VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Irish Colcannon, Stuffed Crust, Quail Eggs, and More!

Aw yeah, it's My Pie Monday time! The originality, creativity, and mouth-watering skills are all on deck this week. Girl Loves Pizza uses mozzarella sticks to smartly create a stuffed crust, Jimmyg brings it Irish style with his Colcannon-themed pie (full disclosure: I had to educate myself on the inspiration), and amusebouche1 makes his sauce from a puree of piquillo peppers. Norma427 continues her Mellow Mushroom experimentation, and dhorst laces her pie's sauce with chiles. Roasted red peppers and pancetta make tinytim a satisfying pie and unpocojmoney produced one of the best homemade Margherita's in the unpocojmoney household to date.There's a speck and banana pepper pie from Atmast, TXCraig1 pairs sopresatta and artichoke, and olsonmatt tops his pie with bacon and red onions. Steve Viteralli sends us a great looking Margherita, redwgn67 returns with a Milo and Olive inspired butternut squash and quail egg pie—one per slice. And all you MPM regulars motivated newcomer maxcriden to make his first ever submission! (Dmcavanagh took a pizza hiatus in favor of bread loaves this week, but hopefully he'll rejoin the troops next time around.)

Get your pie into the My Pie Monday galleries next week!

Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, describe your cooking method (briefly!), and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Be sure to let us know your Slice/Serious Eats screen name!

Need to see more amazing homemade pizzas? Right this way to the My Pie Monday archives »

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook or follow it on Twitter for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

There are quite a few things that make the summer better than the winter. Shorts, sundresses, and smaller loads of laundry. Snow-less beaches. The freedom to wiggle your toes around without the unwelcome encumbrance of socks and close-toed shoes. Saving a few bucks on coat checks.

Then again, summer also means kitchens that transform into 4th-level-of-hell grade raging infernos when you preheat your oven long enough to crank out a few homemade Neapolitan pizzas. You could go the whole grilled pizza route, and the results you get are no doubt incredible. But they also require you to a) have access to outdoor space and a grill and b) light up a grill.

So how do you make great pizza at home without having to light up the grill or preheat the oven? Well, that crisp, puffy, charred, tender-chewy pizza in the photo above was made using nothing but a skillet and a burner. That's right: this week we're making a 100% bake-free skillet pizza, and yep, it's good.

Dough Business

Before we get to the actual cooking method, let's start with ingredients. Any good pizza has to start with good dough. Cooking pizza in a skillet doesn't require any special recipe, but recently I've been really into high-hydration no-knead doughs in the style of Jim Lahey of New York's Sullivan Street Bakery and Co. By mixing your flour, salt, and yeast with plenty of water (you want a very, very sticky dough for maximum puffing when baked—er... skillet'd) and letting it sit at room temperature overnight, you allow your dough to develop plenty of flavor and gluten without the need to knead.

My basic dough recipe uses 4 ounces of all-purpose flour per 10-inch pizza, along with 2% salt (baker's percentage—so that's 2% of the weight of the flour), 1% yeast, and 75% water

On Heat Capacity and Conduction

The first question to ask when adapting an oven-based pizza recipe to work on the stove top is exactly what's going on when that dough enters a hot oven. Real wood-burning Neapolitan pizza ovens have floor temperatures in excess of 700°F and dome air temps pushing 1,000°F. Under these conditions, pizzas cook in around 90 seconds. Fast cooking guarantees a couple things.

First off, high heat causes plenty of oven spring—that is, when heated, gas bubbles trapped inside the dough rapidly expand before the protein in the dough has a chance to set and turn stiff. The hotter the oven, the faster the gas expands, and the poofier your crust becomes.

High heat also guarantees that the exterior of the pie will get charred and crisp before the inside has a chance to dry out too much. The ideal Neapolitan pizza should have an ultra-thin layer of crispness around the edges of the crust, a slightly thicker layer of crunch in the underbelly, and a very soft, airy, open crumb structure.

A pizza oven will cook the pizza from both sides—top and bottom—simultaneously, but obviously a skillet is a one-sided cooking instrument. The key to skillet pizza? You have to cook both sides individually, one after the other.

In an early attempt, I figured that since the stone floor of an oven is at at least 700°F, I'd want my pan to be that hot as well. I heated up the pan and promptly burnt the bottom of my pizza do a dark crisp within 45 seconds or so. What was going on?

Turns out I forgot to take into account the relative specific heat capacity of a stone oven floor vs. a metal skillet. See, just because two things are at the same temperature does not mean that they both contain the same amount of heat energy. The stainless steel and aluminum core of a good skillet can both hold significantly more energy and better at conduct that energy into the bottom of a pizza than a stone oven, so pizzas cook faster in steel than on stone. Around 500°F is the ideal temperature for a metal pan when cooking pizza dough.

It's hot enough that your stretched dough will immediately start puffing and bubbling (there's that oven spring you're looking for), but not so hot that it'll burn before it's cooked through.

Method 1: The Cook, Flip, Top

For my first attempt, I decided to simply use my grilled pizza method. That is, cook the bottom until nicely charred, flip the whole thing over, then quickly add my sauce and cheese, cover, and let the cheese melt while the bottom side crisps up.

To be honest, even using this ridiculously simple method, the results were phenomenal. Crisper and more tender than many true oven-baked pizzas I've eaten in my day.

See that nice hole structure and the contrast between the moist, soft interior and the crisp layer around the edges?

But I have a minor quibble with this simple method: the pizza looks like it was constructed upside down. That is, the cornicione—the raised lip around the edge of the pie—is on the underside, not on the top. Not only is this aesthetically unpleasing, it also introduces a few structural issues. The pizza slices don't lay flat, making the entire cheese-and-sauced surface tilt slightly downwards toward the tip, making for uneven distribution and a propensity for drippage.

