Barbecue chicken

Ed LaDou designed it for California Pizza Kitchen the year it opened, and it did more than any other single pizza to convince America that the sauce did not have to be tomato. The smoked gouda is the part people leave out and should not: barbecue sauce is sweet and one dimensional, and smoke is what gives it a second dimension.

The build

1. Toss the cooked chicken in a little of the sauce.
2. Spread the rest thin on the dough. Barbecue sauce has sugar in it and burns much sooner than tomato.
3. Both cheeses, then the chicken, then raw red onion sliced paper thin.

After the oven Chopped fresh coriander. It goes on after the bake or it turns to black threads.

The bake

On top

Sauce

A sweet, thin, tomato based barbecue sauce. Kansas City style rather than a vinegar sauce, which curdles the cheese.

Cheese

Smoked gouda and mozzarella, half and half.

You got it right when The onion still has a raw snap to it and the sauce has caught and gone sticky where it met the crust.