Pizza

The richness of peperonata contrasted with the mild flavor of ricotta is so perfect we found a way to offer it in both the Pizzeria and the Osteria (see Peperonata with Ricotta Crostini, page 87). We use buricotta, which looks pretty because the cheese holds its shape when it’s baked, but if you can’t get buricotta, the pizza will be equally good made with quality fresh ricotta. In a perfect world your ricotta will get blackened in places like a perfectly roasted marshmallow.

This is a basic three-cheese pizza, the only surprise being the truffle-infused sottocenere cheese. Friend-of-Mozza Michael Krikorian orders this pizza with Fennel Sausage (page 137) on top. His version has become so popular that regular customers now know they can order the same thing if they ask for the “Michael.”

Years ago I discovered a little place in San Francisco that made the most delicious green onion focaccia that I loved and never forgot. When the Pizzeria was conceived, I knew I wanted to offer one with green onions in memory of that one. In trying to invent my green onion pizza, I remembered my days at Spago, where they made a goat cheese and red pepper pizza that was really popular. Goat cheese and bacon is a great combination, as is goat cheese and browned garlic. And then there were those green onions . . . That mishmash of inspirations is how this pizza came to be. The garlic is the same that we use in the Olives al Forno (page 37). While you’re at it, you might want to make enough for both, since the olives would be a great accompaniment to a pizza party.

If we were one of those pizzerias that give wacky names to each pie, this mixed mushroom pizza would be called “The Vegas Guys,” or “Peter’s Pizza.” Our editor, Peter Gethers, has a group of guys he goes to Las Vegas with every year for some sort of guy reunion weekend. They meet in Los Angeles and the tradition is that they choose a different restaurant to eat dinner in the night before they leave for Vegas. I’m flattered that for the last few years, they’ve quit chowing around and held their dinner consistently in the private dining room in the Pizzeria, called the Jack Warner Room. They were particularly excited about this pizza. It’s a pretty straightforward mushroom pie, but the fact that we roast the mushrooms before adding them to the pizza, and the combination of taleggio and fontina cheeses that top it, make it especially flavorful.

Long-cooked broccoli is one of my all-time favorite vegetable preparations, so I had to find a way to work it onto a pizza. Normally I don’t like broccoli on pizza because whenever I’ve seen it, it’s just been dropped onto the pizza raw, and often with a whole mix of other uncooked vegetables that don’t go with each other or with pizza. Here, the broccoli is cooked until it has a buttery texture, so it works with the crust instead of just sitting on top of it. We use a mix of mozzarella and caciocavallo cheese, a Sicilian cheese similar to mozzarella that has been dried and aged for a few weeks, so it has a funky aged flavor that goes well with the broccoli. If you can’t find caciocavallo cheese, look for scamorza, or use all mozzarella in its place.

This is my number-one favorite Pizzeria Mozza pizza, and it’s a direct rip-off of the Norcia pizza they serve at Pellicano. Sausage and panna, or cream, is a classic combination in Umbria. The summer I discovered this pizza I ordered it every time I went to Pellicano, in an effort to figure out what was in the white sauce that was smeared on the crust. When I asked, they told me “panna.” I knew panna was cream, but I couldn’t understand how they could put cream on pizza. Finally, I went back to the kitchen to see for myself, and what I saw was that the cream had been whipped, making it spreadable. Whipping cream for a pizza was such a foreign idea to me that when I started playing with pizzas for the restaurant, I tried to avoid it. I made this pizza with crème fraîche and later with mascarpone—anything not to put whipped cream on a pizza—but the whipped cream was definitely the best.

Clam pizza, a Connecticut tradition, is one of the specialties at Lombardi’s in New York City, and having my first clam pie there is one of my most memorable pizza-eating experiences. We use a combination of Parmigiano and pecorino to finish this pizza, but if you want to use only one, pick your favorite.

This was one of the original ten pizzas we served at the Pizzeria. I knew I wanted to offer a potato pizza, and I love the combination of potatoes and Gorgonzola.

No matter how creative we like to be with our pizzas, we also have a big place in our hearts for the classics such as this—essentially a pepperoni pizza with roasted chiles added for extra kick.

