Ok here's the NYC Pizza. Couple of caveats. A seasoned pizza steel will outperform a pizza stone any day of the week, so get one from the Zon. Clean and season it as you would a cast iron pan. It will last forever. Put pizza steel in oven and crank it on 500 to 550F for one hour. Resist the temptation to keep opening the door. The dough recipe follows. Use all purpose flour if you like a more floppy slice. Use bread flour if you like less flop. Quantities remain the same. I've adapted this from John Arena, who was instrumental in the NYC pizza scene in the 60's and 70's. If you use a pizza stone you will get nice leopard spots on the underside, which Davey Pageviews on Barstool sports creams his pants for. Here's the dough.
Oh yea, don't be cheap and get a freaking scale. A cup of this etc means nothing. Add your dry ingredients, then water, then mix at stir speed on your kitchen aid for 4 min. Add the oil, mix for 4 more min. Dough should be nice and uniform. Place in covered container in your fridge for 2 days. Never make pizza from freshly proofed dough. It will taste bland. When you cold proof things, not only do they ferment, you create short chain amino acids etc that give you that umami flavor. So let it go for 48 hrs.
At the end of that time frame, remove your dough ball and using scale, subdivide into 2. Make sure the balls are taut (like your testes) and put them in a covered container or they will develop a skin. Go get a beer and crank up the oven for at least an hour with your steel in it. I use the top rack. Your oven might be different.
Take your dough ball after about 3 hours at room temp and stretch it. Most will do a horrid job of this but there are youtube videos. Flour both sides well and use your fingers and light pressure. This is a very forgiving dough and you can stretch and toss it quite easily. Hell if I can do it, so can you. I am inept but I was whirring this puppy like a frisbee.
When you have a nice round disc, put it on a pizza peel that has flour or corn meal on it. Add toppings. I make it traditional so just sauce and moz cheese. Do not use fresh moz and do notuse shredded crap. It will either run watery or burn. Buy brick moz or moz from the deli and use that. Slices are just fine.
Lots of people make their so-called own sauce. I think that is dumb. I finally found a sauce that is thick, delicious and requires no modification and is cost effective and hell its from NJ. Bada bing.
The brand is Don Pepino. It's on the zon.
If you are putting pepperoni, put it on top of cheese. Whatever you do, don't make it superheavy. It won't come off the peel. Put that sucker in the oven and every 10 min, rotate it by 90 degrees. Depending on your oven it should be done in about 15 min tops. If you have an outdoor oven, even less.
For 2 16 inch pizzas | | | |
| | | |
| | | Percentages |
607.518 | grams | Flour | 60.15% |
376.6625 | grams | Water | 37.29% |
1.518795 | grams | Dry Yeast | 0.15% |
12.15036 | grams | Salt | 1.20% |
12.15036 | grams | Olive Oil | 1.20% |
1010 | Total | Dry Yeast Version | |