Not only that, but without a raised lip, you're just as likely to get sauce and cheese dripping off the back of the slice as you are the tip. If there's one thing that gets my goat, it's undue drippage.

On the other hand, the underbelly actually reveals a much more pronounced cornicione. Isn't tnis the side we want on top?

Method 2: The Cook, Flip, Flip, Top

Doing exactly that gives you a much better finished product. It works best if you start by cooking the first side until it's slightly underdone, then flipping it over so that the puffed edges come into contact with the pan.

Once the top side is nicely spotty and charred, you can completely remove it from the skillet, top it at leisure (make sure your toppings are at room temperature—fridge-cold ingredients won't heat up fast enough without the heat from an oven to help'em along), then stick it back into the skillet, cover, and cook until the cheese is melty and the bottom is completely crisp.

With an electric or induction burner and no other equipment, that's just about the best you can do, and it ain't half bad!

That said, it's still missing a couple of key characteristics, namely more even browning and char. If you've got a couple of tools, there are ways to fix this.

Method 3: The Cook, Flip, Flip, Top, Torch

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

If you happen to have a propane torch—the kind that plumbers use to solder pipes—you're in luck, as it'll perform perfect double-duty as a crust-charrer and cheese-melter. Even an electric heat gun will perform well in this capacity. Don't try and use a puny propane crème brûlée torch. It's like trying to kill a rhinoceros with a fly swatter. Indeed, if you own one of those tiny torches, you should seriously reconsider your life—chances are you've probably made a few other questionable decisions in the past.

The key to good, even torching is to keep the flame moving. You should take several passes over the same area before you see significant coloration changes occurring. Using a torch will also help you get your cheese a bit more melty and can even be used to crisp up toppings like soppressata or pepperoni.

The skillet-torch method is the closest I've ever gotten to producing a clone of a wood-burning oven pie on the stove-top.

That said, there's an equally simple way to get nearly the same quality results without the use of any special equipment at all, provided that you have a gas range. How? Try this:

Method 4: The Flip, Flip, Burn

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Yep, just use the direct flame from the burner to char the heck out of that crust. If you're careful, you can do it simply by letting the edge of the crust hang off the edge of the pan long enough to char just a bit, rotating it to get even charring all the way around the edge. Then all you have to do is flip, top, put a lid on it, and finish cooking just like with the first two methods. You end up with a very pretty crust that looks something like this:

The final option is even easier if you don't feel comfortable hanging half a pizza out of your skillet. I use a wire metal cooling rack and place it directly on top of a gas burner. I then have a nice little platform to place my crust on as I use the direct heat from the range to char the edges. With this method, you get a few little grill marks here and there, but the texture and flavor are spot on.

So there you go. Not just one, but four ways to get really good pizza without having to preheat your oven or broiler. Of course, you all realize the implications of this, right? Pizza that takes just moments to make (provided you have the forethought to rest your dough) and can be made anywhere where you've got a pan-ready heat source. Portable burners, camping stoves, fireplaces, bonfires, kitchen-less office environments, New York city taxi cabs; you name it, you can make pizza there. That's a good thing.

Get The Recipe!

Skillet Neapolitan Pizza »

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Since opening a month ago, we've had a great first look and 'Top This' recipe post from mid-town Manhattan's newest Neapolitan pizzeria, Don Antonio. The Antonio Starita and Roberto Caporuscio pizzaoli partnership here guarantees that the pizzas are gonna be the real deal, but when I saw the Girella ($21), I had to get my mitts on it.

Why the Girella? Because this roulade of mozzarella looks freakin' awesome:

Mozzaroulade [Photograph and terminology: Adam Kuban]

Roberto has had a couple of food careers to date. One of them was as a mozzarella maker. Using the mozzarella made in-house at Don Antonio, they make a cheese roulade (Adam coined it the mozzaroulade) filled with arugula and proscuitto cotto. That bad boy then gets sliced and tops the expertly cooked crusts that are the cornerstone of this Neapolitan pizza operation.

As the cheese melts, the flavors of the ham and arugula get infused into the mozzarella. Peppery, porky, and milky, this mozz is an all-in-one topping. Add to that the tart acidity of halved grape tomatoes and creamy, buttery ricotta and all the bases are covered. I'm not that into white pizzas, so the grape tomatoes are key here. They make up for the lack of sauce and give the pie the punch needed to balance out the cheeses.

Beneath all the toppings is what really makes this pie great, the crust. In the Neapolitan tradition, the cornicione is puffy but with an elasticity and chew that makes it bread artistry. There is no picking up these slices, what with the weight of the cheese on the thinner and wetter center of the pie. The slightly smoky, charred crusts are full of flavor that demonstrate that as delicious as the mozzaroulade is, it's the bread that makes this stellar pizza so unforgettable.

Don Antonio

309 West 50th Street, New York NY 10019 (near Eighth Ave.; map)
646-719-1043; donantoniopizza.com

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photographs: Above picture by Sarah Reaume; all others by Daniel Zemans]

Going into my inaugural visit to Q's Restaurant & Pizzeria in the western suburb of Hillside, the place had everything going for it: The place has a solid reputation; I was starving when I got there; I'm a sucker for old-school places with kick-ass neon signs (see my review of Sano's in Chicago and La Casa Pizzaria in Omaha).

Q's opened its doors over 50 years ago and the current owner, Mike Allred, is the second generation in his family (through his mother's side, the Ferrainas) to run the place. From sponsoring Little League teams to participating in neighborhood festivals, there is little doubt that the restaurant is an active member of the community. I visited on a recent Saturday night and the large restaurant was absolutely packed with families who I'm convinced have been making regular treks to Q's for years. Every table I looked at seemed to be filled with people who were more than happy with their food and I expected the satisfaction at my table to follow suit.

