DEMETRI: We are making a mushroom, spinach, and halloumi pie, with our naturally leavened sourdough pizza dough.

SETH: Halloumi, got a little Greek influence going on.

DEMETRI: Yeah.

SETH: And sourdough, that's a little different, how does that work?

DEMETRI: It is a pizza dough that we naturally leaven with a house made starter, and it's just natural yeast and bacteria, like, just from our atmosphere and environment.

SETH: There's just magical stuff surrounding us at all times.

DEMETRI: Magical stuff that will lift flour into dough.

SETH: I never got into this hobby during the pandemic, so this is all new for me.

And I assume that this is a little harder work than just regular dough?

DEMETRI: Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, it's a full-time job, we feed it three, four times a day.

We have to keep it alive.

SETH: It's like having a pet.

DEMETRI: Absolutely.

SETH: So, chef, how is this all going to come together as a pie?

DEMETRI: So this is our beautiful Martha Dear pizza dough.

It's been bulk fermenting for 24 hours, and it's been proofing for another two or three.

Let me show you how we stretch it.

So we're just pressing our dough, stretching it out to almost the diameter that we want, while maintaining our beautiful crown.

Give it a few flips.

Nice presses.

As you notice, like, I'm not tossing it in the air.

Our dough's pretty well hydrated, so I don't really need to like, do any stretches.

So we can start moving it over to our bench to begin assembly.

We're going to start with our fontina cheese.

SETH: Nice little melting cheese right there.

DEMETRI: Absolutely.

Yeah.

And then we add our housemade stracciatella, which is made out of stretched mozzarella and heavy cream, it adds fat, and flavor, and you know, a little texture.

We'll add our spinach, which is sautéed with Greek olive oil, garlic, and a little bit of seasoning.

SETH: And what kind of mushrooms are these?

DEMETRI: We are using oyster mushrooms, cremini, and portobello.

And then, star of the dish, we have our halloumi cheese.

SETH: Is this the cheese you can light on fire?

DEMETRI: No, but it is the cheese that you can grill.

It's a beautiful like, salt-brined cheese from Cyprus.

It's nicknamed the squeaky cheese, you'll find out.

SETH: The squeaky cheese?

DEMETRI: Yeah.

SETH: Will this actually make some noise?

DEMETRI: It makes noise.

And it's a little salty.

It's fun.

SETH: That's a nice salty cheese.

I can imagine it's going to be a bold flavor on this pie.

Is it time to get this thing in the oven?

DEMETRI: Hell yeah, let me get that peel.

SETH: Let's do it.

DEMETRI: We're going to load this in.

Just like that.

SETH: And this thing is just roaring away.

So we're cooking with gas here, not wood?

DEMETRI: Yeah, gas kind of just suits our needs a little better here with tight spaces, and not really anywhere to put firewood.

SETH: And it's a real blast furnace of heat coming out of this thing.

DEMETRI: Yeah.

SETH: Give it a nice also uniform heat, I imagine?

DEMETRI: Oh yeah.

Yeah.

A very even, even cook.

So right now, I kind of let it set.

I want the dough to develop a nice crust on the bottom.

And then I'll start to periodically start turning the pizza, to have a more even cook.

The walls of the oven are the hottest parts, and the center of the oven will be a little bit cooler, so we kind of just rotate between the two.

Get a little char, get a little bake.

And usually we'll pull it out as soon as we are happy with the color, and how it feels.

SETH: Almost looks like roasted marshmallows on the top there.

DEMETRI: Yeah.

Yeah, I think we're ready to pop this out of the oven.

We're going to take it to the final steps.

So now that the pie is out of the oven, I'm going to finish it with a nice fancy Maldon sea salt, some beautiful Greek extra virgin olive oil, a little bit of lemon juice, because we love that acid on our pies, and freshly grated Parmesan.

Then we're ready to dig in.

SETH: Oh-ho-ho That is a beautiful pie.

I'm just going to go for this.

TARA: Us too.

SETH: It all plays so nicely.

And that extra little layer of brightness that comes from the lemon juice you added.

That is an absolutely delicious slice of pizza.

Well done, sir.

DEMETRI: Thank you.

SETH: I see these beautiful sauces here as well.

How do these work?

TARA: Just add a little extra zhuzh or zing to your pizza.

We make basically our own version of ranch, but we lovingly call it Dill Dip.

We have the Calabrian chili Hot Dip.

And then the Anchovy Butter, or lovingly referred to as Bagna Cauda.

SETH: Well, I like any dipping sauce for pizza, so I'm excited to try this.

TARA: As an anchovy lover, you want to get the good stuff on the bottom there though.

SETH: That is just absolutely unfair... TARA: An umami bomb, right?

SETH: To add that much level of richness to what's already such a good pie.