All pizza in my life is either consciously or subconsciously compared to Luigi's, the pizza place that was about 2 minutes from my family's house in New Jersey. I still have nightmares about the night I had several front teeth knocked out (tire swings and running around while yelling into a long pipe are not a good combination), and of course we had Luigi's pizza. I remember standing in the bathroom trying to rip the useless loose teeth from my mouth so I could get back to the dinner table before the pizza was all gone.
I can count on one hand with several fingers left over the number of times I've had good New York style pizza since moving from New Jersey. Since you can't buy it in Utah, perhaps it's possible to make it. I make pizza all the time, whether it be cooked on the stone,
grilled,
deep dish in the Dutch Oven, or some pizza-like food such as calzones or
stromboli, and it turns out good, just not New York style. The only other time I've tried to make New York style, it just came out a crunchy failure.
However, I was inspired by the new 14 inch stone we just bought. We have well-seasoned 12 inch round and rectangle stones, but the unstained 14-incher was just begging for some New York love.
After reading several websites, I learned a few things:
- The dough needs to be kneaded longer to develop the gluten better. This allows the pizza to stretch more, so the middle can be thinner, instead of the thick, even focaccia-like crust I usually end up with.
- Put the oil in last after everything is mostly mixed (but before kneading), since it will prevent the gluten from developing if you add it too soon.
- Letting the dough sit 24 hours develops the taste of the crust better, which is also part of why the DO Bread tastes so good.
- The pizza needs to be cooked on the bottom rack of the oven so the cheese doesn't get too crispy too fast.
- The oven needs to be hot, preferably 800 degrees.
The first four items are simple enough. As tempting as it may be, I'm not going to purchase a commercial oven, build a wood-fired oven in the backyard, or disable the latch that locks the oven during the self-clean cycle, so I'm stuck with about 550 degrees (my guess, without an oven thermometer to measure exactly). To get the oven hot and keep it hot, I set the oven as high as it would go about 45 minutes before I was ready to put the pizza into the oven. The stone the pizza was to go on went on the bottom rack and another stone went on the second rack to try to create a little high temperature pocket between the two stones like this:
I followed the
recipe from pizzamaking.com pretty closely, and I'd recommend you visit their site for additional tips and details:
3½ cups (16 ounces) high-gluten flour
9 ounces warm water
1 tablespoon classico olive oil
1 teaspoon instant yeast
¾ teaspoon salt
In a stand mixer (e.g., KitchenAid) fitted with the paddle attachment, mix on low speed until ingredients come together and form a scrappy dough. Add olive oil and mix for a few seconds longer until it's incorporated into the dough. Switch to the dough hook attachment and set mixer to medium speed. Allow mixer to knead the dough for a full 15 minutes at which time it should pass a windowpane test. Place dough in a large oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place dough in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
When ready to make pizza, remove dough from refrigerator and allow to warm to room temperature. Preheat your oven (with pizza stone) to 550°F one hour prior to making pizza.
Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface. Press the dough into a flat, round disc. Use your fingers or the palm of your hand to press the dough out thin, leaving an outside raised edge. Place the dough over your fists and begin stretching it into a large circle. Place the dough on a pizza peel which was been dusted with flour, cornmeal, or semolina flour. Add your sauce, toppings, and cheese (perform this step rather quickly so that the dough will not have time to stick to the peel). Transfer the pizza to the oven and bake until the crust is dark brown and somewhat charred. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Transfer to a serving pan and slice.
Some people swear by certain special flours. I just used regular flour, plus a couple tablespoons of gluten. I used regular active yeast instead of instant, and I did activate it before adding the flour. Since you're proofing it in the refrigerator overnight, you probably don't need to use warm water, but I did. I took it out of the oven about 2.5 hours before baking, shaped the cold dough into two discs about the size of frisbee golf discs, covered them, and let them come up to room temperature before stretching them both out to 14 inches. Put parchment paper under the dough if you're not handy with a pizza peel.
For the sauce, rather than going with something exotic like alfredo or barbecue sauce like usual, I just blended up a couple cans of Italian style stewed tomatoes, added some oregano and simmered it for half an hour to thicken it up a little, and added mozzarella and pepperoni to both pies right before putting in the oven.
The result was good. It needs some work, but it's headed in the right direction. The crust was crunchy and brown around the edge and floppy in the middle, like it should be. The cheese didn't get too crispy like usually happens to me. It was melted just right. It didn't have large air bubbles in it, even with the overnight proof. I may try using less yeast and proofing it for 24 hours in a warm location instead of the refrigerator to see if I can get some bigger air bubbles in the dough.