Pizzas are available in two styles at Q's, thin crust and double dough, the latter featuring a crust twice as thick as the regular style. For my normal thin crust pie, I kept things simple with a sausage topping; the pizza that I've found this type of place to knock out of the park. But from the look of things upon arrival, this was going to be one greasy pizza. That combined with the flavorless crust did not add up to the stuff legends are made of.

Still, Midwestern thin crust, tavern-cut pizza is typically not known for its crust and, when eating that style of pizza, I'm happy to let a dull crust slide when the other components can pick up the slack. But the oily pizza parlor cheese and slightly sweet tomato sauce (which had a cooked down flavor that tasted more like unseasoned, canned marinara) weren't up to the challenge. But the real killer was the sausage. Where was that great fennel flavor that is the hallmark of good Chicago sausage? The too chewy sausage was lacking seasoning all around.

I did get a pleasant surprise on my double dough pizza with Italian beef and giardiniera. The crust, while identical to the regular crust in terms of flavor, was much crisper and also helped along by a far heavier dusting of cornmeal on the bottom. While it added nothing in terms of flavor, I did enjoy the extra crunch on this pizza. However, the topping flavors, similar to the sausage pie, were out of balance.

I've never had a pizza with as much giardiniera as this one. The small parts of the pie that did not have any chunks of the jalapeno-heavy veggie mix seemed to have gotten more than their share of the spicy oil. In fact, the spice overpowered the pie to the extent that it was difficult to discern if there was any sauce on it or what flavor the beef was going for.

From the waitress who was more than happy to let me settle in at Q's for the night, to the paper placemats that advertise local businesses (those things need to make a comeback!), to the festive atmosphere that pervaded every inch of the place, I really did like everything about Q's except for the pizzas. Fortunately for the family that runs the place, they've done fine without me for 50 years and I hope they stick around for 50 more.

About the author: Daniel Zemans writes for Slice, and A Hamburger Today. He thinks more food writers should aspire to be like Marilyn Hagerty.

Photograph: Chris Hinkle

It's Sunday, February 26, 10:15pm, and my weekend just began. We shut the restaurant down quickly tonight. It was great to watch my staff work so well together. Very fluid and efficient work. So I returned home with a little energy left in me to write, which is a rare occurrence nowadays.

It's been a little more than eight months of wielding the peel, and the restaurant is now operating on a consistent level of quality, a bit analogous to the predictability of fermenting dough. In fact, I would say the smoothness of the operations is in part due to the dough being "on" nearly all the time. I think if you would ask most pizzaioli, they'd state that consistency is one of the most difficult things to hone, and I'll be the first to admit I am still working on it. My schedule is also pretty well developed: I still run or bike most mornings, stop at the market on my way in, arrive by 10:30am and leave about 12 hours later. In between I place orders, make dough, do bookkeeping, schedule shifts, pay taxes, manage payroll, prep, and finally at 5pm, make pizza, which is my favorite time of the day.

So, please excuse me as it's been a while since I've made a post. Today's post is a bit longer than normal, and my intention here is to bring everyone up to speed as well as to share what I've learned to date.

The Business

I'm sure one of the top curiosities might be the business' financial standing. After all, I opened on the tail end of a recession and about 100 feet from the most popular pizza place in town. Nonetheless, things are going really well. The numbers have been better than anticipated. I've paid off my personal debt and plan to pay off all my loans in a little more than a year from now. I believe I did a lot of things right with respect to financing, location, design, and the simplicity of my concept, and this helped me to get my doors open and hit the ground running. We were voted "Best New Restaurant" in town and my little corner is becoming known as THE place to be. Undoubtedly, I believe the future success will depend on me sticking to something I am committed to: always improving with each passing week. That commitment started with week one and continues today.

Chrome paint over the lettering is another example of small improvements.

Some weeks it's something simple like new shelving for better storage, enabling me to utilize another square inch of my tiny 650 square foot restaurant. Other times it's a flavor combination on a special or a gelato flavor that people wake up the next day dreaming about (so I'm told). That commitment keeps my mind constantly churning about what to improve or make more efficient. I'm sure it's partly the scientist in me, but it's also an expression for my love of this place. Customers notice it too and I have a lot of regulars. It's a rather overwhelming feeling at times, knowing that I've built a place that has such a strong following, and I'm only 8 months into it. I'm also thrilled when I get a Serious Eats reader in. Whether it was Alan from Buffalo, Stephen from Playa del Rey or Lance from LA., it means a lot that you followed along and then made the extra effort to give me a try. Awesome.

Now that you know I will be around to make you a pie next time you are in Flagstaff, I'll discuss what is near and dear to Slice readers hearts: pizzas and menus, dough nitty-gritty, and kick-ass ovens. Here is what I have to offer after 8 months:

Pizza & Menu

The Amore oi Mari is named after a pizzeria I visited in Matera, Basilicata.

Outside of my specials, the menu has not changed much. I still have five pizzas, one salad, daily gelato, daily specials, and I don't expect to expand much beyond this. I'm retaining the model of simplicity as it is really all my small space will allow for, but also because I can focus on what I love to do, which is to make pizza. Simplicity is also the best way to prepare Italian food, in my opinion. It allows the ingredients to speak for themselves.

The gelato recipe I was gifted by Franca, the co-owner of Podere Ciona, a vineyard I visited in 2010 in Tuscany, has been a big hit. In the rare occurrence of my travels since opening, I've yet to find an ice cream or gelato I enjoy more than my own. The base recipe allows us to do a diverse range of flavors from basic vanilla bean, to chevre, to prosciutto, to basil, to olive oil.

