BBQ Pizza

I still remember the first time I had a BBQ chicken pizza. I was a freshman at BYU and my friends and I would go to this restaurant, I no longer remember where, but it was where all the sports buildings are. Anyway, we would go to this restaurant because it was on-campus and we could use our meal cards there and I would almost always get a BBQ chicken pizza. And I remember it being so good. But this is coming from someone thinking that eating a strawberry Yoplait yogurt and a Nature Valley Oats 'n Honey granola bar every day for breakfast was healthy. I have come a LONG way guys. A LONG WAY.

Anyway, fast forward to a few years ago when we built our pizza oven in the summer of 2017. A pizza my husband loves is BBQ chicken. However, I don't eat chicken and now he doesn't eat chicken (insert dance party) so I started do Jack Fruit BBQ pizzas.

Guys, they are so good. Once this past summer, we had a big group of friends over and I had all the pizza toppings on our prep table for people to make their own pizzas. I had the BBQ jack fruit out there (there was no BBQ chicken to get confused with) and my friend had tried the pizza I had made and was making another. He looks at me and asks, "Katie, is this the chicken?" And I kindly say, "No, that's not chicken."

"Is it pork?"

"No, it isn't pork."

He looks at me very puzzled.

"It's jack fruit."

He continues to look at me very puzzled.

"It's not meat. It's fruit."

His eyes get huge and he yells, "Witchcraft! You made me think that was meat!" And he laughs.

I laugh and say, "I never said it was meat. You just assumed it was."

"Well whatever it is, it is good."

So it can impress a meat eater. And did I mention it is super easy to make? All you do is buy a can of green jack fruit. Look for 'young' or 'green' if it is ripened then it will be sweet and gross. Believe me, I made that mistake once. It was so bad. It was one of those meals you force yourself to choke down because you don't want to waste food. I shudder thinking about it.

Anyway, one can of young jack fruit. Rinse the brine off - I also made that mistake once. Very salty. DO NOT COOK IT IN THE BRINE. Drain and rinse the jack fruit and then cook it over medium heat in water. Add more as it steams away. Once it starts to soften, I add whatever sauce I am using, in this case, BBQ sauce. As it softens, I shred it with my wooden spoon or spatula until it is the consistency of shredded chicken. One can will cover one very large pizza or a few personal sized pizzas.

For the dough, I have two recipes. If I am doing pizzas outside in our oven and I have a long time to prep, I use the 3 hour recipe from Forno Bravo. If I am doing pizzas inside for just our family and it is a last minute decision, I use the One Dough to Rule Them All Pizza Dough from The Mama's Girls. I will give both recipes and you decide which you prefer.

**A half recipe of the Mama's Girls recipe will give you two large pizzas or 3-4 personal sized ones.**

**One forno bravo recipe makes 3-4 personal sized pizzas. I have never halved it because I don't make it inside.**

Ingredients

Dough

-Mama's Girls (this is the half recipe)

1.5 c “warm” water (almost hot)

1 T Yeast

1 T Honey

1/2 tsp Salt

3-3.5 c Flour

-Forno Bravo Recipe

4 cups Flour

1 ½ cups, plus 2 TBL water

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp dry active yeast

Pizza

-BBQ sauce, we like Sweet Baby Ray's

-Vegan cheese, I used fat fig's cheddar recipe

-1 can young jackfruit

-1 mango, diced

-cilantro

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees and make the crust (the two recipes are below)

2. While dough is rising, drain and rinse jack fruit. Add jack fruit and some water to a pan and cook over medium high heat. Add more water as it steams off. Once jack fruit starts to soften, start to shred it with a wooden spatula or fork and start to add BBQ sauce. I just keep adding it and adding it until it is soft and shredded. Final texture should resemble shredded chicken.

3. Peel and dice mango and chop a little cilantro.

4. Roll out your dough. Remove stone from oven and coat with corn meal. Place dough on hot stone and crimp edges to create a crust. Cover in BBQ sauce, cheese, jack fruit, mango, and cilantro.

5. Cook for 10 minutes until cooked in the center.

6. ENJOY

-Mama's Girls Crust

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees with pizza stone inside.

2. Measure “warm” water, it should almost be too hot to keep your hand in, and combine with yeast. Let yeast dissolve and froth on the surface.

3. Add honey, salt, and 1 c of flour and whisk. It should resemble batter.

4. Add remaining flour and mix with a wooden spoon (or a mixer) until it “cleans” from the sides of the bowl.

5. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic on a floured surface (usually around 6 minutes). You want a soft dough but not sticky.

6. Cover and let the dough rest 10-15 minutes.

-Forno Bravo Recipe

1. Combine water and yeast and let the yeast dissolve and froth on the surface.

2. Add salt and flour and stir to combine. Once combined, knead until smooth, elastic, and no longer sticky (about 6-7 minutes).

3. Cover and let rise 1.5 hours.

4. Once the dough has doubled, punch down the dough, form into a large ball and cut into 3 or 4 pieces, depending on how big it is.

5. To make your pizza balls, shape each piece of dough into a ball. Gently roll your dough into a ball, then stretch the top of the ball down and around the rest of the ball, until the outer layer wraps around the other side. Pinch the two ends together to make a smooth ball with a tight outer “skin.” Set your ball seam-side down where it can rest. Dust your pizza balls with flour, and store them under a damp towel, in a proofing tray, or under plastic wrap. This will prevent the outside of the ball from drying out and creating a crust, and becoming difficult to work with. The top of the pizza ball should be soft and silky.

6. Your pizza balls will need to rest for one hour to become soft and elastic so that they can be easily stretched into a thin crust pizza.

**If you won’t need your dough for more than an hour, refrigerate it until you are ready to start.**