>>Mark Bello: Alright.
Welcome everybody.
My name is Mark Bello.
My assistants: the lovely Jenny over here
and that's Sam.
A little bit about what I do.
Any pizza makers in the house by the way?
Yes.
What are those?
Kind of like a?
Like bagels, is that what you're talking about
or English muffins?
>>male audience member #1: I try.
>>Mark Bello: Try.
Alright.
Other pizza makers?
Dough makers?
People that make their own dough?
Yep.
So, so my business is called Pizza a Casa
Pizza School.
We also affectionately call it the Pizza Self-Sufficiency
Center and uh, well in a nutshell what happened,
I'm born here, Mt. Sinai Hospital, and grew
up in West Chester and then Essex County,
New Jersey.
So I love the pizzas of New York, New Jersey,
New Haven, has anyone been up to New Haven
for pizza?
Yes.
Pepe's or Sally's?
Or both, right?
>>female audience member #1: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: And Modern, right, so.
But, so I love the pizzas from here and I
found myself in college in St. Louis and then
grad school in Chicago, and you know, when
I was out there, I mean I loved the Midwest,
but to say the pizzas were not the pizzas
that I grew up eating.
You know, in all fairness to deep dish, I
mean though my bracelet does say "death before
deep dish" on it, I, I will enjoy a slice
of deep dish when in Chicago, but to me, it's
more of a casserole than it is, you know,
the thin crust sort of slices I grew up eating.
So when I went over, when I come home to visit
my parents, you know, Thanksgiving break,
winter break, straight from the airport; my
favorite slice shop in Milburn, New Jersey,
La Strada Pizzeria is still there.
Then throughout the visit I would go to all
my favorite spots throughout New York, New
Jersey.
If you guys later on wanna geek out about
like where to go, if you want to tell me some
new places, I'm down to hear it.
And not only to eat pizzas, but to get extra
pizzas, because I had this whole system of
transporting slices back to Chicago.
You know, each slice, first of all, don't
close the box till it's perfectly cool, so
you don't, you know, get the pizza all soggy.
Then wrap each slice tightly in foil, individually,
tightly in foil to prevent freezer burn, and
then into a Ziploc labeled into my mom's freezer
in Jersey and then back to Chicago in my suitcase
in one of those soft cooler bags.
So I did this for a while.
My friends would, you know, tease me and simultaneously
they'd sneak into my apartment and steal slices
out of the freezer.
So, you know, I've cooked all my life.
But one thing I'd never done is I'd never
done anything involving yeast, because I was
intimidated.
Was the yeast gonna work, was it not gonna
work?
And a good buddy of mine, a guy named Neal,
grew up working in the pizza biz since he
was like 14 years old and we were out late
one night, you know we could go to a White
Castle, we were starving, we could go to a
White Castle, we could go to a diner and instead
you know Neal's like "this pizza thing is
ridiculous, you should start making your own."
So we went to the supermarket and bought the
yeast and the flour and the cheese and all
that and so began this quest on not just how
do you make a pizza at home.
But how do you really get like a dynamite
crust?
You know, good balance of crispiness and breadiness,
good balance of flavor and all that, given
the limitations of your, your home kitchen,
you know?
Does anyone have a pizza oven?
Yet, right?
That's what we like to say.
So what I was doing was playing around with
a, I had an electric, domestic, you know,
home oven in my apartment.
And we, these late night sessions would start,
you know about sunrise we'd still be checking
out slices and all that.
So today for the class what I've got here,
this is a 500 degree electric portable convection
oven, so essentially simulating what your
home situation is.
And in our classroom and we're gonna cue a
video in a second here, what we have is we
assemble a group of folks, you know, it's,
it's a lot of fun because people don't really
know each other before the class starts and
at the end of class everyone's swappin' slices,
e-mail addresses, all that.
And anyway, what we teach is how to, you know,
get this great pizza given the limitations
of your home kitchen.
So you'll notice in the video our oven is
just an electric domestic oven.
It tops out at 525 degrees and that, you know,
maintaining the heat in your oven with a good
baking stone in there and then paying attention
to the little tips and techniques that we
impart in the class, you know, will, will
show you how to how to get this great pie.
But anyway, do you guys wanna cue that video
and take a look?
[music begins]
>>Mark Bello: Well my name is Mark Bello and
this is my place, it's called Pizza a Casa.
Pizza a Casa means pizza at home.
This is something that can easily people get
together with their friends and their family
and they say, let's, let's make Pizza a Casa.
And so here it's a cooking school and what
we do is we, very specifically we teach people
how to make a really dynamite pizza given
the limitations of, of the home kitchens.
All kinds of people come to our classes.
Some people are practicing pizza makers who
want to just take their pizza making to the
next level and other people have never touched
flour in their life.
And everybody, after the four-hour class that
we have, leave pizza proficient and able to
replicate this in their own ovens.
[pause]
During the course of our pizza class, we're
gonna teach you all the little tips and techniques
that really get a dynamite crust, great balance
of flavor, given the limitations of your home
oven.
So you know the lessons that we have here,
I've been making pizza for a decade plus,
and the course is to fast forward you past
all of the limp, lifeless, soggy pies that
I had to endure and just take you right to
the, to the main event.
[music ends]
>>Mark Bello: So that's our space.
We're down on the Lower East Side.
If you guys know the Doughnut Plant, we're
very, you guys familiar with the Doughnut?
Oh yeah, trouble.
We're a couple doors down, right next to Kossar's
Bialys, there's sort of a round food theme
going on where we are, so.
Ok.
So I'm gonna make three pizzas today and three
different pizzas.
Actually six in total because they'll be enough
slices for all of you guys to have a little
taste.
And then also we did a menu for the TGIAF.
Has, have people had the sandwiches yet that
we did or the vegetable dishes and stuff?
Oh, ok.
Yeah Jason and his crew were rockin' those
out.
So the first pizza is Margherita, you know.
The very, the classic, you know, tomato sauce,
mozzarella, basil pizza, which by the way
very intentionally the colors of the Italian
flag.
To me the Margherita represents like the perfect
pizza.
And when I go to a new place, whatever sort
of you know quail egg, truffle, shaved asparagus
thing they're gonna tempt me with, I have
to get a Margherita, 'cause that's the equalizer,
you know, just to see how it is.
And, and this pizza really I think also demonstrates
the fundamentals of how to get just a really
great pizza, again, in your home oven.
Something I like to say a lot is "less is
more."
You know?
And you'll see.
So first of all here's our dough, nicely risen
up in the container here.
And very simply I can point you to our dough
recipe on the web site as well.
Smooth surface to work your dough.
And I dust this with some all-purpose flour.
And then remove the dough, gentle to not tear
up.
Yeast has been doing all this nice leavening
in there and you want to maintain that.
Alright, a little flour on the top.
Something I like to tell people too is an
amoebic pizza tastes better than a circular
pizza that you overwork to make a circle,
because you know really just hammering that
pizza to try to get it perfectly symmetrical,
you're taking all the, all the breath of the
yeast out of the dough and it gets very flat
and that's where you get your cardboardy crust.