My wine list is the only thing that has expanded but I love good, food-focused wine. It's what I choose to drink with food and unfortunately I feel Flagstaff has too much ripe-fruit, over-oaked wines that overwhelm food. I wanted to offer something new, as well as educate how wine can compliment food rather than take the main stage. Italian wines are perfect for this reason because Italians craft wines with the intention of pairing well with food. So, I have about 15 wines available. That might not sound like a lot, but considering how small my space and menu is, it's a sizable offering.

Dough

If you didn't know, Pizzicletta is the shape of a pizza slice. [Photograph: Chris Hinkle]

Oven and Wood

[Photograph: Chris Hinkle]

I placed the oven is front and center of the restaurant and it was a good decision. It's a piece of art and the workhorse of the restaurant, and I'm not sure which gets more photos, my pizzas or my oven. That being said, I've discovered the importance of only using the best wood I can get my hands on. No oven could compensate for poor, unseasoned wood. Here in Arizona, the wood of choice is pecan. The pecan wood puts off an intense, bright flame, better than any oak, juniper, aspen or other woods that are available locally. I'm currently using some eight-year-seasoned pecan. It's harvested from orchards near Tucson and seasoned in a 10-acre lot in Phoenix. It's dry as a bone. Flagstaff's climate is too cold and wet to get well-seasoned wood, so a trip south to the valley is really a must.

Serious wood can be found at Paul Bunyan's Firewood in Phoenix.

Always on and off the clock. [Photograph: Chris Hinkle]

It's kind-of amazing when I take a step back and think about what I'm doing. Two years ago I was working on spreadsheets and writing science articles. I'd always been a hard worker and over-achiever, but it was right around that time that I no longer wanted to work hard at my career. It was scary and I'd stay up late at night to read Slice or develop my business plan to give me direction. About the same time, I made a visit to New York and San Francisco to do some pizza research. I set out with a big list of places to visit and nearly made it to all of them. Of course, I went to Paulie Gee's. He'd done it. It was inspirational to see, and it was at that moment that I knew I'd found my calling as well.

The Spéciale at Dani's. [Photographs: Natasha Pickowicz]

Though I often say that all pizza is good pizza, eating a Montreal old-school pie is still a gamble. Too often does the pie arrive wet and gloppy, weighted with sub-par ingredients from a can, leaving your fingers slick with neon grease and your stomach leaden and churning.

Not to be discouraged, I've spent the last year hunting for the old-school jackpot: thick, crisp pies ringed with a golden, crunchy-yet-chewy thick crust, topped with a concentrated tomato sauce that leans slightly sweet, and finished with an intricate layering of spicy meats, sautéed vegetables, and shredded cheese.

I've traveled all over the city—Outremont to Rivière des Prairies to Petite Italie to Lachine and back again—searching for pizza bliss, and, happily, have found many worthy iterations along the way. But I hadn't visited LaSalle, a southern borough in Montreal beloved for its traditional old-school style pies.

Two LaSalle pizzerias, Centrale and Dani's, were first brought to my attention by Ryan Dixon, the owner and chef at Little Burgundy haunt Jane. Dixon grew up in LaSalle, where he feasted on the hefty slices from the neighborhood's most popular fluorescent-lit pizzerias. "LaSalle's Centrale is great because everything is really simple," he told me. "And it goes great with a hangover."

That was all the endorsement I needed. I stopped by Dani's first, where I was enthusiastically greeted by the friendly staff. Dani's has a loyal following—they'll even ship their pies as far away as Vancouver to keep their homesick customers happy.

I ordered "Dani's Spéciale," an all-dressed pie ("tout garnie," or topped with green peppers, pepperoni, and mushrooms) boosted with bacon and chopped onions. (The 12-inch pie is $16.95).

I was disappointed by the crust's wan appearance, which was smooth, pale, and unblemished. The cheese, while plentiful, had a barely-melted snowy white hue instead of the crackling golden spots that give away a truly great pizza.

Even the crispy bits of bacon (which I happily popped into my mouth like delicate potato chips) and the striations of thickly cut pepperoni weren't enough to distract me from the dense crust, scourge of raw white onions, or the sweet tomato sauce, which hinted of cinnamon (another regional pizza flourish, and one I may never understand). Maybe it was the warm atmosphere, or the rush of dopamine from all that dough, but the pie somehow emerged greater than the sum of its parts and satisfied me.

Dani's 10-inch smoked meat pie ($11.95), another regional Montreal style, is topped with piles of thinly-shaved smoked meat tucked underneath a blanket of cheese. It's a style that's been picked up by the city's more modern restaurants like Jane or Magpie, and this was an adequate version.

It's also worth noting that Dani's occasionally bucks their whole pie-only policy, and sells wide slices of pepperoni to neighborhood school kids at lunch. Interestingly, with all those air bubbles and properly cooked cheese, these slices were a lot more gorgeous than the pies I consumed; they're definitely worth a taste.

I headed up the block to Centrale, where I ordered their version of the "Spéciale" ($17.95 for a 12-inch pizza). The Centrale pie—with its charred bits of bacon and crust—was clearly the more attractive pie. It tasted better, too, especially the chewy, yielding crust that had the tang of a great sourdough and shattered with a thrilling crunch.

The shredded mozzarella sizzled into a crispy shell atop the other ingredients, and the toppings underneath were nicely protected. (And the white onion, thank heavens, was cooked). Though Centrale's pizza was undeniably delicious and more elegantly crafted, it was curiously a lot greasier—but I've come a lot closer to accepting that grease plays an important role in this city's old-school pies. (Just don't forget napkins.)

Not all of Montreal's pizza is created equal, and it can be a frustrating battle of trial-and-error to sort out which places emerge triumphantly. Though both Dani's and Centrale are beloved by their community, Centrale was the clear winner. But if you're looking for simple, greasy satisfaction, then consider both pies hallmarks of old-school Montreal style.

