Wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizzas are all the rage, with diners responding to the signature dough and distinct flavor of fire. But as the trend in Italian-meets-American innovation continues, chefs are playing with what goes onto that classic crust. Wanting to go beyond the basic Margherita but stay true to a Neapolitan-style build, Richard Kaplan, Chef/Owner of Weights + Measures, started to play with the sauce, the cheese and the toppings, looking to create a quintessential American pie. “I felt the menu needed something more,” he says. For the base, he landed on a soubise thickened with triple cream. “This was to be an American pizza, so what better cheese topping than Veldhuizen Redneck Cheddar from central Texas?”
Looking to the carrot as the hero of the pizza, he duplicated a recipe from Monica Pope’s Sparrow Bar + Cookshop, also in Houston. “I had first tasted roasted heirloom baby carrots sprinkled with dukka there, and knew this was the perfect topping for our pizza. Carrots, cheddar, soubise, dukka—couldn’t miss, right?,” he notes. “Not so fast, my friends. It was good, sort of, but something was missing.” He tried adding parsley, then basil, then garlic, then red chile flakes—none did the trick. He then tried red Fresno chiles, cilantro and chile oil. “Voilà! Weights + Measures’ signature pizza is born,” says Kaplan. “It is now our No. 1 pizza.”
