Sunday school

Every weekday around 11:30am, I get a daily cooking/restaurant e-newsletter in my inbox from Tasting Table. The newsletters are usually pretty interesting, but one Tuesday in August, something in particular caught my eye: a pizza cooking school that promised to teach its students to make restaurant quality pizza from scratch in regular old home ovens. I had to enroll.

Today, my sister and our friend Kate spent 4 hours of intense pizza study (and sampling) at Pizza a Casa, Mark Bello's colorful pizza cooking school and "self sufficiency center," (you can buy everything you need to replicate his pizza from his shop at the front of the classroom, including a pizza stone, and imported san marzano tomato "passata") on the Lower East Side.

Mark is native to this neck of the woods and became determined to recreate a classic NYC thin crust pie (think Totonno's, Di Fara's, or Lombardi's) while attending graduate school in Chicago. After much trial and error, along with several stints as a pizzaiolo and a few years spent living in Italy, he has developed a fool-proof recipe for perfect pizza crust and technique to cook it in your home oven.

The classroom is set up with a long table in the center. Mark stands at the head, carefully explaining the fruits of his research and sharing his tips for dough, tomato sauce, toppings and baking. All tools and ingredients are provided, including a few locally-sourced products (e.g., cheeses from Alleva Dairy and the Essex Street Market) and not-so-locally sourced products (e.g., canned grilled eggplant, tomato sauce, and sea salt imported from Italy).

We started by each making our own dough, enough for four individual pizzas, with only a few simple ingredients: all-purpose flour (he swears by King Arthur's), yeast, some warm water, olive oil, and salt. That's it.

Mark gave us a demonstration on kneading the dough before we each tried our own hands at it. Once our dough had been sufficiently kneaded, divided, rolled into balls, and set aside to rise, the real fun began: eating the pizza.

Pizza number one: classic margarita made with local mozzarella, imported italian tomato "passata," graded pecorino cheese, finished with fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil.

Pizza number 2 (my personal favorite): potato rosemary made with thinly slice red potato (pre-steeped in olive oil, salt, rosemary, and garlic) and pecorino and finished with fresh minced rosemary leaves and a drizzle of olive oil.

Pizza number 3: local smoked mozzarella, italian tomato "passata," pecorino, and sundried tomato, finished with fresh basil and balsamic vinegar. Pizza number 4 (which I forgot to photograph and which was the only pizza I didn't love): pizza bianca with fresh ricotta, fresh mozzarella, local butter, pecorino cheese, and roasted peppers, finished with lemon zest and freshly ground black pepper.

It was 2pm by this point and I hadn't had lunch, so despite Mark's warnings that we would "hit a pizza wall" sooner than we thought, I eagerly ate several slices of each of his sample pies, which I later regretted as I was felt quite sick by the time I had sampled each of the four pizzas I later baked.

We then turned to rolling out our now-risen balls of dough and each took a crack at forming crusts.

I found forming the crust to be the toughest part of the pizza-making process. But Mark and Jenny were right by our sides offering encouragement and showing us what to do if we ripped our dough, needed help getting the formed crusts on the wooden slips, or were ready to launch our pizzas into the hot ovens. I should mention that there were only 5 students at our class today even though the classroom can accommodate 12. So we really lucked out by having such a small class and getting so much individual attention.

Some students only made one or two pizzas and took their remaining dough home, but as I mentioned earlier, I ended up making all four of my dough balls into pizzas (most of which I ended up taking home with me):

quatro formaggi with a Vermont blue cheese, ricotta, pecorino, and mozzarella;

margarita with sopressata;

eggplant and roasted pepper; and a potato rosemary drizzled with black truffle oil (didn't take a picture of that one, but it was very pretty).

I had a really great time and I highly recommend Mark Bello's Pizza a Casa for delightful and informative afternoon of pizza making and eating. And he has just started teaching classes on making fresh pasta out of the same classroom, so I plan to enroll again soon.

Pizza a Casa

www.pizzaacasa.com

4 hour class: ~$150

371 Grand Street (between Essex and Norfolk)

(212) 228-5483