So, you know, I'll show you how to get a circle
and it takes a little practice, but don't
be fixated on it.
If your pizza starts looking like the shape
of Alaska or something like that, it's all
good.
Alright, so first thing, just a very gentle
touch, I'm just patting my dough down.
And I press it all the way to the edge.
I don't have to force a thicker outer edge
to get that that puffy handle or in Italian
called the cornicione.
I just leave the center ever so slightly thicker
because as my circle gets bigger, the center's
gonna thin and I want to leave myself a little
bit of slack in there.
Alright, so my hands fit on there nice, I
wanna check is this movin' and groovin' on
the marble, so I give it one more, it's like
in between periods in a hockey game, Zamboni
comes out, smooth that up and then nice glide.
Alright, and this is a move that I picked
up about three years ago just totally by accident.
I got to make pizzas in this Italian restaurant
with a wood-burning oven, and the first night
I went, I was, the chef invited me to come,
I'd never cooked in a wood-burning oven, made
some pizzas, they apparently were good enough
to send to the customers.
The customers didn't send 'em back, so that
was a good sign, so they invited me back the
second night and little did I know that the
pizza chef basically considered me now trained,
so he just didn't show up, Saturday night.
So I'm there and I'm totally in the weeds,
trying to, you know, keep up the pace.
And the owner comes over and shows me this
move and I have since dubbed this the DJ,
because it reminds me very much of sort of
like a record scratching sort of a routine.
But very simply you're just pulling the outer
edge of the dough to stretch it into a circle,
so one hand is just applying enough pressure
just to hold it so when I pull it, it doesn't
slip out from my hand.
And I'll show ya. [pause] You see the dough
is spinning around by itself as I go? [pause]
Voilá.
Cool.
Anybody?
[applause]
>>Mark Bello: That's it, alright.
So, ok, so I'm gonna stretch out two of these,
so I can get a peel here and this is some
semolina flour.
This is what I'm gonna use as a release on
my peel, the big spatula thingy, also called
a peel, p-e-e-l.
If you don't know any of the terms that I
use today, you can Google them.
No, just kidding.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Like you've not heard that before.
Sorry.
Alright, let me stretch this guy out here
and then I'll start demonstrating that.
Ok, once again, circle out.
Some flour down.
[pause]
>>male audience member #2: So thin semolina,
right?
The sort of thing that you use in pasta.
>>Mark Bello: The, I'm sorry?
>>male audience member #2: Thin semolina,
right?
The sort of thing that you use in pasta.
>>Mark Bello: The semolina is a coarse, it's
the like the durum wheat that used for like
making pasta.
>>male audience member #2: There is also the
coarse semolina that’s the texture of [inaudible].
>>Mark Bello: Texture of?
>>male audience member #2: [inaudible] you
actually can see the grains.
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
These, you know what later on I'll, I'll give
you a shake of this.
It's, it's pretty gritty.
I mean essentially it's like ball bearings
on there, that's gonna allow the pizza to
roll right off of the peel.
The other thing I like about semolina is that
a little bit of it is gonna stick on the bottom
of the crust, and so it toasts, and you get
this nice added textural crunch.
And it also gets a kind of a nice, a little
subtle nutty flavor to it when it toasts.
>>male audience member #2: [inaudible] two
brands of semolina, the finer or the coarser,
I'm trying to figure out which one.
>>Mark Bello: This is the coarser of the two,
yeah, that I'm using here.
I buy this, I mean, for pasta making it's
the same stuff that I use, this is the Italian
stuff.
>>male audience member #2: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
>>male audience member #2: The coarse, it's
like grits.
>>Mark Bello: Oh, like.
Oh, ok.
You know like in New Haven they use cornmeal
to dust their pizza peels, and they make it
work, I mean, because I find cornmeal accumulates
a lot on your, on your baking stone, starts
to burn and you know I mean I love a charred
pizza, but it gets this sort of bitter thing
going on.
They know how to rock it in New Haven, I don't
know, but for me the semolina I find is utili,
you know works great for releasing the pizza
and then also gives you that nice texture
and added flavor.
Ok.
Thank you, sir.
[pause] Alright, all these little imperfections,
or perceived imperfections here, leave 'em
be.
'Cause you know if you start to sort of overwork
this here, that's where you're gonna get that
flat cardboardy crust, and if you leave that,
that's all gonna rise up and be beautiful
and bready and crispy.
In a few minutes you're gonna taste this.
Fresh mozzarella.
This is from a place in Little Italy called
Alleva, which is actually the oldest Italian
cheese shop in the United States.
They've been making mozzarella since 1892.
But you know, if I don't have my, my Italian
you know mom and pop shop mozzarella, in the
supermarket, you know, we would be buying
the low moisture, whole milk balls of mozzarella.
Not the part skim, the whole milk, more flavor
and it's gonna melt a lot better.
And you're gonna see, you don't have to use
a lot to actually get this going.
So I'll cut this in some slabs.
[pause] This here and get my sauce prepped
as well.
So the sauce too.
Crazy simple.
And I stirred hours to figure this out.
But basically this is something that's called
passata, which is a, means puree in Italian.
It's an Italian tomato puree.
But your, your pureed tomatoes, good quality
tomatoes, and this is you know about a $3.00
bottle right here, I can get about six pizzas
out of here.
[pause] Some nice fresh garlic.
And then with either a garlic press or a microplane,
one of these graters here, what I do is per
bottle of passata, which is a 28 ounce bottle,
or if I'm doing canned, canned pureed tomatoes,
it's a 28 ounce bottle, or 28 ounce can, three
cloves of garlic grated in there.
So yeah, what I like a lot about the microplane
is you get that nice paste going on.
So that's gonna melt right into the sauce.
[pause] And that's sauce.
Simple, eh?
You're gonna see, it actually, this is gonna
cook on the pizza in the oven.
So right now if you were to taste this, you
would be tasting that garlic for the rest
of the day, but for the six to ten minutes
that these pizzas are gonna bake, it's gonna,
you're gonna have nice bright tomato flavor,
the garlic's gonna be there.
>>male audience member #3: So if you go to
like the store and get like cans of Hunts
crushed tomatoes or whatever, it's the right
consistency?
>>Mark Bello: Yes.
Some tend to be a little thicker than others.
This is puree as opposed to crushed.
Crushed is a little bit thicker preparation.
And different purees have like different viscosities,
I mean this is kind of what I'm looking for.
But you know it's just sort of a trial and
error thing, you know, find a puree that you
like.
And it doesn't have to be you know like fancy
imported Italian, I mean of course these are
delightful tomatoes and I've got another bottle
up here if anyone wants to come up and take
a taste.
But you know a lot of domestic brands, California
brands, Canadian tomatoes.
We, we hosted a tomato tasting event at our
shop and winning tomatoes, Luigi Vitelli from
Canada for the whole peel, so.
You know, so first thing that's going on my
pizza is not the sauce, it's actually the
cheese.
This is a point often in our classes where
people you know coming in during the meet
and greet they're like, oh, you know I'm a
pizza maker, but one of the problems is my
pizzas never cook right, you know, they're
gummy, they're soggy, they're undercooked,
like what am I doing wrong?
