at 450F
** If you were to make a crispy pizza, roll out thin and bake at higher temperature
** If you have pizza stone, use the pizza stone to bake it,but if you do not have one,use the cookie sheet or half sheet pan
3. To the half sheet pan/cookie sheet,place non stick foil,sprinkle yellow corn meal
** Sprinkling yellow corn meal before placing the dough onto the foiled
half sheet pan is my little secret to make a nice crusty bottom
4. Place the dough onto foiled half sheet pan/cookie sheet, make a
little wedge around at about 1″ away from the edge using side of your
hand
5. Blush the dough with extra virgin olive oil
6. Pour some of the BBQ sauce on the dough
7. Put shredded chicken over the pizza
** If you mix the boiled/roasted shredded chicken with some of Drunken BBQ sauce and let it sit while pizza dough is proofing, it makes more flavorful chicken pizza since flavor is in the meat as well.
8, Put thinly sliced onion,green/red peppers, shredded carrots over the pizza
9. Place about 1/2″ dice size fresh mozzarella cheese
10. Sprinkle generous amount of low moisture shredded mozzarella cheese over the pizza
11. Let the pizza rest for 5 – 10 minutes or so on
the counter, covering the pizza with plastic wrap loosely for the dough to
rest and poof a little
12. Bake the pizza at 450F till the edge become brown;15-18 minutes.
13. When edge turn brown, and pizza is baked perfectly, take it out from the oven and sprinkle chopped green onion over
14. Enjoy!
A slice of Drunken BBQ chicken pizza..
This pizza dough recipe makes 1 pizza; about 15″ x 10″ rectangle or round pizza.
If you had leftover pizza, you can wrap them with foil and bag them up in the freezer bag for later quick lunch/dinner.
To reheat the pizza, if you use oven, you want to preheat the oven at about 425F and heat the pizza up wrapped in foil for about 20 minutes or so.
If you use microwave to reheat the pizza, take the foil off,place the pizza in microwave safe plate,wrap the pizza with paper towel,microwave about 40 seconds or so.
If you had leftover sauce, you can use it for ribs,brisket,or you can mix it with shredded cooked chicken and use that with additional sauce to make Drunken BBQ fried rice.
You can also freeze the sauce.