This is my answer to that controversial phenomenon of the mainstream pizza world—anchovy pizza. I use marinated white anchovies, which you can get at specialty stores both in the deli and in the fish departments. They are silvery and slightly plump, like sardines—very different from salt-packed anchovies or those sold in cans and jars. I love their flavor and vinegary quality.

This classic pizza is a Margherita with prosciutto draped on the pizza after it comes out of the oven. I added arugula because I love the combination of arugula and prosciutto.

Pellicano offers a meat lover’s pizza, so I felt I had to offer one, too. Our version should be called a “pork lover’s pizza” because all four of the meats we put on it—fennel sausage, salami, guanciale, and bacon—are pork.

I created this pizza, an upgraded take on “Hawaiian pizza,” typically made with Canadian bacon and canned pineapple, for my son, Ben. When he was growing up, that’s the pizza he always ordered and I cringed at the combination every time. When I opened up my own pizzeria, I wanted to come up with a pizza using the same or similar ingredients that would please both Ben and me. We start with fresh pineapple and slice it paperthin so it caramelizes in the oven, and we use speck in place of Canadian bacon. But what I think really makes this pizza is the addition of jalapeño peppers. Their heat cuts through the sweetness of the pineapple.

Marinara—pizza with tomato sauce and oregano and without cheese—is one of the two kinds of pizzas approved by the Assocciazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. At the tiny bakery in Panicale, they always have a sheet pan of tomato pizza and one of zucchini pizza on display, both sold at room temperature. It’s so simple, but made with good sauce and fragrant oregano, it’s delicious. Prepare and stretch the dough and preheat the oven according to the instructions given in “Nancy’s Scuola di Pizza” (page 128). Brush the rim of the dough with olive oil and season the entire surface with salt. Ladle or spoon the sauce onto the center of the dough and use the back of the ladle or spoon in a circular motion to spread the sauce out over the surface of the dough, leaving a 1-inch rim without any sauce. Scatter the pieces of cheese over the pizza, slide it into the oven, and bake until the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown and crispy, 8 to 12 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven and cut it into quarters. Drizzle the pizza with the finishing-quality olive oil, scatter the tiny basil leaves or snip the large leaves over the top, and serve.

Our prettiest pizza, this is the one that customers are most likely to point to when they see it being carried through the dining room. The squash blossoms are laid out over the surface so they bake into the crust, and the pizza ends up looking like a painting. We put the burrata on after it comes out of the oven, and I love the cool creamy cheese on the hot, crispy pizza.

Just as you would order a baguette to judge a bakery, Margherita is the pizza to order to judge a pizzeria. Not only is Pizza Margherita the original pizza Napoletana but it has all the elements you want to look at: the sauce, the cheese, and of course, the crust. It’s our biggest seller.

The first thing I need to tell you about this pizza dough recipe is that it is not an exact replica of the pizza dough we use at Pizzeria Mozza. What I can promise you, however, is that when you make this dough at home, your pizza will be just as delicious as the one we serve. Dough reacts differently in different ovens, and when our restaurant dough is baked in a home oven the result is a thick and doughy crust—not at all like those that come out of our extremely hot wood-fired ovens. My challenge for this book was to come up with a recipe for a pizza dough that, when baked in a home oven, resulted in a crust that was as close to what we get out of our pizza ovens as possible. And with the invaluable help and relentless persistence of Jon Davis, a breadbaker whom I’ve worked with since I hired him at La Brea Bakery more than twenty years ago, we came up with this recipe. The dough is made with a sponge, which means that half of the flour is fermented, or aged, for a period of time—in this case, for an hour and a half—before being mixed with the remaining ingredients. This is a breadbakers’ trick to coax the subtle flavor characteristics from the flour in a relatively short period of time. I have also made this dough without the sponge, adding all of the flour and water at once and saving that hour and a half of fermenting time. If you are pressed for time, you can do this, and though you might lose a bit of flavor, it will still be better than most pizzas I’ve been served in the States. You will need a scale to make this recipe. Bread making, or in this case pizza dough making, is so specific, there is no way around it. When making the dough, it’s important to time it so that it’s ready when you want to make your pizzas.

This Italian classic typically showcases four cheeses (“quattro formaggi”) with different characteristics. For our rendition, we topped the crust with fontina (semifirm), mozzarella (soft and fresh), Gorgonzola (blue-veined), and Pecorino Romano (hard and aged).