And at this point in the demo, they're like,
wait a minute, you're not gonna put more cheese
on there?
And that's the thing is that overtopping the
pizza, the pizza doesn't cook.
So, and how did I figure this out?
Totally by accident because what happened
was.
You wanna start breaking this up here?
Sam, if you guys.
I'll do that.
I figured this out because like one day, you
know, I was hungry, I had a ball of dough.
I had a little mozzarella, I had a little
sauce.
Not as much as I normally would use to make
a pizza, but I made it anyway.
And it was the best pizza I'd ever made.
And then I realized, that was my big "ah ha"
moment, like that's what I was doing.
I was basically suffocating my pizza under
too many toppings.
So it's a pretty cool thing to figure out
that, you know, if you use less your pizzas
come out better.
So I mean that just equals, you can eat more
pizza.
Alright, so second, my sauce.
[pause] And it's also, it's not about like
a full opaque blanket of sauce here.
I wanna allow the pizza to breathe as it bakes.
And when this is finished, and you'll see
the finished product, all that sauce and that
cheese nicely spreads out.
It's also where six years of art school comes
very handy.
Tell who my favorite action painter was.
Alright.
I'll get the pecorino on it in a sec. [pause]
So I'm just kind of dotting it here and there
on the cheese.
You know if the cheese was to go on the top,
what would happen is, instead of it melting
and spreading out, it would just basically
bake in place, so you'd have these sort of
toasted, you know, islands of mozzarella.
But this is gonna allow the crust to bake
through in the beginning and by the end everything
should be all spread out very nicely.
And then the last thing that's gonna go on
before baking is some pecorino Romano to give
it a little nice saltiness there.
[pause]
>>male audience member #4: [inaudible] have
salt in your sauce?
>>Mark Bello: The sauce?
This contains salt, this bottle, but it's
pretty mild.
And most purees like in a can do not.
And what I say is just throw a teaspoon in
there.
Because the salt's gonna come later.
There's less than a teaspoon actually of salt
in each dough.
The mozzarella, and I have more of this too
if you guys, you know, post demo wanna come
up and taste the raw ingredients, is not super
salty.
It's sort of the combination of all the ingredients
together.
You know a lot of times in cooking, you don't
wanna add your salt until the end because
all the ingredients come together, things
cook down and all that.
>>male audience member #4: So the one teaspoon
for the bottle or [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: If, for, if I'm doing a one
teaspoon per 24 ounce bottle or 28 ounce can
of tomatoes.
And then the salt comes later.
This, the pecorino Romano, you guys know this
is the cheese we all love to you know grate
on our pastas, shave on our salads, and here
I just give this a nice blanket of pecorino.
And the microplane again just gives me a nice
snowy blanket here.
All things told it's about a half an ounce
of cheese, pecorino.
Less, whenever I weigh this, the mozzarella,
it never exceeds three ounces and it's about
three to four ounces of sauce.
Alright, I'll hand this off to you guys.
[pause]
>>Jenny: Do you want me to do it or do you
just wanna?
>>Mark Bello: I got it, yeah.
I'll do that.
[pause] And you notice I'm taking the pecorino
all the way to the edge, 'cause when you get
those little toasty bits of pecorino on the
edge of your crust.
The end of the party, what they call in the
biz the bones, like the stack of crusts that
nobody wants to eat.
Barely, no bones.
Ok.
So.
Check on my pizza, how's this doing?
[loud noise from oven]
[pause]
>>Mark Bello: Alright.
>>male audience member #5: How long do you
have to preheat the stones for?
>>Mark Bello: I like to preheat my stones
for an hour.
Now that is a much, that's a longer preheat
time than pretty much any oven requires, but
you know you're preheating the stones, not
just the oven.
The thing that's good though is that once
you get those stones heated up, they are one
I mean they act, they give you that sort of
brick oven effect where they're gonna crisp
the bottom of your pizza and pull moisture
out of it, but additionally they're like a
capacitor that's gonna keep that heat in your
oven, so if you pay attention to just keeping
that oven door you know open as little as
possible, those stones are gonna help your
oven, you know, it doesn't have to work as
hard once it's preheated.
You know it takes say a half an hour for your
pi, your oven to heat up and then the stones
need a little bit more time to catch up.
But once they're there, that's really where
you're gonna get you know the crust that,
that you're gonna see in a moment here.
>>male audience member #6: So like I noticed
you gave the pizza a little shake on 
the paddle before you dropped it in.
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
>>male audience member #6: Is there a way
to save it if you realize you don't have enough
[inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: If you're stuck?
>>male audience member #6: Semolina on it?
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
And it's good to figure that out beforehand,
then, you know.
So what happens if, you know, if it is stuck,
you're gonna see it kind of hang on that spot
and you can basically just lift it up and
then just toss a little semolina under there,
or if it's a really sticky situation, you
know I'll just dust another peel with semolina
and then do sort of a transfer.
And if it's a really like, you know, point
of no return situation, I'll roll it up, put
it in foil and make like a little calzone,
so.
Yeah.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Calzones are tricky because
they do take longer to cook in your home oven
and you know to get the inside all melted
and warm on the outside before it's overcooked.
So what I like to do is start 'em in foil
and cook 'em for about 15-20 minutes and then
unwrap them on the stone and then finish them,
you know give them a nice toast.
>>male audience member #7: What's the temperature
of the oven?
>>Mark Bello: This oven, the dial goes up
to about 500 degrees.
>>male audience member #7: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
I set, you know at home you want to set your
oven as hot as it's gonna go.
And I do not advocate hacking your oven, by
the way, like you know, wrapping the thermostat
in insulation or you know what's the other
one?
>>Sam: The self-cleaning mode.
>>Mark Bello: The, yeah the self-cleaning
mode.
>>male audience member #8: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: How are those pizzas lookin'?
>>male audience member #9: The broiler with
the door closed?
>>Mark Bello: What's that?
>>male audience member #9: The broiler with
the door closed?
>>Mark Bello: The broiler, the problem is,
is that you're, you know usually the broiler
is up top, so what it's doing is it's just
raining heat down on the top of the pizza,
so.
So that's one of the things.
But again, what you're gonna see is done with
no hacking.
It's all, you know, straight up.
And you know the oven that you have, I mean
gas or electric, no name whatever, you know,
what, what's important again is a decent,
you know, a nice thick baking stone and then
proper adherence to, to these principles here.
Next is, I'm gonna do a pizza for you guys,
it's potato rosemary pizza.
[pause] In fact.
>>male audience member 10: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: How thick?
About, well these stones are a clay mixture
called cordierite.
These are about half inch thick stones right
here.
So you know the thinner stones you, what you
run the risk is I mean they'll get to temperature,
but once the pizza hits it, it's gonna pull
the temp, the heat out of it and it's not
gonna rebound in time to properly cook the
bottom of your pizza.
>>male audience member #11: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: You know it's on an oven by
oven basis.
At the shop we have, they like, we have an
electric oven, very even heating, and I like
how convection works.
For the class, however, I just teach on bake.
Like the most fundamental, basic, you know,
of oven functions to show that with, with
no fancy bells or whistles you can really
get a great pizza.
