Last fall we bought ourselves a new boat (old, but new to us!). The boat is a small Norwegian cabincruiser that gives us the ability to stay the weekend in the boat. One our favourite activities to do in the weekends is to make pizza. On the boat it is more complicated to make pizzas but far from impossible. This article is a short description on how do it 🙂
Nidelv 300 Sport
Making pizza on a grill is not a big mystery to us. We have done this many times on the Weber grill at home so we have a good starting point. First this was to get a proper grill with a lid to use on a boat. First we needed one that would mount in a secure and stable way on the boat.
The ultimate marine grill is an American product called Magma (at least according to our investigations). This comes in gas and coal , but we never condsidered the latter. The reasons are two: firstly it is not easy to ignite coal in a boat, especially close to the boat cover canvas (kalesje), and there is plenty of smoke from coal (harbors least popular?) and ultimately difficult to adjust the heat up and down as you absolutely need when pizza grilling. We bought the smallest Magma grill ( 38 cm ) and got it mounted on the pushpit.
Magma Marine Kettle
Then there’s the pizza stone. We had an old pizza stone, and an old one is in this context the best. Just make sure to buy a stone which is slightly smaller than the grate and you’re ready. I find that the stone we have is perhaps a bit on the bigger side. If you are lucky you can find one that gives it about 1 cm clearance to the edge so you get plenty warm up from below. Ours has no more than 3-4mm gap, but still this works pretty well. To assemble the pizza you must do a little homework. Either bake out all bases at home and half-cook them in the stove at home. Baking on the boat is not very easy, at least not in our boat! Are you not so incredibly fond of baking, we found an alternative that works very well. Both Kiwi, Coop and Ica (and more I think) now sells pre-baked pizza bases in 2-pack. These are very good and supersuitable for boats. We buy two such packages and create 3-4 pizzas for a feast for 5 people (our kids eat like horses!). Assemble the barbecue on the push / pull-pit. Add the pizza stone on the gas on low-to-medium heat. Do not heat too hard, the stone gets mega hot and you can easily burn your pizza. Medium to medium minus on the heat and let it warm for +/- 6-7 minutes while starting on the pizza. The pizza is a straightforward piece of work if you prepared well. Take out one of your prebaked-bottoms, butter pizza sauce you made at home (or bought in the shop). Should you wish a very quick and inexpensive alternative solution I’ve used plain tomato paste from a can/tube and just spread a thin layer. This is pretty sweet and good, and if you do not put on too much this is a great alternative to the usual pizza sauce (and the kids love it!). So on with cheese, real cheese of course, no fake chease (is it called pizza topping, then it is not cheese!). On top, add ham, pineapple, mushrooms, onion rings and everything else you fancy. We usually cook a couple of pizzas with ham and cheese for the kids. For the grownups we do chorizo or pepperoni, cheese, red onion and a little sharp blue cheese. Try anything you fancy 🙂 When ready put the pizza onto the grill. Make sure the stone is not too hot! I turn up the heat on max for about a minute just after I put in the pizza. Afterwards I turn down the heat to the weakest setting for the rest of the cooking time. After 4-5, maybe 6-7 minutes the pizza should be ready. The difference between a pizza grilled this way and baking at home is that the bottom becomes very crunchy but there is no hard crust on the top. The cheese will just melt and become hot, is not possible to get the “brown scorched” on top with just heat coming from below, but I promise, it tastes really great!
The first time make sure to bring double of everything. You’re going to burn one or two pizzas, maybe more. But eventually you get the hang of it and you can enjoy delicious pizza, time after time! We have found that the most important thing when making pizza on the boat is the preparations. Before we leave home, we cut up onions, sausages, prepare the cheese, bake the pizza bottoms, make dressings, pre-fry the mushrooms (mushrooms must heated before putting them on pizza otherwise it becomes very much moisture that gets the whole meal soggy) and pack everything into boxes that we bring with us. On the boat there is only assembly, cooking and and eating, quick and easy!
If you like something spicy on the pizza I can recommend to make a dressing of garlic and chilli. I buy lots of Chinese garlic and plain chilli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%27s_eye_chili) and cut everything into small-small pieces, marinate them in a good olive oil. This is gunpowder strong and good on pizza! Adjust the spicyness with less chilli or remove the seeds (they are the strongest bit). Enjoy Your Meal!
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