Pizza's are supposed to be square right?????

MickeyT

<p />My,my,my...what I have learned since the days of being a newbie.[p]I was looking through some old BBQ pictures this morning (yes, I have no life)and came up with this first pizza I tried to make in July of 2000. As I remember, I couldn't get that damn dough to get round no matter how hard I tried.[p]Funny stuff.[p]I have big enough shoulders to share photos of the not so great cooks of my past. Makes me laugh, as it probably does you as well.[p]Anyone else have some flops they would like to share?[p]Might be a fun thread.[p]As we all know, laughter is the best medicine.[p]Mick

Puj

MickeyT,[p]What's wrong with that shape? Mick, I travel a ton throughout the year and this past year my travels took me through Milwaukee frequently. I found a place in Brookfield called Marty's. There standard pizza shape is of a rectangle, with their largest being 60" long (which I'm sure of) and 14" or 16" wide (I think). Decent pizza.[p]Puj

Unknown

MickeyT,
once I dropped a cooked pizza on the deck and by the time I salvaged it it looked like an omlet folded over - I was so P/O! I told the wifey it was a cazzoney-thingee that Sprinter had posted about!

KennyG

MickeyT,[p]I destroyed all those photos immediately. Someday, however, after a couple of pops, I may share my 5 hr "rubber" brisket experiment. Even the dog didn't want it, but at least she tried hehehe[p]K~G

StumpBaby

MickeyT,[p]I haven't had too many weird/bad
things happen, although there was that one time when I was searing a roast (it
was not pork cause I was not able to convince the wife to buy anymore
pork..she's convinced it's possible that one can overdose on pork..and that we'lll probably be the first documented case, at the rate we're going) and I left
the top off of the egg for a mere 5 minutes..by the time I went back to the
porch, flames were shooting out the top, and the temperature had climbed to well over 750
degrees. That was not a good roast...and I lost a completely good pair of
underwear (my wife was not so convinced that they were good...claiming to not
have seen them in quite a few days...but I personally think they were good..but
over the years, one learns not to argue). That was a very very black roast..but
luckily...a sharp knife...one Harry Potter bandaid (yep..I've got 2 young kids..and
many many different types of bandaids..of course, I'm convinced that out of
10 boxes, maybe only 5 bandaids in all, are actually used for something that's
bleeding, and that something is usually me. Did I tell you I have a woodshop?)
and a few new swear words later, and that roast was back on...nobody the
wiser..ok..except when I found it necessary to confess about the underwear. I
swear she counts those..and I didn't wanna be faced with the 3rd degree over
that, of all things. In the end, the roast came out fine...but when searing meat..I've learned to never leave the area...even if only for a minute.[p]StumpBaby

nikkig

<p />MickeyT,
Our first pizza was also a flop. It didn't turn out square, but we had a heck of a time getting it off the peel. So, we slid what we could off, flopped the rest on top, and called it a calzone. Sure was good! Now we do calzones on purpose.[p]~nikki

Shelby

MickeyT,
Wasn't Domino's pushing rectangular pizza for a while? What's wrong with that shape??
I think pizza is one of the trickiest things to learn to cook on the egg. Lots of variables. My first experiment looked much like Nikkig's 'calzone'. Since then, I've learned and had some less than spectacular results along the way, but all were edible!
I really need to get a digital camera!

KennyG

<p />MickeyT,[p]Uh uh, then there was the time when we decided to have the family over for filets.....[p]Went down to the big municipal market and picked up 10 nicely cut "choice" half pounders....[p]In those days, several of us early pioneers had been experimenting with 4 digit, high temp, "turbo" grilling (and experiencing cracked fireboxes - imagine that). I was eager to show my stuff.[p]The cheap wine was flowing early that day and I let Humpty get away from me. The meat was tossed on the Egg in full "unregistered nuclear weapon" mode. As I remember, the
thermometer was reading 300* the second time around.[p]At those temps, the difference between medium rare and torched is about the time it takes to have another sip of Franzia.[p]The dog led me to believe that she enjoyed some of that meat, but it was such hard work, she slept for an entire day afterwards.[p]K~G

