Chef Paul Berglund went to the farmers market before class. Then we built a pizza out of whatever he found.
Most of the time you decide what pizza you're making and then go shopping for it. Paul did it backwards. He stopped at the Fulton Street Farmers Market on his way over Wednesday morning, walked the stalls, and bought what the farms had pulled that week. Then we figured out the pizza.
What hooked him were the peppers.
Somebody asked on the call what variety they were. Paul's answer: “These are Italian frying peppers. They're not like Jimmy Nardello. They might be Corno di Toro. The farmer that I bought them from had them just listed as Italian frying peppers.”
That's the whole spirit of it. Go find what your farm is calling Italian frying peppers. Long, tapered, oval instead of bell-shaped. Paul says they're like a bell pepper but more succulent. He's right.
Watch the whole class
Here's the full hangout if you want to see us build it.
Who Paul is
Paul Berglund owns Myrth in Ada, which is the best pizza I've had in Michigan, and I came here from Boston. He spent four years in the Navy, seven at Oliveto in Oakland, and he's a James Beard winner, one of two in the state.
Here's the part I didn't know until he said it on the call. Before Myrth opened, before the wood oven went in, Paul was testing his dough at home on Baking Steels. So this was a full circle thing for both of us.
The two techniques worth stealing
Par-roast your tomatoes. Paul sliced three tomatoes, cored them, drizzled olive oil and salt, and roasted them at 400 on convection for about 25 minutes before class. His reasoning: “the water content of the tomatoes really sogs out the pizza, makes it pretty soupy.”
His cooking rule is simpler the better, and if you can put something on raw and skip a step, do it. Tomatoes are the exception.
Roast your peppers whole, then steam them. We put them under the broiler on the steel for about five minutes, finished them another five on the lower steel, then dropped them in a bowl and covered it with plastic wrap while they were still ripping hot. Twenty minutes of steaming and the skins slide right off.
You can slice peppers and roast them in oil instead. Paul does both. But he says roasting them whole gives you a completely different flavor, and standing next to that bowl when he pulled the wrap off, I believe him. No oil, nothing. They went in raw.
One small thing from Paul that's worth holding onto: the peppers give up a lot of juice in that bowl. Here he pours it off, because it would soak the crust. But he said if you're making pasta, save it. Pull the seeds out and use it.
The build
Paul deliberately over-topped this one. His oven at the restaurant runs 800 degrees and the toppings behave differently up there. At 500 in a home oven, the same amount of topping comes out dry, so he put more on.
Bottom to top:
- Crushed tomatoes. Stanislaus, blitzed with an immersion blender, straight from the can. No cooking.
- Fresh basil, layered on the sauce. Paul likes cooked basil and puts it under the cheese on purpose.
- Grande whole milk low-moisture mozzarella, shredded.
- Roasted pepper strips.
- Roasted tomato slices.
- Sausage, already cooked, scattered on top so it crisps.
- Grated Grana Padano over everything.
On the cheese, Paul had a reason. Grande is about the only large commercial supplier whose shredded mozzarella doesn't use an anti-caking enzyme. It clumps a little more. It also tastes better.
The bake
Straight bake. No broiler.
I have two steels in my oven, one about eight inches above the other. We used the bottom one and cooked it like a deck oven. With that much wet topping on it, the broiler would have scorched the top before the sausage and peppers came up to temperature.
- Oven at 500, convection on
- Steel on the lower rack
- 7 minutes 30 seconds
It came out with New York color. No char, which is what we wanted, because the ingredients were already beautiful.
Finishing
Out of the oven, cut into six, then drizzle five-year aged balsamico over the top.
Paul uses Leonardi. Not balsamic glaze, which is a product restaurants buy, but actual aged balsamico reduced the traditional way. It behaves like a glaze because of the age. Each coin on the Leonardi label is a year. Three coins, three years. Five coins, five.
Peppers and balsamic is one of Paul's favorite combinations in cooking. He lived in Spain his junior year of college and says this pizza evokes it.
One honest note
We let it sit for ten minutes while we answered questions, and it got floppy. Paul called it before I did. It's a heavily topped pizza and it wants to be eaten hot. His lighter pizzas hold their crisp longer.
Eat this one right away.
Market Pizza
Makes one 12-inch pizza
- 1 ball of 72-Hour Pizza Dough
- Crushed tomatoes, about 1/3 cup
- Fresh basil leaves
- Whole milk low-moisture mozzarella, shredded, about 4 oz
- 2 Italian frying peppers, roasted and peeled
- 3 tomatoes, par-roasted
- Italian sausage, cooked, about 3 oz
- Grana Padano, grated
- Aged balsamico, for finishing
Par-roast the tomatoes. Core and slice. Drizzle with olive oil and salt. 400 on convection for 25 minutes.
Roast the peppers. Whole, raw, nothing on them. Under the broiler for 5 minutes, then another 5 on the lower rack until the skins blister and blacken. Move them straight into a bowl, cover tight with plastic wrap, and let them steam 20 minutes. Peel, pull the seeds, slice into strips.
Preheat. 500 degrees, convection, steel on the lower rack. Forty-five minutes is enough.
Build. Stretch the dough. Sauce, basil, mozzarella, peppers, roasted tomatoes, sausage, Grana Padano.
Bake. 7 to 8 minutes, straight bake, no broiler.
Finish. Cut into six, then drizzle the balsamico.
The dough. We used our 72-Hour Pizza Dough Mix. Three ingredients, Central Milling organic flour, pre-measured. Add water, knead two minutes, and let it do the rest. This batch was at 48 hours rather than the full 72 and it was still beautiful.
Paul's word for it was supple. He said it felt like silk. For a guy who's been making dough professionally for twenty years, I'll take it.