PORTLAND, Maine — Myler makes pizza at Monte's Fine Foods for National Pizza Day!
I never need an excuse to eat pizza, but National Pizza Day sure seems like a good reason.
The style of pizza here is a little bit different than what you might think of for a slice. They make Roman-style pizza, which is a bit breadier (in the best possible way), meaning it can hold all of my favorite toppings.
We started off by making the dough. John is a baker at Monte's and he walked me through the steps. We began with cold water, yeast, and a few different types of flour. John said they use different types of flour (spelt, high gluten, and rice flours) to get the right texture and flavor for the pinsa. Pinsa is what the base of the pizza is called for Roman-style pies. It's full of air pockets and it's not as thin as a Neapolitan style pizza, but it's also not as thick as a Sicilian. It's the sweet spot in between.
That all gets tossed in the mixer and a dough hook for 15 minutes before more water, olive oil, and salt are added.
Here's where they do something else that's a little bit different: they ferment it in the fridge for two days. This gives the dough a slow rise, but it also gives it a different flavor than a regular pizza.
After the dough is fermented, folded, balled, and proofed, it's time to shape it. We took the dough ball and covered it in rice flour. Dimpling the dough is the next step as it helps us get more of those delicious air pockets in the dough.
Tossing it like you see in the movies? Nope. Devin is another baker at Monte's and he said you want to let it rest on your forearm and let gravity do the rest of the work. This step ensures that the air stays in the dough. Next step is to toss it in the oven!
Once it came out and cooled, we started to assemble the pizza. I chose their Calabrian Chicken Pizza. I love anything with Calabrian chilis, so this was right up my alley.
Brogan, the kitchen manager at Monte's, walked me through the steps. We started off with a base of their homemade sauce, then smoked mozzarella, Calabrian chili hot sauce, and chicken, before a few nice dollops of a young blue cheese.
Brogan said the parbaked crust really helps keep it crispy while it bakes, but it also helps hold more toppings.
We tossed our pies back into a 600 degree oven to get it all crispy and gooey!
Still, we weren't quite done yet. When the pizzas came out, we added some scallions, parmesan cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil on the crust. Yum.
Now for the taste test. It was amazing (no shocker to anybody). It was SO crispy but still gooey in all of the right places. You don't always get both when you order a pizza, but that's what made this special. If you think the pizza sounds too spicy, I promise it's not. It has a little kick, but nothing that you can't handle.
Thank you to Monte's Fine Foods for having me out. I really enjoyed the pizza and can't wait to come back!