Bordello

MickeyT,
Not exactly a flop but kind of funny.[p]O.K. I will confess,
New Year's Eve day I put 2 beer butt chicken's on my new Willie's chicken sitter's about 4:30 P.M., I had been consuming adult beverages for a while in anticipation of the holiday. The Willie's sitter's were in a foil lined tin on the grill cooking along at about 225°, I wanted fall of the bone chicken so low was the way to go. [p]It seems that as I consumed more of the adult beverage I fell asleep on the sofa, woke up about 12:30 A.M. the chicken's were in 170° range and the fire was low because I did not put a lot of lump in as I was planning about a 3 hr. cook. I took the ash tool and hammered on the bottom of the fire grate, opened the dome for a bit and the egg took off again, closed the dome, put the ring back on and had another beverage to welcome the new year in, fell asleep and woke up about 4:15 A.M. That's right, my chicken's cooked for about 12 hours, when I used my tongs to lift em off the sitter's they were indeed falling apart. I went ahead and an pulled em just like a pork butt, made chicken enchilada's last night. What year this is going to be. LOL ÜÜÜ[p]Cheers,
New Bob

JodyMo

MickeyT,
Never trust a round pizza!!!
-JodyMo

Unknown

New Bob,
Heh, heh, glad I wasn't the only one! Got done work Tuesday AM about 10:00. Went and had few "it wuz a gud year and next year will be betta" beers with some cronies at the neighborhood tavern. Everytime I try to leave, someone else comes in. Geeesh, what's a guy to do?? Finally got home around 3 PM.....just in time for my neighbor, Randy, to show up. Well, he and I, plus 'ol Jim (Beam) had a rollicking good time. Wife and I had Stone Crab Claws that were to be cooked on the ceramic along with smoked sausage and a few other items. Luckily, I decide I don't really want to screw with a fire so I bring out the big steamer. That went pretty good (hic), but had a helluva time melting the butter in the microwave. Three tries and blew it up every time (duh). Wifey said it took her an hour to get all the butter out of it. She said that after two attempts to get the crab meat out of the claw that I said "to hell with it" and went to bed at 7 PM. Woke at 5:35 AM, refreshed and ready to hit the deck running. We had the claws for brunch.

Bordello

buford,
Yes, always great to know you're not alone. Sounds like you had a great time. About the microwave, while having a few cocktails and doing some painting, I took a small glass bottle about half the size of a lipstick container and put it in the micro to warm it up. You guessed it, the damn thing blew up and I have pewter colored paint all over the inside, I got 99% of it out. LOL
cheers and great year to ya,
New Bob

Love Handles

MickeyT,[p]I think everybody probably has a funny bbq story. I am going to tell you about my husbands. This is his BGE profile I am writing to you under. Quite a few years ago he was going to bbq on his webber kettle he put the charcoal in but didn't have any starter fluid so being the painter he is he sprinkled the charcoal with laquer thinner. Now he knows it's very flammable so he leaves the top off the kettle and goes into the house for awhile to let the fumes go away, and he comes back out to light the grill still knowing there might be some fumes left he stands back and throws a match into the kettle. Well ka-pow every piece of charcoal in the kettle blew out. Nobody was hurt and I don't think he ever tried that again, but we sure have had some laughs about it over the years

Wise One

Lovehandles, wow! Can you do it again? The Naked Whiz wants to film it and put it with his fireball pix.

Bordello

Lovehandles,
Being as no one was hurt I will say I'm LOL.
With all due respect, I love your handle. [p]Cheers,
New Bob

Gloria

MickeyT,
I still can't get the damn things round. What's so funny about that? Seriously, I pull and pull and roll and roll and that doggone dough just goes boiiiiing back together. I wish someone would do a video on how to pull pizza dough really thin.

BlueSmoke

Gloria,
Getting a round crust depends both on your dough and your technique. As you make the dough, gluten strands form.
DOUGH: Shortening (oil, lard, crisco, any fat) is called "shortening" because it interferes with and so shortens these strands. The "shorter" the dough the shorter the gluten strands and so the easier it is to work the dough. (Shortbread cookies are the extreme in shortness.) So tip 1 is to check the amount of fat in your recipe.
TECHNIQUE: Even with zero fat in the dough, you can still form rounds. You just have to cooperate more with the dough. Roll your dough out in one direction only. When it starts to pull back, lightly flour the surface and flip it. Let it rest a minute, while you sample your beverage, and roll it in a different direction. Continue flipping/resting till you've got your dough round.
Ken

Unknown

BlueSmoke,[p]Gloria should check the type of fat she is using as well as the amount. In order for the dough to come out correctly, the oil has to be hard (e.g. lard or crisco). Fats and oils are the same thing, they are both triglycerides, but oils are liquid at room temp and fats are solid. It is important that a hard fat be used and not a liquid oil becasue a liquid oil will not "shorten" the dough. Lard works best and Crisco works well too. Butter and margarine are shortenings as well, but they also have water, salt, flavorings, and emulsifiers in them.[p]I sell fat for a living and it isn't often I get to jump in with a little knowledge. Didn't mean to show anyone up. I'll go back to my corner and be quiet now.[p]FM