Apparently I've had my head in a cave while the rest of the free world figured out how to make pizza at home using the "Skillet broiler method". It's pretty simple, really, here's a video demo:
The crazy thing is that you don't even need pizza stone for this method. I happen to have some in my oven during this video, only because I had just baked some bread and they were too hot to remove-- or rather I was too lazy to remove them.
The equipment you need is a pizza peel, cast iron griddle, two burners on your stove, a fiery hot broiler, and $2 spray bottle filled water, I've only tested this method with a gas broiler, but I'm guessing an electric broiler will do pretty well.
Here's the steps, assuming you've got some pizza dough ready to shape:
- Put your griddle over two burners, and turn them on, full gas! Turn your broiler on, oven open.
- Shape your pizza dough, slide onto peel, and add your toppings.
- Slide the pizza onto the griddle.
- Spray the crust with water so that it will expand properly and not burn to quickly.
- Lower the flame, or turn off entirely.
- Oven mitts on!
- Place the griddle with pizza on board below the broiler, about 5 inches below. You'll have to gauge the best distance after some trial and error.
- About 1:30 minutes in, when the back starts to crisp up and brown, rotate 180 degrees for even heating.
- After about 30 more second, you should have a perfectly crisped pizza, top and bottom. In and out in under two minutes. Voila.
- Place back on stove top, and transfer pizza with a large metal spatula to a cutting board or flat round pizza pan. Cut and eat.
You might need to experiment with just how hot to get your griddle before putting the pizza on it. And how long to cook on the stove top. As you can see from the video, I just cook long enough to give the pizza a good spray. Too hot and you'll burn the bottom a bit, too low, and the pizza bottom won't cook enough and stick to the griddle. Perfectly done, the pizza will slide off the griddle easily when it comes out of the broiler, with a lightly charred bottom.
I like using the griddle instead of an upside-down skillet because the griddle is much bigger than pizza so you don't get flour all over your range. Plus, the griddle has a lot of mass, so it retains the intial heat from the stove top.




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