New Pocatello pop-up serves signature pizza cooked at 900 degrees

POCATELLO — Laura Caulfield has traveled the country working in restaurants. After a stint in New Mexico, she landed in southeastern Idaho and found a lack of Neapolitan pizza.

Caulfield has since filled that hole with Braise-Zen Pizza, a popup eatery that now attends the Monday Food Truck Roundup and Saturday Portneuf Valley Farmer’s Market — both of which are held weekly at Lookout Point in downtown Pocatello.

Not only does Caulfield import the flour she makes for her own special dough blend, the sauces and cheese blend are house-made. And the fennel sausage is her own take on a family recipe her grandparents made on special occasions throughout her childhood.

“I make mine ground, with ground pork, and I put my herbs — our secret spice blend in there,” Caulfield said, explaining that she hand grounds the toasted fennel and coriander in a mortar and pestle. … “Do it right or do it twice. Just go all the way if you’re going to do something. I want my grandma to be proud — I want my grandparents to be proud.”

Neapolitan — or Naples-style — pizza is defined by its crispy charred dough bubbles and “leopard spotting” on the bottom.

“(It’s got) a nice soft but crunchy crust, lots of structure inside,” Caulfield told EastIdahoNews.com. “It’s almost like eating a really good artisan bread, but with all the best toppings on it.”

She achieves the unique dough “structure” in part with a cooking style that sounds like a mistake. Caulfield cooks her pizzas in a wood-burning pizza oven set to 900 degrees, for 90 seconds.

Along with getting the crispy edges, Caulfield agreed that the fast cooking allows her to keep up with the demand of events like those she currently attends.

For my visit, Caulfield had me try the Meat Me @ Braise-Zen — her take on a meat-lover’s pizza. On it, she tops the crispy dough with a blench of mozzarella and parmigiano reggiano, pepperoni, bacon and the family-recipe fennel sausage.

It was difficult to decide which ingredient was my favorite. The dough, with its crispy almost tart flavor, was a nice change of pace from the standard pizza, while the differing textures of cheese made for an interesting ooey-gooeyness.

The pepperoni and bacon were excellent, but the sausage may be the best part of the unique pizza. It is far from any sausage I’ve ever had on a pizza — and sausage and mushroom is my go-to pie.

Caulfield also made me a balsamic glazed margherita pizza, which was every bit as good as the meat offering.

Again, she goes above and beyond, topping the pizza with different types of tomatoes for slightly different in textures and tastes.

The Braise-Zen menu also includes Supreme Dream — Caulfield’s take on a combination, with her meat trio, mushrooms, onions and olives. There is also an oscillating specialty, that switches between options like French Onion Fakeout — with caramelized onions and shallots, grueyere and gouda — and Finagle The Bagel — which, among other toppings, includes everything bagel seasoning.

Braise-Zen will be at the Pocatello Food Truck Roundup and farmer’s market all season. It is set up in a tent opposite the sidewalk from trucks.

Caulfield, a trained chef, said that she also does catering orders — and not just for pizza.

For more information about that, Caulfield can be contacted through Instagram — here — which is also where she posts her weekly schedule.

If you would like to make a recommendation for the next destination to be included on East Idaho Eats, email Kalama@EastIdahoNews.com and include “EATS” in the subject line.