But you know what I say at home is you and
your oven will become very good friends, you're
gonna learn if it's like extra hot in one
corner, so you know you have to rotate your
pizza mid-baking and things like that.
So whereas my, the oven at the shop, I do
like convection, you know when I do catering
gigs and I'm using someone's kitchen as my
pizzeria that night, I often find that convection
can be uneven heating, it's just on an oven
by oven basis.
And please like bring on more of these questions,
I can totally geek out on ovens with you guys,
flour if you want to talk about it.
I used to work at Murray's Cheese, you guys
know about, down on Bleecker Street, so, don't
get me started about cheese.
>>male audience member #12: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: One of the tricks that I've
seen with the broiler, if you wanna get like
a really nice dark underside of the pie, is
preheat your oven like you normally would,
so it's all evenly heated and then at the
very end, like 10 minutes before you're gonna
get your pizzas in there, throw it on broil
and get that stone extra hot and then you
can get the pizza in there and then you'll
get that nice charred underside.
>>male audience member #13: What if, if you
have a gas oven with a broiler that's underneath.
>>Mark Bello: Yes.
>>male audience member #13: Then, does that
change it? [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Alright, so here's a little
hack that I, well no.
At home we have a gas oven and it has a broiler
below and when I turn that to broil, I have
a little laser thermometer that can tell me
the temperature of my baking stones and I've
seen my stones get upwards of 600 degrees,
so that's kind of cool.
I'm surprised that no one has yet built an
oven.
How they looking?
>>Jenny: Good.
>>Mark Bello: Good?
Ok.
Ok.
That you know it would just I think be a matter
of insulation.
You know.
The ovens that we have in the shop, actually
generously provided by Viking, great oven.
We've actually been keeping count of our pizza
making and since the store opened April 15th
of 2010, we have made what, what have we?
>>Jenny: Five thousand eight hundred and one.
>>Mark Bello: Five thousand eight hundred
and one pizzas in our oven.
We've got a little clicker to count and that
oven is going strong.
But one of the things that Viking said was,
"Now Mark, don't cook on the cleaning cycle."
So I promised I would not.
Yeah, there are, I've seen plans on line how
to cut that latch when, so when the cleaning
cycle, you can get the door open.
Do not advocate it.
Alright.
You know what guys?
If you wanna start on that as well, so if
you noticed guys, so these potatoes here,
what I've got is raw red potatoes, which I
soaked in a little bit of extra virgin olive
oil, and grate a clove of garlic in there,
and then a little bit of salt and some fresh
rosemary.
>>male audience member #14: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Oh yeah.
>>male audience member #14: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
>>Jenny: Sorry.
>>male audience member #15: So did you mandolin
those?
>>Mark Bello: Yeah, I have a very simple mandolin.
Just like one slice fits all, a sixteenth
of an inch.
It's about the thickness of a dime.
And so they're raw, and then just sort of
steeped in this oil and rosemary mixture.
And notice my application too.
I'm not like overlapping or shingling these
on there.
What I'm doing is I'm doing more of like a
tiling or a cobblestoning of the potatoes,
allowing the crust again to breathe.
And also if, if at any point like I'm overlapping
the potatoes, that's a spot where I run the
risk of the potatoes not cooking all the way
through as it goes.
>>male audience member #16: So there's obviously
a lot of [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yes, this is where I contradict
myself because I don't like to put the oil
like on the Margherita and most of my pizzas
until the pizza is done.
Because what happens is you put the pizza.
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
You wanna pull that out?
[pause]
>>Mark Bello: >>Alright.
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Give it a little bit more, yeah.
I'll get it in one sec.
So with oil.
The perils of putting oil on in the beginning.
One of the things is it just sinks down into
your pizza, so you know, you still get all
the calories, but you don't get that really
nice finishing touch, so what I'll do is when
that pizza comes out, just a drizzle of the
good Sicilian stuff here.
And, and also a peril of putting oil on ahead
of time if you've ever been in a pizzeria
and your eyes are stinging or it's like kind
of hard to breathe and you're like, what's
up?
It's, it's usually either some sort of fat,
oil or, or excess flour burning in the oven.
So if the oil hits your pizza stone, your
fire alarm is going to go off shortly thereafter.
With this one, the oil actually clinging to
the potatoes and also clinging to the rosemary
kind of, well buffers the rosemary from burning
and then also kind of just helps to, to, these
aren't soaked in oil, they're actually just
kind of have a nice you know outer coating
of it right there.
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Alright.
Alright.
Let me look in.
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: Put this one on there.
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: Alright, hand me those peels
and I'll get these guys in while I'm yapping
about Margheritas.
[loud noise from oven]
[loud noise from oven again]
>>male audience member #17: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah, for two reasons.
I mean one just so all of the, you know, elements
kind of gel together, but two because of the
dreaded pizza mouth, which is when you bite
into that slice.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah and you just trash the
roof of your mouth for the rest of the night.
So yeah, during the class like this is the
first pizza we eat, it's usually about an
hour and a half in.
You know we've made our dough, our dough is
set aside to rise and people are, you know,
I can just see the hunger in their eyes and
I'm like talking about basil and not bruising
it and everything and I know they're just
like, will you cut the pie already?
And I'm like, totally, hey, I'm stalling so
you guys don't burn the roof of your mouth.
Ok.
So the basil.
Basil, very delicate herb.
Chopping basil is a no no.
It will bruise your basil.
Either tearing the basil or using, I like
to use a pair of snips.
You know instead of pouncing down on the basil
with a blade, the scissors are just gently
cleaving through here.
How many people do we have?
Because I want to cut this in enough slices
so everyone gets a sliv.
What's the count?
>>unknown: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
Well it would help 'cause I gotta do my, my
math here for my pie chart.
>>unknown: [inaudible]Thirty.
>>Mark Bello: Thirty?
>>Jenny: I've got 30.
>>Mark Bello: Ok, I'll cut 16 slices.
That's perfect.
>>unknown: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Ok.
Sixteen slices of each.
>>unknown: Plus those guys back there.
>>Mark Bello: Oh, I'll hook those guys up
later, I got extra doughs for you, I, yeah,
I know what's up.
[laughter]
[pause]
>>Mark Bello: Ok.
So, basil's on there, the heat from the pizza
is gently waking up the herbaciousness of
the basil, here's my good Sicilian oil, just
a nice controlled drizzle on there.
That, when I've measured it, it's about a
half a tablespoon.
>>male audience member #18: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Oil?
You're gonna taste it in a second, it's just
the beautiful like cherry on top.
Yep.
Cutting the pizza.
Your grip.
This is sort of your traditional grip.
Work at a pizza place and you'll notice your
wrist will start to hurt cutting multiple
pies like this.
The grip I like to employ is like this, I
kind of call this like my gangster-style grip
right here.
It's uh, gives me just all my force can be
concentrated directly down, so I just hit
that pizza and then just roll and I got a
nice clean cut without it skating all over
the place.
Do you guys hear that crisp sound?
As I'm going across, so.
Sixteenths on this.
[cutting sounds] Alright, Jenny, you wanna?
