Nici Wickes: BBQ Pizza

I’ve found a whole new way to make pizza – on the BBQ! All you need is one of those hooded BBQ's and a loaf of Turkish pide, ciabatta, or another flatbread, and you’re away.   

Fungi pizza bread

Ingredients  

• 1 large loaf store-bought ciabatta, focaccia, Turkish pide, or similar   
• ½ cup crème fraiche  
• ½ cup grated cheese - I used parmesan   
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms   
• Sprigs of rosemary or thyme   
• Drizzle of olive oil   
• 50g blue cheese, crumbled  
• Fresh herbs to serve - I used parsley  

 

Method 

1. Heat BBQ or oven to 200 C.   
2. Use a serrated knife to remove the top crust off your bread.   
3. In a bowl mix the crème fraiche and half the grated cheese and spread over the cut side of the bread. Scatter over remaining grated cheese, mushrooms and herbs.  Season with salt and pepper.
4. Finish with a decent drizzle of oil and bake on the top rack of the BBQ (or upper level in the oven) for 10-15 minutes until bubbling and golden.
5. Add the crumbled blue cheese as soon as it comes off the heat and scatter with parsley.    
6. Slice, eat and enjoy!    

  

Other toppings in place of the mushrooms:   

• Prawns, dill, chilli sauce & squeeze of lemon   
• Grapes, honey and flaked almonds  
• Chopped bacon or ham & pineapple  
• Pork & fennel sausage pieces & olives   

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News talks'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now it is time to talk food in our cook
Niki Wix is with us this morning. Nikki barbecue pizza.
I gotta be honest, I've felt a little bit nervous
about this one, only because barbecues don't usually get that hot,
do they?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
They do? So good morning Jack. Yes, they absolutely do
get that hot. I mean, these days people have those
hooded barbecues and they're just like an outdoor kitchen, to
be honest, and I have I have just got a
new one, and I've always cooked on an old one
that didn't have a hood. But now my whole world
has opened up to me and now it's like this
red hot pizza oven when I need it to be,

(00:46):
which is amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
That being said, though, the moment you lift the hood,
you lose all of the heat instantly, right, So if
you're running in and then you lift it and it's like, oh, okay,
it's going to take a couple of minutes. Yeah yeah, yeah,
exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
But you know, pizza, according to Italian tradition, should only
take I think it's something like seventy seconds or ninety
seconds to cook, so I mean if we leave it
on for a bit longer, I think we're still winning.
So look, I've taken all sorts of shortcuts here, including
cooking it on a barbecue. You get that barbecue. Look,
you could use an oven for this, but we wanting
it to get up to about two twenty something like
that degree celsius. And what I've actually used, Jack, is

(01:22):
I've taken a large sort of Turkish pee day or
one of those lovely flat breads I would work for Katcha,
but you take the top crust off so that then
it's kind of open for flavors. Hello, I'm open for business.
You can turn that little bit of crust into some
of the bread crumbs, and then all I do is
spoon over a couple of big dollars, maybe half a

(01:42):
cup of cream fresh, and you sort of just spoon
that cover off that that exposed bread, half a cup
of grated cheese. I use parnishan, but you could use
some grated mozzarella. No problem. This particular pizza, I decided
to make fongi or things mushrooms that whole two cups
of sliced mushrooms. But mushrooms, brown portabello ones. It was beautiful,

(02:04):
some sprigs of rose. We just toss all of the
over that that sort of cheese spread that you've made,
Scatter over a bit more grated cheese on top, some herbs,
some good amount of salt and pepper, decent drizzle of
olive oil, and as you say, what that barbecue chop off.
And then a lot of the ones with the hoods,
they have this extra rack kind of that's above the
barbecue plates. Yeah. So the trick is to pop your

(02:26):
pizza bread on that doesn't have to go on a
tin or anything, because the bread's quite sturdy, and then
bake it off, leave it for about ten minutes, maybe fifteen.
It'll be bubbling the crystal.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
It's like a deep dish pizza. I suppose you being
in America made me think of it. And then as
soon as it comes out, I crumble over some blue
cheese for this particular one, scatter over some parsley and
get into it. It's amazing. But of course the toppings
can be endless.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah sure, yeah, of course no they can. Yeah, that
sounds superb. Thank you so much, Nikki. My parents always
do that always caught big Turkish pda on the on
the barbecue, and I mean you can. There's no such
thing is too much olive oil and garlic as far
as I'm concerned. So whether or not you cut the
top off or not, you can kind of score the
bread as well. Cooking it in the barbecue makes such
a difference. So we're gonna make sure that Nicky's recipe

(03:17):
there for her Fungi pizza bread on the barbecue is
up and available on the news talks Heb website if
you want to see anything from our show. Honestly, that
is the easiest place to go. Just go to news
Talks EDB dot co dot nz forward slash Jack.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio