If you don’t have a super-hot pizza oven installed in your kitchen, it’s hard to achieve that pizzeria-quality pizza because most regular ovens can’t achieve that type of temperature. On top of that, they don’t have a stone floor on which to place the pizza. The problem of the stone is easily solved with a pizza stone, which holds a lot of heat and simulates the cooking surface of a pizza oven enough to produce a really nice crust. The only thing that can come close to a pizza oven’s temperature is a barbecue. Barbecues, whether coal or propane, can usually reach temperatures much higher than a regular oven. A special pizza stone, like the Mario Batali Chianti Pizza Stone, can easily transform your grill into a pizza oven without the need to remodel your kitchen to install an expensive specialty oven (although that would be a very nice thing to have, I must say!).
The Chianti Pizza Stone has two parts, a standstone stone onto which the pizza is placed and cooked, and a heavy-duty cast iron frame that holds the stone up off the grill. The frame helps to make sure that the stone heats evenly, and also protects it from overheating and potentially cracking on the surface of the grill. You can crank up your barbecue and enjoy a pizzeria-like pizza, with a crisp crust, chewy interior and a quick cooking time with a stone like this one. You can also use it as a kind of pan to bake other things in your barbecue – pies, tarts, cookies – if you have a good temperature control of your grill and can maintain a consistently lower heat for those items.
Of course, there is always grilled flatbread and pizza for those who just want to cook directly on the grill.
Joanne
July 7, 2009That is great information. I didn’t realize there was a pizza stone available for the grill. What a find!
I’ve been reluctant to get a stone, even for the oven, because I’ve heard of so many people who have cracked theirs. Since I’m a bit clutzy in the kitchen…can only see one outcome!
Mary
July 7, 2009You can buy a ceramic tile from a home improvement store for a few dollars and it will perform the same function. The tile will work on both a grill and in the oven.
rainey
July 8, 2009Echoing what Mary said, I use a thick baking stone that I elevate above the grill on a couple of stacked unglazed tiles from the building store.
And Joanne should know that even if your baking stone cracks, the pieces will perform just as well as an intact stone. Don’t even need to glue them back together. Just butt the edges together where they separated. They won’t go anywhere and dough is too thick to seep through.