- I don't what my grandma say about this.
- Um, the cheese, uh...
(crickets chirping)
(upbeat accordion music)
- Hey, what's up, everybody?
It's your girl Merle and today
we're going to be making a vegan pizza.
But not only that.
Our vegan pizza is gonna be taste tested and judged
by a panel of Italians.
I will say, I've been doing this vegan thing
for a long time now, a few years.
I would get a lot, a lot of comments
on any Italian dish I tried to make vegan.
I know Italians are very proud of their cuisine.
One of my best friends, Rachel Gayetsky,
ever heard of her, almost terminated our friendship
because I told her I would put butter on pasta
and then use tomato sauce on it too
as like a quick late night snack.
She didn't say she didn't want to be my friend anymore
but the look in her eyes said it all.
So I know what I'm up for,
I know these judges are going to be tough
and true and honest and that's good.
That's what we want here, right?
Right?
Yeah.
So for the pizza, the two important parts
are the dough and the mozzarella
and, of course, the sauce.
My biggest challenge is gonna be this vegan mozzarella.
I'm gonna use a cashew base
and then add a little miso nutritional yeast,
tapioca starch, lemon juice, salt, and coconut oil,
and hope that I can recreate some of the tang
and the texture that you get from regular mozzarella.
For the dough, in order for the crust to be crunchy
and perfect, we're going to let it proof overnight.
Without further ado, let's make this vegan pizza
and let's have them try it.
- Hi everybody, my name is Christina Milani
and I move here from Italy four years ago.
- My name is Sara, I'm from Rome,
and I moved to Los Angeles in 2002.
- Hi, my name is Roberta.
I moved to the United States in 2012,
so it's nine years.
- My relation with Italian food,
it's like unconditional love.
I cook almost every day.
- Even after a stress day, when I'm cooking, I relax.
- I love eating Italian.
Eating pasta for lunch and pasta for dinner, essentially.
With pizza twice a week, probably.
The authentic margarita pizza has to have
a very thin yet crispy crust.
- There are not too many ingredients.
It's not complicated but the quality of the products
are very, very important to have the best result.
- The basic is only fresh tomatoes,
mozzarella, and usually they put only the base on.
- Of course you need also to have
a very nice and good oven
that can cook at a very high temperature.
- I'm not vegan, but it's a culture, being vegan.
It's a style of life.
So my style of life, it's completely different.
- I was vegan for four months.
For me, food and eating is about having
a full sensorial experience.
So vegan wasn't really cutting it for me.
- [Merle] Do you think that I can make
a vegan pizza that you're not gonna be able
to tell the difference?
- I'm not really sure you can make a vegan pizza
that I cannot tell the difference
but that doesn't mean that it's not gonna be a good pizza.
- Oh my God, the cheese.
- The cheese...
Ah.
- The pizza look really nice, really good,
and smell delicious.
- Like, I'm like, no, I'm sorry.
Like how can I believe this is mozzarella?
- And the texture, uh, smooshy, uh...
- You know, mozzarella is like a thing.
It's like when you cook it,
it like becomes like nice and creamy,
and this is like, I don't even know how to describe it.
- The cheese doesn't stretch.
See, he really breaks.
- Cheese look really great and the tomatoes.
- The tomato sauce looks nice and the basil, too.
The pasta, the pasta seems okay.
- It's very crispy.
(Roberta sighs)
- I feel bad because I feel like
I'm already putting the pizza down in a way
but I'm just gonna keep it real here.
- The cheese is not the right one for a pizza.
- The pizza is delicious.
It's very crispy, I can even feel the olive oil.
- The dough is good.
But there's nothing else.
- The cheese is not good at all.
Not eatable at all, sorry.
- You cannot compare with a mozzarella,
buffalo mozzarella, who has a completely taste,
but here put together everything,
it's completely delicious.
- And the tomato sauce, a little bit too sweet.
But it's good, it's not bad, it's light.
- If you see like the tomato sauce
is doing the same thing of the cheese.
Like it doesn't melt, it doesn't,
it just like sits there but doesn't blend
with the crust and if it doesn't blend, it's, ugh.
- Tomatoes and basil are delicious.
You cannot even say it's not a normal pizza.
I don't know what my grandma can say about this
but it's really delicious.
- The only thing that is salvageable from this pizza
is the...
Is the dough.
- I would never make this for anyone,
not even my worst enemy, sorry. (laughing)
- No, I would never go out of my way to make this.
- The pizza is good, I would make it without the cheese.
- After this, I start thinking that I can move to vegan.
- I guess I'm a little bit of a purist probably.
It was a good attempt.
I will give the dough a six and a half.
- Among all the pizzas that I have,
I would rank this pizza a four
and the reason, it's mainly the cheese.
- So like a rate for this pizza,
I can give an eight.
- [Merle] Wow.
Is there anything you would change?
- Just a glass of beer. (laughing)
(upbeat classical music)