Dani's Pizzeria

7669 rue Centrale, LaSalle, Québec (map)
514-363-2470

Centrale Pizzeria

7610 rue Centrale, LaSalle, Québec (map)
514-363-7444
Note: If you like your cheese golden and bubbling, ask for your pie well-done—you'll be glad you did.

About the Author: Natasha Pickowicz is a San Diego-born music and food writer, and a recent Montreal transplant. She is the baker at Montreal restaurant Dépanneur Le Pick Up. In addition to updating her food blog Popcorn Plays, she contributes to the Kinfolk Magazine, Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Mirror, and enRoute.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This, Saint Paddy's Day Edition: (Baked Potato Pizza à la Pete Zaaz)

The Baked Potato Pizza at Pete Zaaz (covered here on Slice), a quirky Crown Heights pizzeria that has recently garnered much well-deserved attention, just might be the perfect solution to your Saint Paddy's Day pizza needs. The pie adopts everything you love about a loaded baked potato: cheddar, scallions, bacon, and crème fraîche. For the potato component, Pete Zaaz pizza-makers Pete Entner (No. 7) and Glen Hudson (Pulino's) top the pie with purple potatoes cooked in cream, which get gratinéed under a sheath of cheddar on the pizza itself, making this pie both beautiful and outrageously crave-worthy.

Pete and Glen recently took the baked potato pie off the Pete Zaaz menu, and replaced it with a pierogi pie that uses similar ingredients. If you missed the baked potato pie the first time around, don't fret—you can make it for yourself at home. Follow the slideshow to find out how.

What You'll Need (for one pizza)

• 1 dough portion
• 1 purple potato
• Shredded white cheddar
• Crème fraîche
• Heavy cream
• Thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, cut into lardons
• Scallions (use only the green part of the scallion, thinly sliced on the bias)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Sea salt

Pete Zaaz

766 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn NY 12345 (map)
718-230-9229 petezaaz.com

About the author: Originally from Los Angeles, Erin Mosbaugh writes Je Blague, where she captures her food adventures in NYC and beyond. Erin also writes dining and nightlife features for Robb Report's New York City.

While we think mom-and-pop shops make the best pizza in the nation, we'd be remiss if we didn't keep abreast of what the chains are up to. Suit up, it's time for another Chain Reaction, folks.

[Photographs: Will Gordon]

After a long period of public soul-searching, hand-wringing, and pizza-improving, it seems that Domino's is finally satisfied enough with its core product line to shift focus to the ancillary wings 'n' sticks 'n' bites 'n' things that round out a modern chain-pizza menu. Slice had some nice enough words to say about the Stuffed Cheesy Bread late last fall, so we figured it was worth investigating the less ballyhooed sister product introduced around the same time.

Domino's Parmesan Bread Bites retail for $2.99, which is a pretty fair price for 16 sawed-off breadsticks that are sized about halfway between a Combo and a Totino's Pizza Roll. I will risk making a dubious correlation between value and calories by pointing out that 16 bread bites add up to 600 calories: Throw that in your personal calories-per-penny junk food algorithm as you see fit; on my scale, the price is fairly right.

The product itself is adequate. The undercooked exterior doesn't provide much textural contrast with the interior, which is a demerit in my book, but I realize there are other books out there. The innards have a bit of a gummy white sandwich breadiness, though in the best possible way (which is an OK way).

The flavor is on par with the texture: It'll do, as long as you don't expect it to do much. The semi-salty crust is dusted with Parmesan and Asiago and then slickened with a faintly garlicky version of the house butter-oil. The interior has no character beyond what might be expected from the reduced-calorie version of a Wonder Bread-flavored soda pop: a little fake sugar, a lot of bleached flour.

Perhaps you're thinking you can beat the system by smartening these bland Bites up with an aftermarket exterior coat, but Domino's is working against that plan on two counts. First of all, they stinge-out by charging you 60 cents per cup of dipping sauce. Six-tenths of a clam might not seem like a ton until you consider than it increases the overall price by 20 percent. That's a pretty generous tip for a double-shot of marinara. And then there's the more pressing concern that Domino's dipping sauces generally range from a low point of crappy all the way on up to inoffensively boring.

Overall, I found the combination of a fair price, a not-overtly-deadly nutrition profile, and an adequate taste to be a curse in disguise. I shoveled them into my mouth absentmindedly, and while they didn't gross me out, bloat me out, or clean me out, they didn't do me any great favors, either. After the seventh one I remembered deciding that two had been enough. That's not because they were "addicting" (my least favorite food word) or even growing on me; it's because they were there and they weren't terrible.

Domino's is currently offering to Bite you 16 times for a dollar if you order two medium pizzas for $5.99 apiece. At that price, what the hell, throw them in if your party is otherwise destined to come up 600 calories short and a buck long. That's the strongest endorsement I can offer.

I know that summary might not water many mouths, but Parmesan Bread Bites really aren't bad. The problem is they don't have a single above-average quality that makes them worth ordering unless you find yourself trapped in a Domino's with nothing but $3, an empty stomach, and cursory cholesterol awareness. Across the board, they're no better or worse a lunch option than a garlic-parmiago bagel with light cream cheese. That's not enough to get me into Domino's, but reasonable breadheads may disagree.

About the author: Will Gordon loves life and hates mayonnaise. You can eat and drink with him in Boston or follow him on twitter @WillGordonAgain.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

The Sicilian Slice at O'Malley's. Photographs: Jim Bonomo]

Since Apizza Scholls ceased its Sicilian pie service, the thick, square slices have been the missing link of the Portland pizza scene. After recently discovering that a hole-in-the-wall Southeast Portland pub was serving up the square style, I knew where the Slice business would be leading me this week. O'Malley's Saloon and Grill is the last place you'd imagine would be rocking a gas-fired stone hearth oven, and when the bartender was unsure what "a slice of Sicilian" meant, my spirits fell.

