Dish of the Week: Maitake mushroom pizza at Vero Pizzeria
It’s spring and mushrooms are on our mind. We’ll take them any which way, and certainly on the No. 6 pizza at Vero Pizzeria.
Rather than use button or cremini mushroom as most pizza joints tend to do, chef and partner Stephen Herman opts for maitake.
“We’ve always been fans of maitake,” Herman said. “It’s a great mushroom. It’s very earthy, it looks beautiful and it has a nice presence on pizza.”
A bit of salt, pepper and olive oil, and into the wood-fired oven the ’shrooms go to roast for a hot minute until browned and wilted.
Maitake mushrooms star on this pie, but they get tasty support from ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, plus fresh garlic over a base of Parmesan crema, a reduction of Parmesan rinds steeped in cream.
As for the crust, the 14-inch Neopolitan pizzas that Vero has been turning out since opening in late 2015 have a nice char and grew chew. Credit the 8,000-pound Acunto oven imported from Naples and its heat source of post oak indigenous to the South that burns slow and hot – 900 degrees hot, to be precise.
Vero Pizzeria, 1441 Dresden Drive, Brookhaven, 404-869-1166 vero-pizzeria.com .
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