The Redd Party: How to Host an Iron Chef Party: Pizza Edition

I'm not sure why it took us so long to do a Pizza Edition of Iron Chef. But we finally did it this last weekend and it sure was fun AND easy to set up and run.

Now there are a few things you'll want to arrange to make it all work:

1. Put someone in charge of making a bunch of pizza dough.

I made Peter Reinhart's pizza dough recipe in the afternoon and they were ready to go for the evening. The dough is even better the next day, so if you can manage to get it ready the night before, you'd be set. One batch made six 6-oz balls of dough and it was pretty quick making 5 batches!

Pre-pizza dough

2. Have the party at a place with an oven and an outdoor grill. This will help with the pizza-making flow.

The lovely Miss G hosted this Iron Chef at her new apartment and also "inherited" a grill specifically for the party from her parents--she spent 2 hours cleaning that thing for us! Side note: If you can manage to get a charcoal grill too, I bet the pizza would taste even better!

3. Put someone in charge of the sauce. Lee made a white sauce, and we also bought a couple of jars of red sauce.

4. Ask everyone else to bring 2 to 3 toppings. Those can range from meats, cheeses, vegetables, fruit, other sauces. Encourage them to get creative! Someone made a pizza with pears and bacon. I had anchovies on my pizza!

Sardines for my pizza!

5. Ask a couple people to bring drinks and a dessert in lieu of their toppings.

6. We also had these on hand, which were extremely helpful: olive oil, corn meal, aluminum foil, a cutting board, and a pizza cutter.

Then get going and make your pizzas!

Dough first...