Bluehour Chef Thomas Boyce Spins a Seasonal Pizza

As part of Eater's first-ever Pizza Week, chefs at four Portland restaurants that normally don't serve pizzas agreed to make a special Eater Pizza, just for us (and you — they're available on the menu all this week). Every day we'll highlight a new creation... and next up, Bluehour's Thomas Boyce praises the lard on his seasonally inspired pie.

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[Avila, 5/2/12]

Thanks to a long tenure at Wolfgang Puck's Italian-inspired spot Spago, Bluehour chef Thomas Boyce knows his way around pizza dough. "I like a crust as thin as possible," Boyce says as he casually tosses a pizza dough (seasoned with a touch of honey) in the Pearl spot's uber-busy kitchen. "I don't ever want it to be bread-y or doughy. The crust should be nice and light and crisp, and just a little bit chewy."

For Eater's Pizza Week creation, Boyce reached for recently foraged ingredients — ramps and morel mushrooms — creating a quick saute of morels, ramps, roasted garlic, and thyme until the morels carmelized. When assembling the pizza, Boyce first sprinkles a layer of mozzarella "as a base to keep everything intact," he says, then adds goat fromage blanc from Cypress Grove before topping it off with the saute. After baking in the 475-degree oven for five to six minutes, Boyce removes the pizza — then, for good measure, tops it with thinly-sliced lardo (from Chop Butchery) to add an additional layer of salt and richness, in place of the perhaps more-traditional prosciutto.

What a bite? The morel and fromage blanc pizza is available at the Bluehour bar all this week.
· Bluehour [Official site]
· All Previous Bluehour Coverage [Eater PDX]
· All Previous Pizza Week Coverage [Eater PDX]