Marco’s Coal Fired Pizza, Part 2: Four-Cheese Pizza

When we last left Samantha Monterossa, Mark (Marco) Dym’s daughter, she walked us through their classic, VPN Margherita pizza. This time, she invites pizzaiola Heather Vetting to show us the Racca’s Abruzzo Pizza, a four-cheese beauty. (Note: if you read the intro to Part 1, you’ll recall that Marco’s is now called Racca’s, to avoid confusing it with a Florida pizza group also called Marco’s).  Because she says it rather quickly, I’ll tell you the four cheeses that Heather lays down: Mozzarella di Bufala, Cacciocavallo (a southern Italian cheese similar in flavor and texture to Provolone), Pecorino Sardo (a Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese, less sharp but richer in flavor than the more familiar Pecorino Romano), and, of course, Parmigiano Reggiano (the great cheese of Emilia-Romagna in Lombardy).

Stephanie and Heather then give us a quick oven lesson regarding lifting and doming the pizza to balance, first, the the crust and, then, to finish off the cheeses. As you will see, the four cheeses, each unique and wonderful on their own, work together beautifully to create a harmonious flavor and texture even better than the sum of their parts, with a nicely leopard-charred underskirt. A simple, perfect, white pizza!

We also get a glimpse of their popular dessert pizza, made with honey-sweetened ricotta, and then a quick tease of their limoncello-marinated, oven-baked chicken wings, which we’ll learn more about in the next installment (this I can tell you, having just learned it while sipping the delightful limoncello on my recent visit last month: they make it themselves — how perfect!).

Enjoy!!!