Fear not, this slice ($4 during happy hour) was the real deal. A sweet, garlicky sauce full of fresh, chunky tomatoes formed a solid base, and the co-mingled perfectly with the Parmesan and mozzarella. A dusting of fresh black pepper added appropriate zest, and the slice itself was expertly seasoned.

As should be with a Sicilian slice, the crust was the star. The airy, spongy center was supported by an audibly crispy exterior; the boxy edges crackled with brown butter. It may not be the most traditional Sicilian out there, but it pressed all the buttons I hoped it would after a personal five-year hiatus from the oft-ignored style.

O'Malley's Saloon and Grill

503-777-0495; www.omalleyspdx.com

The Neapolitan pizza juggernaut just won't quit. Coming just a few weeks after Don Antonio's opening, Via Tribunali opened its doors on Monday for dinner. A mini chain, Via Tribunali comes to NYC by way of Seattle, where owner Michael McConnell opened the first location in 2004. There are now four VTs in Seattle and one in Portland, Oregon. This is the first in NYC, and it opens along with next-door neighbor Caffe Vita, McConnell's coffee shop mini chain.

The Margherita DOC ($16) includes tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, grana padano cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and basil.

As per the Neapolitan thing, the pizzas are small, about 12 inches in diameter. Expect to order one per person.

At a Neapolitan-inspired place, there's always the chance that you'll be served an unsliced pizza. So it goes at Via Tribunali. Pizzerias that hue to more traditional Neapolitan practices often let the customer do the work. The thought is that slicing a pie before it gets to the table allows sauce to seep beneath the pizza and sog up the crust.

I visited on Tuesday, the second night it was open to the public. It's too early to pass judgment, but the pizzas we sampled were good. The crust has enough flavor to keep things interesting even on a Margherita (though we had the Margherita DOC, with buffalo mozzarella, which was creamy and slightly tangy). The sauce is bright, with enough salt to offset the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The Salsiccia Friarelli pizza ($17) is a white pie (no sauce) topped with provola cheese, sausage, broccoli rabe, Parmesan, and basil.

The crust on the two pies we had was somewhere between lightly charred and too charred, which I'm chalking up to the pizza-makers breaking in and learning their oven's hot spots. The hole structure is not as airy as, say, Motorino's but there's enough rise at the edges, showing a moderately open crumb.

Like the Via Tribs I've been to in Seattle, this one is well-thought-out decor-wise. It's all warm wood and brick walls. At night it's dark enough to serve as a date spot but doesn't devolve into a spelunking expedition (like the Georgetown Via Trib in Seattle). It's small, and there's a high cramp factor—which seems designed at once to make the place feel intimate and also jam in as many diners as possible.

Gennaro Nasti and Nico Calzone, both from Naples, are the pizzaioli here. Nasti comes from the Portland Via Tribunali (where the video above was shot), and before that worked for and learned from Antonio Starita at Pizzeria Starita in Naples.

For a nice look at the interior, check out this post on Eater.

Via Tribunali

122 Ludlow Street, New York NY 10022 (near Rivington; map)
212-260-8742; viatribunali.net

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been blogging about pizza for more than 8 years. You can follow him as @akuban on Twitter.

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

Life in the suburbs means you often have to settle. Don't get me wrong; we enjoy great schools and I love having a yard. But once you motor 20 miles outside the city, you're often limited by geography when it comes to things like dry cleaners, theaters... and pizzerias. The good news is that every strip mall is seemingly required by law to house a pizza place. The bad news is that seemingly every pizza place in the 'burbs is housed in a strip mall. And while I've had some perfectly fine pies at many, it can definitely be a hit-or-miss proposition. Sometimes, though, you just have to settle for what's nearby.

Rosa's Pizza couldn't be more convenient to me. It's located in the same shopping center as my grocery store and my Home Depot, nestled in a long row of retailers with many of the usual suspects: Bath & Body Works, GNC, a used-CD store (who's still buying CDs???), and the ubiquitous frozen yogurt shop. But unlike many generic "Italian-Sounding-Name" pizza joints, Rosa's comes with a bit of pedigree. Mr. Rosa, a Long Island native, opened his namesake pizzeria in downtown Atlanta, right off the Georgia State University campus, over 20 years ago. And among local pizza fiends, his is considered some of the most genuine New York-style pie you're likely to find in the A. But with the three family members who run Rosa's all migrating outside the perimeter, a closer-to-home satellite location seemed like a natural fit. That's where I found myself on a recent weeknight, during a rushed evening of chauffeuring kids to swimming lessons and gymnastics practices, when cooking dinner at home clearly wasn't in the cards.

My pie came out of the dual gas ovens looking decent enough: lots of gooey mozzarella, a substantial scattering of pepperoni across half. This 50/50 was a strategic choice, allowing me to test-drive the regular pie, but also to follow up on one of the more common knocks I'd heard on Rosa's—that the pepperoni is excessively greasy. Underneath, the crust had no char spots, and the crackly outer rim surface quickly gave way to a doughy, chewy interior. Almost no big bubbles in the hand-tossed crust. My slice from the plain half was monumentally cheesy; my sample from the pepperoni half was monumentally greasy. If by "authentic New York pizza" Rosa's means "a sloppy, greasy slice that satisfies a craving but has no real character and leaves you with pangs of regret later," then they are spot-on. I guess there's some of that in the Big Apple, and believe me, there are times when that's precisely what I'm looking for in a pie. But I have a feeling that ultimately plays better to the late-night college crowd at the downtown location than it does up here in MiniVanLand.