[cutting sounds] Walk that out.
[pause] So it's very quiet.
That's, what do you think?
Is it good?
>>male audience member #19: So the bread-type
people are all about you know the [inaudible]
and high-gluten flour.
>>Mark Bello: Yes.
>>male audience member #19: And all that kind
of fussing with the dough.
>>Mark Bello: Yes.
>>male audience member #19: [inaudible] Do
you think it helps?
>>Mark Bello: Yeah, I mean, well so this dough
was made, this has had about 36 hour sort
of a rise on it.
And the fermentation you know that occurs
in that.
In our class we teach what's called a quick-rise
dough, which is like make your dough, set
it aside to rise, it's ready to work in about
45 minutes.
This is also what a pizzeria calls emergency
dough, which is like, uh oh, we're running
out of dough, make some more dough fast.
But you know, a lot of pizza makers, and myself
included, I like the extra sort of depth of
flavor you get with a dough that has time
to rest and you know this fermentation that
occurs, the chemistry between the yeast and
the flour and everything else.
So if I'm doing a party or something, I plan
to make my doughs a day and a half, two days
in advance or something like that.
>>male audience member #20: It must also make
the dough easier to work.
>>Mark Bello: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's
a number of things.
When the dough is actually straight out of
the, out of the container on a quick rise,
it's like this pillowy, it's malleable and
really, really, you know, it's actually very
seductive and it's kind of hard not to just
wanna dive into it, and just you know flatten
it out again, but it's nice to work.
But you know I actually a lot of times with
my doughs I pull 'em straight out of the fridge
and I work 'em cold.
You have to, it takes a little more practice,
you have to be a little bit more aggressive
to stretch it, but you know, you really get
rewarded with a nice crumb, like the little
pockets of air in there and nice bubbles and
stuff.
But did you guys notice with this pizza, I
mean you know given it was still pretty thin,
there was still, you know some air.
What'd you think of it?
Was it, was it good?
>>male audience member #21: [inaudible]
[applause]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah?
Alright.
Cool.
Thank you.
Good.
This is always in the class the moment of
truth, like if people, you know, so far we're
batting a thousand, but if not one of my favorite
spots, right up the street.
But um.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: So, so first of all the crust.
You guys like the crust?
The amount of cheese, was, did it satisfy
your cheese tooth?
You know, did you, and you, did you think
like given how much I didn't put on there,
right?
What about the sauce, you know?
Garlic, tomatoes, you know nice balance.
And what about just the balance in general
of the flavors?
Like nothing overwhelming, everything just
kind of in sync?
And the oil, did you, did you enjoy the oil
that fini, yeah, isn't that nice, that little
fini, and that, that it's not a ton, it's
just that finishing drizzle that again at
the end so you really can taste that.
Let me check how these guys are doing here.
>>male audience member #22: How long [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Until it's done.
'Cause it.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: No, that's totally the answer,
because every oven is different and like depending
on you know how good I'm about getting the
oven door closed as fast as possible, you
know, so it's anywhere in my ovens like six
to ten minutes.
And you know, in, in the classroom our oven
very even heating, pizzas go in there, pretty
much don't have to do anything unless there's
an ingredient that's gonna go on later on
in the bake.
You know, this is another important thing
is certain ingredients are going to burn or
overcook if you put them on at the beginning,
so they go in later.
And at home actually, our oven, we, the back
right corner is the hottest part of the oven,
so I know that even though, you know, it's
gonna be, like I don't have to look at the
pizza for five minutes, but then I know at
five minute point I need to give my pizza
a turn, so it cooks evenly.
Now doing that I don't like you know open
the oven door and go, huh, or get my tongs
and kind of eek it along.
I get that door open, I get it on the peel,
I pull it out, I get that door closed.
Then I make my adjustment, and then get that
back in.
So again, always maintaining that heat in
your oven is a good thing.
Pizzas will cook quicker and they'll cook
better.
Ok.
So this guy, how's it looking?
Good.
Alright.
A minute more?
Ok.
I'm gonna start stretching out for the final
pizza, and we're actually gonna do a sweet
pizza for you guys.
This is a class favorite.
In fact, I can tell the total Nutella addicts
in our classes because when it's time to make,
ah, there you go.
When it's time to make our pizzas, they just
go straight to this pizza, like they don't
start with the savory, they just dive right
into it.
So this is a fun pizza.
It's a banana roasted on the crust and then
for a nice crunch, you know I was using pine
nuts and then I found these, have you guys
ever had the dry-roasted peanuts from Virginia?
Like again, another raw ingredient you're
welcome to come up and taste later.
Like unlike any peanut I've ever had.
These nice salty, crunchy peanuts complimented
by the caramelized like bananas on there and
then the finishing touch of the Nutella, it's
a, it's a wonderful thing.
So see that come together in a sec, I promise.
How are the potato guys looking?
I want to give them a nice, nice toast on
there.
Pretty good?
Alright let me get this guy stretched, we'll
get another peel.
Other things with stretching the dough, by
the way.
So throwing the dough.
You know the pizza purists will say, throwing
dough is forbidden.
And one of the reasons is a crust that is
hand hewn, you know I don't know if you, there's
a light behind me, but if you can see this
sort of you know interplay of a little bit
thicker here, and little bit thinner there,
that's where you get that just nice different
you know the different textures and flavors
going on in your crust, where a crust you
know made by centrifugal force and flour in
your eyes, is very uniform across the way
and just very soulless.
Now that being said, you know, it's fun to
throw dough.
We actually keep a practice dough in the store,
it's made out of silicon, so if aspiring you
know Olympic pizza maker athletes want to
try it, they don't have to risk losing one
of their precious doughs in the process.
I'm sorry?
>>male audience member #23: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Oh, yeah.
Oh, I have friends who compete in these competitions.
They're insane, the things.
They'll like flip the dough, it'll roll behind
the head, they'll catch it on the other side.
But when they make me a pizza, I'm like, do
it on the table please.
So.
[laughter]
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: I think we could go just a little
bit more on this guy.
[pause]
>>male audience member #24: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: When I'm doing a quick-rise
dough, so I wanna get my yeast like kicking
into gear that much faster, just a pinch of
sugar to feed it to proof it.
But when I'm doing a cold rise, I don't use
sugar.
It's very simply flour, active dry yeast is
what I'm using for this, not instant, but
the active dry, water and salt and a little
bit of oil.
And actually I've got for you guys some dough
stirring spatulas with our dough recipe printed
on the handle, we give these out in class,
so, you can take it and try your hand.
[scraping sound]
>>male audience member #24: Is it heresy to
use store-bought dough?
>>Mark Bello: It's not heresy to use it, but
what I find a lot of the times is
>>male audience member #24: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
You know, a lot, so another thing people come
into the class and they say, you know, I've
been making pizzas but one of the problems
I have is I stretch it and it shrinks back,
and you know, and it's like impossible to
work, what am I doing wrong?
And it's not necessarily you.
The person making the dough that day maybe
like you know, got a phone call, left the
mixer on too long, the dough is over-kneaded,
you know the glutens are overdeveloped and
you've got this hockey puck that's impossible
to stretch.
