with a couple of threads about pizza ovens in the last couple of days I thought I'd throw in my efforts, although in my case there isnt too much fabrication involved.
about 4 or 5 years ago I was at a car show and someone offered me a cold sausage roll to eat in torrential rain on a cold June day, and I thought how much better that would have been with the smell and taste of hot pastry.
then a few months later and I was in a local shop and they were selling their end of season barbeque things off cheaply, and they had a table top gas barbeque for £10. at that stage I suddenly started thinking about sausage rolls again. an the barbeque was bought.
they are very basic inside, basically a burner attached to a gas valve
so normally on that meal grill there would normally be some lava rocks, but they were thrown and a offcut of 4mm aluminium sheet was used to distribute the heat more evenly.
the lid was also modified by fitting a peice of stainless steel to the lid using nuts a spacers to try and reflect some heat back down to the item being cooked. the round thing is an oven thermometer but its useless as it takes too long to work. the slots on the side to allow the combustion gases to escape were also widened slightly
so I had an oven that I could take camping with me, and its pretty good for doing cheese and pasties, pakora's and samosa's
so for the next 2 or 3 years I was happy with my cooking. but earlier this year I went to a car show and my mates were eating pizza from a trade stand, so I then decided I wanted pizza too.
as I am limited on the cooking space available I stared off using pitta bread as a base. the only issue I had was that they were a bit to crispy around the edges, and I then decided to use thin and cripsy pizza base that was just unrolled to use. this meant I needed to make a paddle to prepare the tiny pizza's on (this was the only bit of welding involved to tig the base to the handle. To prevent the edges from getting burnt I ended up cutting up a large old frying pan which also worked well as a hot stone, so the base was nice and crispy too.
the handle in the modified frying pan was made so that it was detatchable and just hooked over the base
and a very nice thin and crispy pizza cooked at home
the problem with the bases was that they were too thin and wouldnt support themselves so you needed to put them on a plate to cut them up, which isnt the best option camping at a car show. so I ended up using pre made 7" round cheese and tomato bases as they as able to support a decent amount of topping without collapsing.
its been good fun doing this pointless little project and the final version of pizza's went down well, I ended up cooking 10 for mates one evening when camping and preparing the pizza in the boot of my car.
and it all packs away for storage
about 4 or 5 years ago I was at a car show and someone offered me a cold sausage roll to eat in torrential rain on a cold June day, and I thought how much better that would have been with the smell and taste of hot pastry.
then a few months later and I was in a local shop and they were selling their end of season barbeque things off cheaply, and they had a table top gas barbeque for £10. at that stage I suddenly started thinking about sausage rolls again. an the barbeque was bought.
they are very basic inside, basically a burner attached to a gas valve
so normally on that meal grill there would normally be some lava rocks, but they were thrown and a offcut of 4mm aluminium sheet was used to distribute the heat more evenly.
the lid was also modified by fitting a peice of stainless steel to the lid using nuts a spacers to try and reflect some heat back down to the item being cooked. the round thing is an oven thermometer but its useless as it takes too long to work. the slots on the side to allow the combustion gases to escape were also widened slightly
so I had an oven that I could take camping with me, and its pretty good for doing cheese and pasties, pakora's and samosa's
so for the next 2 or 3 years I was happy with my cooking. but earlier this year I went to a car show and my mates were eating pizza from a trade stand, so I then decided I wanted pizza too.
as I am limited on the cooking space available I stared off using pitta bread as a base. the only issue I had was that they were a bit to crispy around the edges, and I then decided to use thin and cripsy pizza base that was just unrolled to use. this meant I needed to make a paddle to prepare the tiny pizza's on (this was the only bit of welding involved to tig the base to the handle. To prevent the edges from getting burnt I ended up cutting up a large old frying pan which also worked well as a hot stone, so the base was nice and crispy too.
the handle in the modified frying pan was made so that it was detatchable and just hooked over the base
and a very nice thin and crispy pizza cooked at home
the problem with the bases was that they were too thin and wouldnt support themselves so you needed to put them on a plate to cut them up, which isnt the best option camping at a car show. so I ended up using pre made 7" round cheese and tomato bases as they as able to support a decent amount of topping without collapsing.
its been good fun doing this pointless little project and the final version of pizza's went down well, I ended up cooking 10 for mates one evening when camping and preparing the pizza in the boot of my car.
and it all packs away for storage