I had higher hopes for one of the specialty pies, Joe's Pizza. A sauceless offering, it's topped with chicken, mozzarella, Parmesan, and your choice of ranch or honey mustard dressing latticed over the top. It was a pretty pizza that even showed a few darkened spots down below, but Joe's beauty proved to be just skin deep. Dry, overcooked chicken and way too much ranch (I can't believe I just typed that) left me thinking about the menu, where a starburst graphic next to Joe's Pizza exclaims, "You have to TRY this." Interesting that they emphasized the word "try" with all caps; I did TRY it... and was done almost immediately.

Would I go back to Rosa's Pizza? I guess I wouldn't turn my nose up at a plain cheese slice (under two bucks!) during my next Home Depot run. But then again, why settle? I'm in the suburbs, after all. There's more pizza as close as the next strip mall.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers for AHT and pizzas for Slice, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.

[Photographs: Hawk Krall]

One thing that might surprise a lot of people about Philadelphia is that we have a HUGE vegetarian population, and a long history of veggie friendly restaurants that sort of fly under the radar. Blackbird's location right off of South Street is actually the former home of Gianni's Grill (now closed)—for a long time one of the few places in town to get a vegetarian cheesesteak. Blackbird opened 2 years ago, an all vegan Philly-style pizzeria and sandwich shop.

More gas-deck slice shop than high-end pizzeria, the crust on Blackbird's double wide slices is better than most slice joints in Philly. Sturdy but not tough and chewy, and nicely charred. The red sauce is also a nice departure from the usual Philly sweet stuff, more like roughly crushed tomatoes, applied sparingly. Even the vegan sausage on the South Philly (also topped with eggplant, broccoli rabe and shaved fennel) was pretty good.

But the fake vegan daiya "cheese" they use is definitely an acquired taste. It must be heaven for vegans who haven't had dairy in 5 years, but to me it tastes like something you would find growing in the corner of your refrigerator. I feel like their pizza would be phenomenal without it, but then again If I were vegan I might travel halfway across the country for something like this. They do offer a few pies without the fake cheese, not available by the slice when I was there. Great crust, sauce and fresh toppings, but if you aren't vegan, it's probably worth it to custom order a whole pie sans daiya.

Blackbird Pizza

507 South 6th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 (map)
215-625-6660; blackbirdpizzeria.com

About the author: Hawk Krall is a Philadelphia-based illustrator who has a serious thing for hot dogs. Dig his dog drawings? Many of the illustrations he has created for Hot Dog of the Week are available for sale: hawkkrall.net/prints/.

[Image: Robyn Lee]

Yeah, you read that right. According to the Cape Cod Times, Urology Associates of Cape Cod are offering a free pizza (from Surf's Up Pizza & Seafood in Sandwich) with each vasectomy. This is one time where you can get a whole pie in one slice (ba dum dum)!

The idea is to time your surgery with March Madness, take your ouch to the couch and chow down on some free pizza. Man, what is it with Cape Cod and bizarro pizza promotions?! (Remember this one?) Interestingly, according to a follow-up interview by Bloomberg Businessweek, it's working. Since starting the promotion they've gone from scheduling their usual 5 consultations a week to scheduling 100. And the clinic asserts that these are serious clients.

Check out the video with a clip of the promotional video:

[Video: Capecast]

You gotta love a good meatball topping joke.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

Pizza Cones aren't new (Adam covered them here over 2 years ago), but they are newly abuzz. There must have been a strong pizza cone presence at the Las Vegas Pizza Expo last week, or enough to have RyanSeacrest.com (yes, that exists) asking if they're the next big thing.

Just looking at them kind of makes me feel like I swallowed a boulder, but that doesn't mean I don't see the appeal. There's a definite fair food effect, and who can say no to that?! Sure, you might regret it later, but would you at least give it try?

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

The Real Deal's chicken, bacon, and ranch slice with a rogue shred of basil. [Photograph: Paige Brocious]

Before my recent trip to The Real Deal, I had only ever ordered their delicious and cutely named sandwiches, like The Darth Vader pastrami and the Lucy Goosey turkey Reuben. Though they're rumored to have similarly great pizzas, I was a bit skeptical that a specialty sandwich shop could excel in any other medium. However, the Chicken Ranch ($3.00) slice is a testament to their ability to do pizzas right.

A light layer of ranch acted as a creamy, tangy, and not-too-sweet sauce beneath the melted mozzarella. Some ripe tomato slices provided brightness to an otherwise mostly white slice. But it was the chunks of chicken cutlet that really stole the show. They were moist and tender while retaining their crisp breading. And the bacon bits added a great smokey-sweet flavor to the equation.

A sparingly charred underside made for a solid, but pliant base. And the last few bites of crust will make you think twice before discarding. It was comparable to a dense crusty baguette that's often better without any dressings. So whether or not you've had the sandwiches at The Real Deal, the slices alone are proof that this is an establishment that simply serves great food.

The Real Deal

736 Centre St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 (map)
617-522-1181; realdealdeli.com

About the author: Paige Brocious is a former Serious Eats intern now helping out with Slice in Boston.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Chocolate, Flowers, Cashews, and More!

This My Pie Monday brought Slice'rs out of the woodwork! Not only has Adam Kuban, the creator of all things Slice, joined the folds, but this round also includes Slice heavyweight Pizzablogger, and the return of Ev. Always great to have you guys. And there's been a whole lot of pizza making going on. This week we are seventeen strong! Among the longtime regular MPMers we have jimmyg, amusebouche1, Norma427, Imwalkin, dmacavanagh, and dhorst. Representing the newer regulars are RobynB, Redwgn67, and Steve Viterali. There's always room for more pie makers around here, so we're happy to welcome npinto, brando, and ccleon. Enough with the introductions, let's get to those fantastic looking pies!

If you make pizza at home, join the My Pie Monday fun, just take one snapshot of a pie you made recently, describe your cooking method (in 80 words or less), and follow these instructions to get it to us by 8pm (EST) Thursday. Be sure to let us know your Slice screen name.

