BBQ Chicken Pizza

Every Friday night in the West's house is Pizza night. Brian has become the master of pizza dough and yummy toppings. Whenever anyone is over for our pizza night they too fall in love with Brian's recipes. BBQ is our family fav!

• Dough ingredients
• 2 chicken breast, thawed and diced.
  
• 1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese.
• 5 strips of bacon or 1/4 cup of ham. ( Bacon is better, but the ham will do if you're short on fat back)
  
• 1/2 cup of thinly sliced red onion (The more the better, whomever you are making this for will love you so much they won't care about your onion breath)
  
• 1/2 cup of tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup BBQ sauce
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/4 shredded Parmesan cheese.

Pizza Dough

1 package active dry yeast

1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/ 45 degrees C)

2 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons white sugar

1. In a small bowl, dissolved yeast in warm water. Let stand until cream, about 10 minutes.

2. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, white sugar, and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine. Beat well until stiff dough has formed. Cover and rise until doubled in volume, and about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

3. Turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough into a round and roll out into a pizza crust shape. Cover with your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Chicken

• Before you prep your dough, thaw and marinate in your favorite BBQ sauce. Sweet Baby Ray's is the best in my book and you can get a big ol' double pack a Costco.
  
• While the pizza is in the oven cook the chicken on the stove in a pan on medium-high heat. Ensure you add all of the BBQ sauce to the pan as well as some extra for good measure. You want enough sauce so that it lightly caramelizes on the chicken. Once the chicken is almost fully cooked (8-10 minutes) turn down the heat to medium-low so that you don't burn your nice gooey sauce covered chicken bits.

BBQ Pizza Sauce

• 1/2 cup of tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup BBQ sauce
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/4 shredded Parmesan cheese.

Prep dough according to recipe.

• When proofing dough add one good pinch of sugar to the warm water for each yeast packet ( one per batch)
• Add the rest of the sugar to the yeast mixture just before adding it to the flour mixture.
• Mix flour and salt prior to adding the oil, then add the yeas mixture. I prefer to do this with the wisp attachment.
  
• If using a Kitchen Aid or other similar mixer: Mix, flour, oil, and yeast mixture, and then add flour in 1/4 cup increments until the dough starts to pull away from the side of the bowl, then switch to the dough hook and kneed for about 5 minutes. The longer you kneed the better the rise you will get.
• Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place for atleast 15 minutes. The dough will be better if you let it rise for more like an hour, but we normally are all starving and want pizza NOW, so a short rise will do just fine.
• While dough rises prepare your sauce and toppings.
• Once risen, dump dough out on a lightly floured surface. I recommend using a large cutting board, like the bamboo one we have. This keeps the flour contained to the board and off of your counter and subsequently your floor.
• Loosly form into a mount. DO NOT KNEED IT, if you do it will be difficult to stretch out to a full sized pizza.
• Lightly flour the top and make sure your hands are nice and floury.
• Slide your hands under the dough, palms down so the dough is resting on the back of your hands, now lift the dough up and form the pizza. As you lift the dough up at an angle it will start to sag down on the side, this is where you turn it to let the other side stretch. Nothing fancy just a couple of turns to stretch out the dough, no tossing necessary. (unless you're feeling froggy). then place the dough back on the floured surface and finish forming the pizza by stretching out the uneven sides.
• Transfer the dough to your stone or baking sheet. If using a stone I recommend preheating it so that it is not cold when you put the pizza on it. It does not have to be super hot, just not cold.
• Top with BBQ pizza sauce, 3/4 cup of cheese, and onion. (Add ham now if using).
• Place in oven on bottom rack; 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted.
• Pull pizza out, top with chicken, bacon, and last 1/4 cup of cheese. Brush crust with olive oil so the crust will brown.
  
• Place back in oven on middle rack, remove when newly added cheese is melted and crust is golden brown.
• Allow to cool for 2-3 minutes, cut, and pig out.

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