Like everyone else during the early lockdown periods last spring, Chef Marc Forgione began experimenting with sourdough starter. He had taken over the Italian restaurant Peasant in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood from Frank DeCarlo in February 2020, so he’d only had a short time in the kitchen before they had to shut down mid-March. He’d already begun to tweak the menu, but hadn’t gotten around to fine-tuning the pizzas yet. Finding himself at home, he decided to create his own starter from scratch, and to play around with whole grains. Eventually, he created and perfected a new whole grain sourdough pizza crust recipe, which he began serving at Peasant this summer, soon after the restaurant reopened.
Forgione, who also owns and runs the kitchen at the eponymous Marc Forgione in Tribeca, and is a co-owner of Khe-Yo, is known for being the youngest winner ever of Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef. He recently announced that he will be opening a coastal Italian restaurant in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District with his father, himself a respected, award-winning chef, Larry Forgione. In this Q&A, edited and condensed for length and clarity, Marc Forgione explains his newfound love of the sourdough pizza and offers tips on how to adapt his methods at home.
Had you ever made sourdough bread before the pandemic?
I’ve had sourdough starters at my restaurant, but I don’t think I ever physically made my own starter. This was my first one, from start to finish. I was simultaneously working on pizza dough and making sourdough bread. And as I’m doing research, I realized I could actually try combining these two projects that I'm working on. So I threw in the starter and played around with a couple different pizza dough recipes. I made two or three pies every day at home, and then the first time we finally got back into the restaurant, the first order of business was to drop in the starter I brought from home. We put a pie in the wood-burning pizza oven, and it looked and tasted like something special.
Why does sourdough work so well in a pizza dough?
It’s like really beautiful and subtle; it’s almost more of a texture thing because for me, I love Neapolitan pizza, but I’m not a huge fan of the way it flops. And I’m a born and raised New Yorker so I’m used to a more crispy crust. So when I started this whole pizza thing, it was to try to combine the two: the flavor and texture of a Neapolitan crust yet the crunch and the no-flop of a New York City pizza slice. Somehow, the kitchen gods were listening and that’s what ended up happening with this sourdough.
What else goes into your recipe besides the starter?
Not everyone uses olive oil, but I do. So I use olive oil, salt, sourdough starter, and then the cool part about it is that I use the ancient grains of rice flour, soy flour, and wheat flour. I was already working on a pinsa with my dad [Chef Larry Forgione] so I took the research and combined the two. It was another happy accident. I had never thought to do pizza though, because pizza has to be done in a controlled environment. But Peasant pizza is wild.
Peasant's Brussels sprouts pizza with guanciale and spicy honey
What are your favorite pizza toppings that you do at Peasant?
It’s all very seasonal. We had a really cool Brussels sprouts pizza on the menu, with guanciale and spicy honey. We are doing a really beautiful winter squash pizza that has three or four different types of squash that had a squash béchamel, roasted squash, sliced raw squash, and toasted pumpkin seeds.
What tips do you have for someone making sourdough pizza dough at home?
Be patient. That's really just about fermenting. We let it sit in the fridge for three days. I think one of the best things about working with sourdough is understanding that it might not be exact. Every once in a while you need to add a little more flour or knead it a little more. Our pizza dough, we fold it three or four times. Another cool tip is when you’re dealing with pizza dough, to use semolina or even rice flour when you're stretching it so that your dough doesn’t absorb any more flour.
What was your connection with Italy like growing up and how does it make its way into your own cooking?
My grandfather's 100% Italian, but we were definitely Italian-American. The thing that I love about Italian food the most is the simplicity in ingredients. My father was influenced by his grandmother, my great-grandmother. She grew all her own vegetables and made fresh pasta and pizza, and I think that carried over. I’m very much an ingredient-first type of chef, and I think that stems back to my Italian upbringing.