BBQ Chicken & Pizza!

So, we've all, or at least I HOPE you have as well, have gone to the California Pizza Kitchen and tasted one of their delicious pizzas. However, while seated the meal seems large, when you get home, craving another slice, you look into your doggy bag only to discover you don't have one.
They are famous for their new age pizza ideas, back before it was actually cool, but their most popular id the BBQ Chicken Pizza.

I first tried this pizza with my favorite Aunt, who has taken me on many tasty travels, and I fell in love with this piping hot pie of decadence.
How can you go wrong with barbecue sauce, my favorite condiment, and pizza?

However, the price tag on this pizza was outside of my college student budget. $10 for a small pizza and depending on the grocer you could get a frozen one, that would never live up to your expectations. So I embarked to figure out what was in it.
That was the easy part.

1 can, Pizza crust
1 bottle Barbecue sauce, you'll use about half
1 large chicken breast
1 large Red onion, sliced
1 bunch Cilantro leaves loosely chopped
2 cups Mozzarella Cheese (mixed with smoked Gouda for added flavor)

Again, I didn't really measure anything, but you have to cook to your liking.

I got a large chicken breast, seasoned it with salt and pepper then sauteed until almost cooked through. I took the breast out of the pan, cubed it, and cooked it again. I added 1/4 water and 2 tsp of red wine vinegar. This is my fool-proof meat tenderizing method. But this isn't good if you're not covering the meat in a tangy sauce, otherwise you'll get a vinegary taste in every bite. Then I poured over 1/4 barbecue sauce, you don't need much to get this flavor. I thought the sauce could have been sweeter so I put 1 tbsp of syrup, you can use brown sugar. This helped the sauce condense. Take off the heat.

I used another idiot-proof crust. I'll get around to making it from scratch when I'm not battling cold weather. I used a Pillsbury canned thin crust. They come different dough sizes, I fit the dough into the corners of my foil-covered cookie sheet. Like the spicy-smokey pizza I pre-baked the crust. Since this wasn't a deep-dish the crust didn't need very long.

My barbecue sauce of choice is Kraft Honey Barbecue. You can't go wrong with craft. But if you have a favorite, use it. I know many people who love Sweet Baby Ray's, I hate Sweet Baby Ray's. If you like real country sauces, Sticky Fingerz has a Carolina Sweet flavor that is perfect for this. You want a sweet sauce otherwise the flavors will be all off. In the summer I'll do an entry about my homemade sauce recipe. But its only February.

So I spread the sauce, relatively thin onto the crust. This is not a traditional pizza, too much sauce might be too sweet for some, so go easy. Serve more sauce at the table for dipping if you like, but don't give anyone a toothache.

I then scattered the chicken, thinly sliced red onion and 1/2 of my cilantro. For cheese I used only Mozzarella. Gouda is expensive on the college budget and I wanted it all for the spicy-smoky pizza so I sacrificed its flavor from the BBQ Chicken pizza. I then baked it, according to the crust instructions until the cheese melted, then stuck it under the broiler for 30seconds to brown the top. Remember, at this point your just trying to cook the crust through and melt the cheese, everything else is already cooked. Sprinkle on the last of the cilantro when it comes out of the oven.

Let cool and slice!
I suggest a fork and knife for this pizza, it's messier than regular peperoni.
Happy Eating!