So, I actually did a class once at a, at a
culinary center in a supermarket where they
said you know we want to do like an abridged
class using our dough.
So I took their dough home and I made some
pizzas with it and it was great.
It worked really wonderful, so I was like,
cool, you know?
The day of the class, disaster, or dough-saster,
and so, so I had my jar of yeast with me and
my kit and we busted out the flour, and we
made our dough on the fly.
So really, you know when you, when you make
your own dough, you know the dough.
You know the hydration.
You know it's gonna work the way that you
expect it to.
Pizzeria dough, too is nice and it's convenient,
but often that dough is formulated to work
in your pizzeria's you know like six, seven,
eight hundred degree oven and it's a completely
different animal.
Where this dough, really, you know, ideally,
just totally sings in your home oven.
Alright Jenny I'd say get those guys out now.
>>male audience member #25: What's your basic
[inaudible].
What's your basic flour?
What's your flour [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Am I allowed to name names?
I guess I said Nutella, right?
So, for all my pizzas, actually whether I'm
doing a dough that's gonna be going in a home
oven or I'm doing like a you know fire-breathing
dragon, like 850 degree wood-burning oven,
I just, is, I like to use an all-purpose,
an unbleached and an unbromated all-purpose,
so a good quality all-purpose flour and personally
I use a brand called King Arthur, which you
know, yeah, see, I say the name and people,
it's like it has this cult following.
>>male audience member #26: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Not, you know, well their all-purpose
is actually a higher protein content than
a lot of all-purpose flours, it's somewhere
in the vicinity of 12%.
I find it works great, you know.
You know in the beginning I was playing around
with all sorts of flours, I got the, the double
zero, you know or the doppio zero, the flour
that you know by the rules of Neapolitan pizza
making you must use to make your, your pizzas.
And definitely for a pizza that cooks you
know in like under a minute in one of those
super hot ovens, that's where you get that
really nice crispy exterior and that nice
pillowy interior.
But you know I made the dough according to
all of the Neapolitan rules, the half an hour
of kneading, the double rise, all the stuff,
but baked it in my home oven and the results
were, were less than stellar.
So I started playing around with bread flours,
pastry flours, you know high gluten, all this
stuff and then I would assemble friends and
family for my blind taste test focus groups
and I'd make like four Margheritas, and each
Margherita was made with a different batch
of dough and you know the one that came up
on top was the all-purpose flour dough.
[pause] Alright.
[pause]
>>male audience member #27: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: That was a little bit more fresh
rosemary on there.
So again these potatoes, when they went on,
were raw.
[pause]
[cutting sounds]
>>male audience member #28: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: I'm sorry, what was the question
again?
>>male audience member #28: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah, you know, I, I, you know,
so much of pizza making is trial and error,
and just figuring out how to get that balance
and when it should cook, you know?
And I find that, that the potatoes reach the
finish line at about the same time when the
crust does, you know.
This is where certain ingredients, like I
do a pizza actually one of the things for
the happy hour is we basically, we're not
doing pizzas, but we're doing panini, which
are essentially reverse engineered pizzas
in sandwich form and one of them is this pizza
that I make that's smoked mozzarella with
tomato sauce, sun-dr, and sun-dried tomatoes.
And the thing is if the sun-drieds go on in
the beginning, they're gonna burn before the
pizza's done.
So what you want to do is about a minute to
spare is get that pizza out and then dress
it with the sun-drieds, and then back in for
a quick warm up.
So.
What do you think?
Do you like it?
You'd think like you know starch on starch
it's just gonna be this really you know Atkins
nightmare pizza here but very, I mean crisp
and just really really light.
This is a very tr, classic Roman pizza.
You know in Rome it's the patate pizza and
some versions are simple like this, some they
do a little bit of mozzarella, some they do
some caramelized onions.
In class, I like I show this as a demo pizza
and then I encourage people to be creative,
and you know they I see things like pancetta
going on top, Ricotta, like different things
like that, but again stressing that whole
mantra of less is more, you know.
If you overload the pizza with too many things,
I mean, the flavors are gonna compete, but
also the pizza underneath, or the potato underneath
all those toppings isn't gonna cook.
I mean did you find those potatoes cooked
to your liking?
>>male audience member #29: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: In this guy?
Yeah, you know I'm kind of a, I'm ah looking
at the pie overall.
I mean one of the things when I when I get
an oven, I bust out my laser thermometer and
I check, when I cater I carry this thing with
me, you know on a holster on my side just
to check, 'cause I don't know if I'm doing
two pizzas at a time, like I'm doing here,
what this person's oven, how it behaves.
So I get a quick read on the stones, and these
stones are pretty much in the same temperature
range, so I know they're gonna you know come
out right about the same time.
And just experience and kind of like smell
and spidey sense kind of you get like weirdly.
It just, make enough pizzas and you're gonna
see they just get better and better and better.
Ok the banana that's going on here.
I like to pick bananas that are riper than
I would, you know, put on my Cheerios in the
morning.
Because the riper the banana, the more sugars
that you've got in there and what's gonna
happen is when that bakes on there, the sugars
are gonna come out and they're gonna caramelize
and you get that really nice flavor coming
out of that.
And just like the potato pizza, I'm gonna
lay these banana slices out tiled, not overlapping,
so they cook through nicely and Jenny and/or
Sam, if you guys could distribute this one
right here, I'll trade ya. [pause] Banana
peel makes a nice cutting board as well, you
can just kind of hang on to it like that.
I call these my MacGyver meets Martha tips.
>>male audience member #30: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Oh.
You want my honest opinion?
I think, wheat, wheat, I love whole wheat,
you know I really, I love whole wheat bread
and I love, you know, tuna salad on whole
wheat, but I find with, you know like I wouldn't
put pastrami on banana nut raisin bread and
I feel that mozzarella and tomato sauce just
doesn't harmonize with the flavor of whole
wheat.
And, and reading on whole wheat, I mean a
lot of the things I've learned, one, you know,
when you make a whole wheat dough, you have
to cut it in half with some all-purpose flour
in order for you to get that gluten development
and that being said you're still gonna get
sort of like a lumpier kind of mealier crust.
You know, and reading, some of the things
that I've seen that you know unless it's an
issue of like I had a guy in class who by
doctor's orders had to eat all whole grain
things and I understood, but in terms of the
absorption of nutrients, you know, you're
not gonna absorb anything more from a whole
wheat than from a good quality all-purpose.
And then you know you're getting a compromise
in the texture and the flavor.
The one thing you do miss is your missing
your fiber and that, you know, you should
get elsewhere.
But you know I've yet, I've still been playing
around, I've been playing around with these
white wheat flours, have you guys seen those?
Yeah.
To see what I could get.
And what I recommend is that if you're doing
a whole wheat crust, whereas I would never
attack this dough with a rolling pin and just
totally flatten it out, the whole, I was doing
this whole wheat crust with this guy in class
and we ended up, we were having a really hard
time stretching without it just totally lumping
and tearing up, so we took a rolling pin to
it and made it really flat and then it came
out very crispy and then the sweetness of
it wasn't like overwhelming, and that was
really nice.
