123Dough’s got the goods on the freshest sourdough pizza

Paul Park and his organic sourdough pizza, breads and pastas. (Amy Sowder Photos)

By AMY SOWDER

Paul Park grew up in Queens, eating pizza almost every day everywhere he went.

“I’m trying to replicate that pizza here,” he said as he stretched the dough for a 12-inch pie in the kitchen at 123Dough in Scotts Corners business district of Pound Ridge. “I just want to make really good pizza.”

He likes the bakery connection with pizza. “It started with Italians working in bakeries, and they made the pizza for themselves,” he said. “I like that history, and it mirrors our story.”

Park introduced sourdough pizza in 2024, took a yearlong break on it, and based on popular demand, just relaunched it — plus sourdough pizza classes for the community — in late August.

Freshly milled, ancient organic grain sourdough breads are, well, the bread and butter for 123Dough, but Park is excited about his line of six sourdough pizzas that use the same exacting methods in pizza-pie format.

123Dough, a USDA-certified organic bakery, is named after the dough’s three ingredients: organic wheat, spring water and salt. Since opening in 2019, the bakery has selected wheat from organic farms across the U.S., Canada and Europe that staff have visited in-person. The bakery mills its own grains for maximum freshness and flavor. As the company expanded, the milling moved from next door to Yorktown Heights, and that adjacent space is now a 123Dough provisions shop including 123Dough sourdough noodles, pesto, and cultured butter, plus a curated selection of products from other companies.

“People with gluten sensitivities can digest our pasta and bread without any issues,” Park said. “The longer fermentation time helps.” 

Commercial yeast ferments for about two hours, he said, while their natural yeast process takes about 24 hours for bread. From start to finish, including the milling, the bread takes two days to make. The pizza takes even longer.

Meet the OG pizza: It’s topped with fresh mozzarella, pecorino romano, Parmesano Reggiano, fresh basil and housemade marinara. The 12-inch pies start with a sourdough ball that’s 300 grams, or about 10 ounces.

Park makes the pizza sourdough with primarily einkorn, one of the oldest — if not the oldest on record — ancestors of today’s wheat. Einkorn has higher protein than modern wheat, including a “less toxic” form of the gliadin protein, which eases digestion for people with gluten sensitivities.

Park ferments his pizza dough for 72 hours.

“Fermenting extra-long makes the final product’s texture lighter than other sourdough that’s fermented for only 24 hours,” Park said.

After Park plucks the brown-flecked dough ball from a covered tray in the fridge, he places it on his work station and carefully presses it outward. All the while, he sprinkles on flour to keep the dough from sticking to his gloved hands and countertop.

A good pizza dough is also about finding the best hydration amounts and right ratios.

“You have to stretch it just enough before it rips, to keep it thin,” he said, lifting the expanding dough in the air. “Because this is ancient-grain dough, it’s harder to work with, and it rips more easily.”

Finally, when the suspended dough is almost translucent in his hands, he places the resulting 12-inch round on the pizza peel. The thin, wooden cutting board with a handle works like a giant spatula for sliding pizza in and out of the oven.

Park ladles on the bright red marinara in a concentric spiral, stopping an inch from the perimeter.

“I’m a huge pizza nerd. I’ve visited many of the most famous pizzerias in New York,” he said, mentioning Joe’s Pizza on Carmine Street in Manhattan, and Di Fara and Lucali, both in Brooklyn.

A lot of places use raw tomatoes in their sauce, he said. But Park likes the sauce’s flavor when Lucali cooks the tomatoes first, so he does the same. He cooks the pizza’s marinara sauce for two hours using organic plum tomatoes from California, garlic, oregano, salt and olive oil.

Then come the light showers of salty Parmesan and pecorino, squishy chunks of mild, fresh mozzarella, and ribbons of low-moisture mozzarella. 

The pizza is now ready to be expertly shifted in little quick nudges onto the pizza steel. Pizza stones work best in large, high-heat commercial pizza ovens, but because Park is using a smaller conventional oven that reaches only 550 degrees Fahrenheit, he likes the steel, which raises the temperature to 575 degrees.

The pizza cooks for six minutes until the cheese starts to bubble. Park slides it out of the oven to reveal an orange-hued, gooey, crispy pie. “In New York-style pizza, when the ratio of cheese to sauce is right, it’s an orange color,” he said. Park sprinkles a bit more pecorino on top for some sharp saltiness, and then rips off fresh leaves of sweet basil for a touch of herbal sweetness and color contrast.

With a roll of the pizza cutter wheel, the fragrant slices with crispy, thin crust are ready to be savored — just don’t call his food healthy. 

Sure, it’s fresher, more nutrient-dense and likely won’t upset your stomach, “but it tastes really good,” Park said. “We’re all gluttons here. We want to eat really, really good bread but with quality ingredients that don’t make you sick. I feel good bringing home this pizza to my 10-year-old son.”

123Dough is located at 78 Westchester Ave., Pound Ridge.