Want to see more inspiring pizza made by Slice'rs? Right this way »

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: 1,000 Passions' 'Making Pizza with Paulie Gee' Experience

[Photographs: Jessica Leibowitz]

Yes, that's me above in a role reversal of sorts. I'm usually on the eating side of the pizza equation (at least when I'm not at home). But when Slice/SE offered me the chance to possibly make pizza at Paulie Gee's in a private, pre-opening session, I was so there.

This opportunity is one of 70 available at 1,000 Passions, a website that offers exclusive private "experiences" along a number of themes, food and drink included.

The Paulie Gee Experience is a two-and-a-half hour meet-and-eat that begins at $275 for 2 people and includes all the pizza you can eat, along with wine pairings. Paulie Gee himself makes the pizza and joins you for the meal, regaling you with his stories, his methods, and his pizza philosophy. He'll answer any of your questions, to the best of his ability—just don't think you're going to get the secret of his tomatoes. (Disclosure: 1,000 Passions comped Slice/SE this event.)

Depending on the number of people in your party and your comfort level with pizza-making, you may get the opportunity to go behind the counter and do some work yourself. (Hey ... somebody's been reading Tom Sawyer.) With larger parties, Paulie says, it may be that you'll top the pizzas after he stretches the dough (it takes a while to teach people the stretching method). Because there were only two of us when we went on a recent Sunday afternoon, my wife (aka Girl Slice) and I both got a chance to shape some dough and top it. Which one of us do you think was better at it?

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

I've been a huge supporter of the French/Mediterranean restaurant Café Livre since its November 2011 opening. Chef Farid Zadi's ever expanding menu includes a house made ciabatta that is the best I've had. Ever. A few weeks ago he introduced Spanish cocas which have fast become a favorite local eat.

The Zucchini, Slow Roasted Corn, Tomato Sauce, Gruyere Cheese and Basil ($12) is the highlight of the coca menu. Traditionally, cocas are topped with an array of items, but caramelized onions are frequently in the mix. Instead, Chef Zadi brings sweetness to this dish with the sugary crunch of slow roasted corn. The golden slabs of heirloom tomatoes and rich sauce add juiciness to each bite. Green ribbons of zucchini and basil add crunch and fragrance. Tangy creaminess hides beneath it all from the light touch of Gruyere.

It's a crisp dense crust, glistening in buttery olive oil and filled with a hint of fermented sweetness. The chewy bread is made with a natural starter and high-gluten bread flour. I love gnawing on the leftover crusts with the house made red, green, or habañero harissas. The habañero threatens to kill me everytime. But in an ideal world, the cool heat of the green harissa would be as ubiquitous as a shaker of chili flakes.

Café Livre

9626 Venice Blvd Culver City, CA 90232 (map)
310-842-9078; eatgoodcleanfood.com

About the author: After nearly a decade in Brooklyn, Kelly Bone landed back in Los Angeles where she writes The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

[Videography & Editing: Jessica Leibowitz; Music: DanoSongs.com; Sound PA: Sarah Buchanan; Post Production PA: Niki Achitoff-Gray]

Any New Yorker who eats bread has most likely tried some of the magical edible stuff that Jim Lahey produces at Sullivan Street Bakery or at Co., his newer (awesome) pizza venture (to which we've given plenty of thought).

Over the last few weeks, through meticulous scientific investigation, I think I've finally discovered the true secret to getting bread as good as Lahey's on a completely, 100% consistent basis. Step one: get Jim Lahey to make it.

Ok, ok. So I admit, it's not a particularly practical method, and my sample pool here was one. That said, when Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey dropped the No Knead Bread recipe on the world back in 2006, with a single short youtube video, they did more to improve home baking than perhaps any other single event in history. I know that I've personally never looked back. (See my own explanation of the science here).

Lahey's first book, My Bread, was all about the no knead method. The way you do it? Just mix flour, salt, and yeast, add water, stir it all together, then let it sit in a covered bowl for 8 or 9 hours. Over the course of this long fermentation, enzymes break down large flour proteins into smaller segments that can then quite easily be cross-linked into stretchy sheets of gluten. You wind up with a dough that stretches as if it had been perfectly kneaded, without any of the oxidation that occurs with actual kneading.

The result? Perfectly textured bread with next to no work.

Today Lahey releases his new book My Pizza ($27.95), which promises to do for pizza what My Bread did for bread. It's largely based on his no-knead dough, with dozens of recipes for topping combinations that are tomato-based, white sauce based, and completely sauceless. You'll find most of the pies from Co. within its pages.

If there's one thing any home pizza maker can tell you, it's that its nearly impossible to get the same bubbly, crisp, charring that you get from a real-deal wood fired Neapolitan pizza oven. Check out the video above as Jim Lahey shows us that not only is it possible, it's actually pretty damn easy to do. Then follow his no knead pizza dough recipe and start whipping incredible pies out of your own oven.

Get The Recipe!

Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza Dough »

Jim Lahey's No Knead Broccoli Rabe, Garlic, Ginger, and Thai Chili Pizza »

More Pizza Videos:

Ask Nancy Silverton, Part I »

Ask Paulie, Week 1 »

Ask Paulie, Week 2 »

Ask Paulie, Week 3 »

Ask Paulie, Week 4 »

Recipes!

• Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza with Broccoli Rabe, Garlic, Ginger, and Thai Chilis
• Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza Dough

Ever have trouble deciding who pays for pizza? Why bother divvying up the check based on what people ate or drank or even splitting the bill evenly? With this plate, the person who grabs a slice to reveal the black circle has to bite the bullet.

At just over 12 inches and with six "bullet chambers," it's clearly designed for smaller Neapolitan pies. 30€ from veinticuatrodientes.com. [via Gizmodo; h/t Joanna C.]