There's some frozen pizzas that I've seen,
like there's one that Whole Foods sells called
American Flat Bread.
It's like a $12 frozen pizza, which is you
know, kind of expensive, but really dynamite,
and it's made with a flour that's called a
white wheat, which is, I, from what I understand
it's a, it's a flour that's milled like to
an all-purpose and then the germ is reintroduced
back into it, so you're getting that, the
nutrients, or supposedly.
>>male audience member #31: Or you can take
a vitamin.
>>Mark Bello: Or you can take a vitamin, yeah.
But you know, going with a flour that is not
a bleached flour and not a bromated flour,
and actually you should Google bromating and
see what that says, Or actually King Arthur,
you can e-mail their baker's hotline and they
will tell you it's a
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
Seriously.
>>male audience member #32: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: You guys have enough?
>>Jenny: Nope.
>>Mark Bello: Oh, sorry.
Full on banana.
>>Jenny: Shall we just [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: What?
Yeah, yeah.
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Alright, and so, and with this
pizza, like I was talking about, ingredients
that go on later, the nuts go on towards the
very, very end, just to get a quick toast.
If they go on in the beginning, they're gonna
burn before the pizza is done.
And the other thing, the Nutella, actually,
I don't even like to bake because often it's
gonna dry out or it's gonna burn and it doesn't
taste so good that way.
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: That's good.
Alright.
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: So, and this is a pizza actually
that I do like to do a little bit lighter.
You know, a little bit lighter on the cook
so it's a little bit breadier, I feel that
really just compliments the flavors with that.
When I'm making my pizzas, you know, I, I
start, this is an eight ounce ball of dough
right here, now risen up, you know this is
a sixteen ounce pint container, you can see
the dough's pretty much doubled in size.
But depending on the pizza I'm doing, you
know, limited a little bit by the size of
this oven, but that first Margherita I tried
to go a little bit on the crispier, breadier
side in parts, where as on that potato one
I wanted to go real thin, so you just got
that nice kind of crispy thing, so you know
every pizza I make, whether it's a savory
pizza or a sweet pizza, it's the same dough.
And how, you know, the, the diameter in which
I stretch it, because they're all, you know,
roughly eight ounces in weight, is gonna dictate
if it's gonna be a crispier pie or a breadier
pie.
So you kind of find too, you know with your
pizzas, what, you know, what kind of crusts
you like or what kind of crusts you feel compliment
the toppings that are going on there.
The Nutella.
To, how do you get Nutella in a jar like evenly
spaced on a pizza?
Well, what I used to do is like I'd just seriously
with a knife be trying to like, it was just
a mess.
And then a friend of mine showed me this trick,
you take like a little sandwich baggie and
like a coffee mug and you stretch it out and
lay it on top of the mug and then grab a spoonful
of that and just kind of stab it in the center
of the bag and you're able to just pull it
off cleanly without like filling that zipper
with Nutella and then when it's pizza making
time, just a little snip off of that and that's
your piping bag.
And then depending on your love for Nutella,
you know, you can chew the bag after that
to get every last drop out of it.
>>male audience member #33: Why [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Why, I'm sorry?
>>male audience member #33: Why [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Heat it up?
You know this I usually just put it in a warm
spot in my kitchen, like we've got it in a
cupboard like above one of the fluorescent
lights there, just enough warmth so it's malleable.
But I find with Nutella it's tricky like often
for the amount of time that this is in the
oven if the Nutella's on there, it's gonna
burn before the pizza's done, so.
And a lot of ingredients too that would burn
normally like if just left alone, in suspension
will work really nice.
So for example like garlic, you know, on a
pizza?
Grate, if I was to grate just raw garlic or
shave it right on top of the pizza, you know,
most likely what I'm gonna get is bitter burned
pieces.
>>male audience member #34: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
Yeah.
But what you can do is take that garlic and
grate it or with a garlic press into something
like some Ricotta or something like that and
spread that around and that will be a buffer
to keep the garlic from burning, you know.
The herbs.
I don't like to put like my basil didn't go
on my Margherita prior to baking because,
you know, it would either dry out or burn
on the top of the pie or it just sinks into
the sauce and cheese and just gets all grayish-green
and lost there.
But the rosemary too.
The rosemary, you know, that sprinkle of fresh
rosemary on the pizza at the very end, but
the rosemary that was already on the potatoes
here, just with that light coating of oil,
is gonna buffer it and keep it from burning,
so.
How we looking on these?
[pause] Alright, that's good.
[pause] One of the things too, I was, oh,
hello?
The, did you turn that mic down just when
I was drinking?
You guys are good.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Wow!
That's amazing.
[laughing] What if my stomach rumbles, will
they hear it or is it only, you know, 'cause
I'm a little hungry right now.
So the menu upstairs, I was talking about
how it's the pizzas reverse engineered into
sandwich form, but I like to think of my pizzas
also the other way.
It's like there are flavors that I like in
another sense that I then, in fact, the, the
smoked mozzarella, sun-dried tomato pizza
that I do that we have the panino upstairs
for you guys to try out, it was originally
a sandwich that I had had and it was so great,
I thought this should be, you know, I actually
never liked smoked cheese or sun-dried tomatoes.
I found smoked cheese was, you know, I associated
with that sort of rubber brick that comes
in your holiday gift basket, you know.
And then the sun-drieds were always like whole
preparation in a salad, you bite into it,
it's all too much at once.
And, but then I had this, this sandwich and
it was just like, it was given to me for free,
I wouldn't have bought it, you know.
And then I just cooked it up and it was delicious.
And, and the sun-drieds were chopped up, so
you know one bite you didn't get the whole
sun-dried in your mouth and just the balance
of the smoked cheese with the sun-dried tomatoes
in this sandwich, which also has a little
bit of balsamic vinegar on it, it's just fantastic.
So what I like to teach in the class, like
as far as the recipes for the pizza, it's
more a list of ingredients, listed in the
order in which they go on the pizza.
You know, less about quantities, more about
just imparting a sensibility to people about
how pizza successfully comes together.
An example of this is a pizza.
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Looking good?
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Nuts?
Alright.
Let's do it.
Alright.
[pause]
>>Jenny: Check it out.
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: Yes.
Alright.
Give that, we can get those on there and [pause]
[loud noise from oven]
>>Mark Bello: That looks great.
[pause] Alright, so here are those lovely
Virginia peanuts.
Can you guys see the nice kind of, there's
the camera, that nice kind of toasty caramelization
that's going on there?
So when's Goggle gonna invent internet that
you can smell?
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: You'll.
>>male audience member #35: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: What's that?
>>male audience member #35: [inaudible] It's
bad.
it's going to be really bad.
>>Mark Bello: Yeah.
>>male audience member #36: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Actually, you know what?
When we're done garnishing these, we'll pass
these peanuts around just so you guys can
have a little snickety-snack and see what
they're like.
Alright.
You wanna reintroduce that into the oven?
>>Jenny: I would love to.
>>Mark Bello: Alright.
[loud noise from oven] Alright, bingo.
What's that?
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Oh, yeah, ok, well they can
have them on the pizza.
