Can You BBQ Left Over Pizza?

The answer is a resounding yes! So in a new section of this blog, possibly titled 'What Can You Cook In Your BBQ', every now and again I am going to see what you can cook in your BBQ, as it says on the tin, and report on the outcome here! I may also have left this a little late with respect to the fact that BBQ season has almost past us :-(. But still we could have an Indian Summer so there might be all sorts of chances to see what goes and what doesn't in the realm of the BBQ ;-). Also no matter what the weather a BBQ will be held in my backyard on Australia day next 26th of January. I hope it's not snowing, but even if it is I am going to give it a whirl. Here I will attempt to report on whether or not it is possibly to BBQ an Australian.

So have you ever regrettably, in a moment of weakness, ordered pizza from a well known pizza brand? You know the ones who bake their pizza's on a cardboard base? Well in a moment of sheer laziness we did this last night. The taste is bland as the cardboard the pizza is baked on but if you are lazy sometimes you don't always get something edible!

When we do this we inevitably end up with left over slices which end up in the fridge. See picture above. Sometimes these get consumed, however usually, in our case, they end up in the rubbish. Tonight however, inspired by a late BBQ season session for lunch, I started to think maybe it was possible to reheat the left over pizza slices on the BBQ. Not entirely sure why this thought entered my head, as we do have a perfectly functional oven, but enter my head it did. I was not going to rest the BBQ tongs until I had a chance to determine whether or not Pizza could be reheated on the BBQ!

I thought through the cooking options first. Would I try to cook the slices on both sides? This would create a challenge due to the relatively loose toppings on the top of the pizza. Although the cardboard pizza company uses only the finest ingredients that can be compressed together in a factory, each of these components, they are not really items of food after all, sits relatively loosely on top of the cardboard base. This plan was quickly eliminated as the correct reheating method. After all you don't flip the pizza when you are making it, nor do you flip it when you reheat it in a conventional oven. So as can be seen on the left, the slices were simply laid on the grill.

After a few minutes, with the BBQ lid down, piping hot pizza! To be honest it was possibly even nicer than it was the first time around. This was possibly due to it actually being hot as opposed to being lukewarm, as they typically are on delivery! I wouldn't say that the pizza was fantastic, however it was definitely better than the previous evening!

There is not much you can really do to make cardboard pizza bases taste interesting though. Still they did hold up very well on the grill as can be seen from the picture on the left. As you would expect there are grill marks on the slice, however it has not burnt. This pizza chain clearly uses quality cardboard! Maybe it is the very nature of the cardboard that made the grill reheating possible. Next time I make my own pizza, perhaps I should try reheating them on the BBQ as well to see if I get the same results? The only trouble is when I make pizza there is usually no leftovers to try with ;-) Maybe this is due to the fact that most of the pizza I make ends up crushed by whiskey or left on the ceiling as a result of a nasty base making accident? See photos below.

Anyway, should you have any left over pizza with a high concentration of cardboard within it, then do feel free to try BBQ'ing it without fear of an imminent cheesy disaster! BBQ'ing leftover pizza works, and it works quite well!

Cheers

M

P.S. Ohhh I should add if you only have a coal BBQ I would not spark it up to reheat pizza slices! It really would not be worth the effort! The only reason I tried is because we have a gas fired BBQ which takes a second to spark up and one or two minutes to heat up ;-).

Below is an example of the typical Laphroaig Scotch Whiskey Rolling pin that is essential in the production of my pizzas. This gives a nice smokey and petey flavour to the dough. Also the fact that the scotch is aged in oak adds a little extra to the taste.

After rolling in scotch, it is necessary to get the base back down off the ceiling before attempting to do anything else. This step occurs due to overzealous base stretching antics as can be seen below.

After ceiling extraction we usually end up with something edible however, as can hopefully be seen below. When I say hopefully I hope the picture does it justice, as opposed to you hopefully being able to see the picture.