This summer your barbecue is your pizza oven

Grilled pizza does not immediately sound like the highest use of a grill or a pizza. You’d think the bottom of the crust would burn into a blackened crisp, while blocking the coals from melting the cheese on top. But that notion didn’t seem to dawn on Johanne Killeen and George Germon, two art students from Providence, Rhode Island, who met while working for Dewey Dufresne, a young chef with a big future of his own.

When Dufresne’s restaurant closed, he went to New York and they opened Al Forno in Providence, in 1980. Al Forno means “from the oven,” an unlikely name for the birthplace of the world’s first non-baked pizza. But the restaurant space came with a grill, and they wanted to use it.

The extra-oily, extra-thin crust cooks quickly, all the way through, with no gooey inside to worry about. And it won’t stick to the grill. The core trick is to flip the pizza after grilling one side, and put the toppings on the hot new grill marks. The crust comes out crunchy, crispy, chewy and cracker-like, with a charred but hopefully not burnt bottom and smoky flavor.

At Al Forno you could, and still can, get toppings including nettle pesto, fried calamari, and peaches and prosciutto, to name a few. Once you get the hang of grilling a pizza, the precooked crust becomes a blank slate for whatever seasonal and creative toppings you can imagine. The most popular and longest running version is the margherita, topped with a juicy tomato sauce with herbs and the occasional pungent intrusion of half-cooked garlic, all held together by cheese.

If you know what you’re doing, you could grill yourself a lovely pizza with a hunk of store-bought dough, a jar of sauce and a bag of shredded cheese. But there’s levels to this. Once you get the basic hang of grilling pizza, you can progress to thinking about toppings. And some day, perhaps, you’ll be ready to contemplate dough mixing.

Grilled Margherita ala Al Forno

The Al Forno margherita pizza is a great, simple place to embark upon the path of grilled pizza, and Germon and Killeen are not shy about discussing the pie that put them on the map.

I have read every one of their interviews on their margherita that I could find. It changed over the years, so what I have here is something in the middle, with my own adaptations for the Weber grill I use at home.

Killeen and Germon use maple charcoal, but I think any pure hardwood charcoal is fine.

Makes one medium-sized pizza that serves two

• 4 lbs hardwood charcoal

• 1 ball pizza dough, 14-16 ounces

• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 1 clove garlic, pressed, grated, crushed or minced

• 14 ounces canned whole tomatoes, hand crushed

• ½ cup chopped basil

• ½ cup chopped parsley

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

• 3 ounces grated fontina cheese

• 1 ounce grated Romano cheese

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon black pepper

• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Place the dough ball in a bowl and pour ¼ cup oil over it. Roll it in the oil to coat it all around and leave it to soak. Light the coals and when they are about halfway ready; spread them evenly about 5 inches below one side of the cooking grate.

While the coals catch, remove the dough and place it on the back of a cookie sheet. Press it into an oblong shape about the size of the pan, and less than ¼-inch thick. It’s OK if some parts are thick and others thin. If you stretch the crust so thin that a hole opens up, you don’t try to patch it. Just don’t add any toppings to that negative space, and you’ll be fine.

Add the minced garlic to the bowl of remaining oil. In a separate bowl mix the tomatoes, basil, thyme and parsley.

When the coals are a bit past their prime and not burning quite so aggressively, lift the crust by two points on the same edge and toss it onto the hot side, like you’d whip a fresh sheet onto a bed.

After about a minute on the grill it should start to puff up. Carefully tug up on an edge and peek at the underside. After another 30 or so seconds, before it blackens, grab the edge and flip the crust onto the cool side of the rack. (It’s impossible to give exact cooking times because they depend on the heat of your coals and their distance from the grill.)

While it’s still piping hot, immediately brush or rub the newly browned side of the crust with the garlic oil. Sprinkle on the fontina and then Romano cheeses, and spoon on the herbed crushed tomatoes in dispersed little piles. Sprinkle the salt, pepper and pepper flakes over the pizza.

With tongs or carefully with your fingers, slide the pizza onto the hot side, over the coals. Cook it as long as you can, ideally about four minutes, without smelling any burning crust. If it starts to blacken, pull it to the non-hot side of the grill and put the lid on until the cheese melts. Cut into artsy pieces with cooking scissors, and serve.

Photo by Ari LeVaux