I spoke.
You just want them, I know it, so.
Alright peanuts will come around in a second
on the pizza.
Ok.
So back to sensibility with pizza making.
So there's a pizza that I, that I make I call
it the pesci affumicati.
If you have an app for translating, you know
it'll tell you that that means smoked fish,
you know.
But it's totally a bagel and lox pizza.
You know one morning I had dough, I had Russ
& Daughters, you guys know Russ & Daughters,
right?
Lovely smoked fish.
I had some sable and I had some Norwegian
salmon and I had you know all the accoutrements
that, crème fraiche and the capers and red
onion and all that kind of stuff.
So I knew that if I baked you know this smoked
fish on the pizza, that was, that's heresy
right there, you know.
So what I [someone sneezes] did is I, bless
you, rolled out my crust.
Now if you bake a crust completely naked with
nothing on it what's gonna happen it's just
gonna completely balloon out in your oven,
dry out, it's gonna you know be like a cracker
that will shatter when you cut it.
So some sort of a buffer to go on there before
you bake, so what I did with my mandolin,
some red onion and just did some slices on
there.
So the onion kind of sat on the pizza, you
know gave up a little bit of moisture, it
steamed the crust.
I threw on some poppy seeds as well, 'cause
that's how I like to roll with my bagels.
And then, and then baked that and baked it
to a little bit of a lighter more kind of
bialy-like crust, which is actually the way
this one's going as well, and then out of
the oven, allowed it to rest, so it wouldn't
basically melt my crème fraiche, and then
the crème fraiche went on and then the capers
and then the salmon and the sable.
Ridiculous, in a good way.
Ok.
So, let's pull those guys out.
>>Jenny: Alright.
>>Mark Bello: You think?
[pause] Oh yeah.
[various noises]
>>Mark Bello: So I'm just cutting off the
tiniest little corner here on the bag.
>>male audience member #37: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Pastry bag?
You know I just, it, one day just we didn't
have pastry bags, we used these and you know
these, get 'em in the supermarket, they work
great.
I mean, check this out, you just kind of squeeze
it down like so.
>>male audience member #38: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yeah, and for the classes we've
got our pre-dispensed Nutella amounts.
And if you're nice we let you have a second
bag.
[pause] Now I always have to just resist the
urge to rush this and then have an exploding
Nutella bag in my hand.
Once again, art school, thank you.
[pause] Alright.
You guys have been such a nice audience, I'm
gonna pull out a second bag of Nutella.
[audience whooping]
>>Mark Bello: Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
[pause] Alright.
You wanna start cutting that one up?
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Sam: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Actually you can use the podium
over there.
So my dough's like totally Leaning Tower of
Pisa right here, exploding.
[pause]
>>Jenny: You're cutting it into sixteenths?
>>Mark Bello: Sixteenths.
[pause] You guys know the comedian Mitch Hedberg?
He had, one of my favorite routines that he
does, he said that he went to get a slice
of pizza and the guy gave him like the smallest
piece.
He said if the pizza was a pie chart for what
he would do with his lottery winnings, he
got the "donated to charity" slice.
[laughter]
Or Yogi Berra.
He said, told a waitress you know, cut my
pizza into six slices instead of eight, 'cause
I'm not hungry enough to eat eight slices.
[laughter]
[pause]
>>Mark Bello: You ready?
Alright.
[pause] Oh yeah.
>>Jenny: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Yep.
[sound of cutting pizza]
>>Jenny: Ready?
>>Mark Bello: Yep. [pause] I'm gonna drink.
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Anyone wanna lick the pizza
wheel?
It's sharp actually.
>>male audience member #39: How do you sharpen
them?
>>Mark Bello: You know this one, this is a
commercial one and I've had my trusty side
arm like for ten years and though it has a
couple little nicks in it and stuff.
Super sharp.
And then for this model, which we actually
carry this in our store.
It was funny because the company that manufactures
these doesn't typically sell to, doesn't sell
to retailers, only to restaurant supply.
So I didn't have the cred, you know to do
it.
But I wanted to have the, so in our shop,
in addition to the classes, we have a little
gear store for where to get you know our favorite
pizza stone, our tomatoes, all these things.
So I had to sort of court them to get to use,
you know, to get their product.
Anyway, we have their product there.
They do sell a replacement wheel.
I've never had to use one, because you know
unless you're like a high-volume pizzeria,
these are totally bullet proof.
What I like about this pizza wheel too is
the model number, is the P-1-7-7-A, so visualize
that.
Yes.
Sense of humor, yes.
My buddy Neal, the guy who you know a decade
plus ago we made those pizzas in Chicago that
first night, he is saving up for a P177A tattoo
like Old English font across his back, apparently.
So, the company of course wants a picture
when that's done, so.
What do you guys think?
You like it?
Yeah.
>>male audience member #40: I love it.
>>Mark Bello: I'm not a super sweet tooth,
but this one definitely, you know, I make
an exception.
You like those peanuts?
Is that a nice, they're really you know crunchy,
salty, nice compliment with that.
So I imagine that you guys are probably still
hungry, 'cause we had a couple slivers.
What's going on upstairs is that smoked mozzarella,
sun-dried tomato panino, also another panino,
which is done with taleggio cheese, which
is like a funky, rich, you know cow's milk
cheese from Italy.
You guys know it?
It's kind of funky in smell, but its bark
is worse than its bite.
It's really rich creamy buttery cheese, with
honey and white truffle oil on there.
And that one's crazy pizza.
I actually, I did a menu for a café at this
auction house and they banned that sandwich
because it was, the aromas were too distracting
for the auction that was going on I guess.
But it's a good one.
You know, it's, it's, yes there's truffle
oil on it.
And truffle oil often is a red flag.
I see it in a menu and I, you know, it's often
used like gratuitously, it's like, oh, it'll
be gourmet if I douse it in truffle oil.
But this one I think qualifies as actually
working.
I think there are actually children named
after this particular combination, so that
says something about its powers.
And then also we did we did little sliders
with our sausage recipe.
It's ground pork with fennel seeds, chili
flake, garlic and a little bit of salt and
actually if you taste these and you like that
sausage, shoot me an e-mail, I'll be happy
to share the recipe with you guys.
And then a couple of vegetable dishes as well.
So hope you guys enjoy that.
I guess, what time do we have?
>>male audience member #41: Quarter past.
>>Mark Bello: Quarter past?
Oh, wow, so I was pretty good.
Any other questions?
A couple, I know you know we've had actually
five, has anyone here been to the class?
Because we've had five groups from Google
come and I'd say we have a dozen people at
a time, a dozen to sixteen, so that's probably
at least half your company, right?
[laughter]
>>Mark Bello: Anyway, we do, we would love
to see you guys down on the Lower East Side
if you're ever like just in the hood going
to the Doughnut Plant, pop in and say hello.
If we've got some pizzas coming out of the
oven, we'll gladly throw you a slice.
Yeah.
So.
>>male audience member #42: [inaudible]
>>Mark Bello: Good.
Thanks guys.
[applause]
>>Mark Bello: Thank you.
And Jenny and Sam [inaudible] and Steve.
