BBQ Chicken Pizza

Makes one 16" pizza, with a liberal amount of toppings

• 1 pound frozen pizza dough
  
• 2 T
  
• 2 chicken breasts, poached in heavily salted water, then cut into a ¾" to 1" dice
  
• 1 cup BBQ sauce—the simpler the better
  
• 8 ounces sliced pineapple, canned or fresh
  
• ½ medium red onion, cut into a ½" dice
  
• 1-2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  
• ½ cup asiago cheese
  
• ½ cup minced cilantro
  

Defrost the pizza dough. Take it out before you leave for work. Put it in a bowl about 4x the volume of the frozen dough. Cover the dough with plastic wrap, ensuring that the plastic wrap is completely in contact with the bowl, as well as the dough—you're goal here is to minimize the amount of air between the plastic wrap and the dough, as air will dry out the parts of the dough with which it is in contact. This will make it challenging to work with. After 8-10 hours, the dough should have thawed and risen, filling most of the bowl.

Oven Preparation: Place the oven rack to its lowest position. Set the oven to "Bake" and pre-heat to 550 degrees, or whatever is the highest temperature on your oven.

Make the crust: Place a liberal amount of flour on a cutting board or other work surface. Remove the dough from the bowl. Form it back into a bowl. Liberally flour the outside of the ball of dough. Then begin expanding it into the crust. Do this by first placing the dough on your closed fist and letting gravity help to attenuate the dough over your fist. Then place your other fist in, and begin, using both fists to form the crust, continuously expanding the diameter of the dough, by expanding the distance of your hands from one another. The motion is somewhat like small, vertical slow-motion boxing jabs, with the fists getting progressively further apart. Whatever you do, DON'T let it get a hole in it. If you get a hole in it, you are going to have a soggy pizza. It's not the end of the world, and my first attempts were all like that, but you want to avoid holes if you can.

Spread the pizza only a pizza stone (pre-heat if you have one) or a 16" pizza pan. Then taking a pastry brush, brush the melted butter over the crust, brushing the rim most liberally brushing the rim. Spread ½ cup of the BBQ sauce over the pizza. This will seem like a small amount, but should be sufficient, and will help to keep the pizza crisp. Sprinkle mozzarella and asiago cheese to taste. It does not need to be covered in cheese. It will seem very cheesy, even if you still see a substantial amount of sauce and crust. Toss chicken with BBQ sauce to coat. Sprinkle over onions and evenly distribute pineapple.

Cook for 6 minutes. Check to see that it is cooking evenly. If cheese is melted and crust is approaching golden brown, remove. Otherwise, continue cooking. Typically, it will take between 7 and 8 minutes to cook in a 550 degree oven.

Remove, sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Recommended Side, Corn and Feta Salad

Adapted from Oasis restaurant in Palo Alto, CA