I agree with the pizzaman at the end. What makes food better is competition. Where I live there are fewer places to eat and few good places. Most people are complacent with chains or complacent with meh food so no one really innovates or has passion to make their food as best it can be. In a high density place like NYC you HAVE to be at least good or you gonna go outta business fast.
Yeah, I notice something similar where I come from. Lots of bakeries, fish and chips shops, and burger joints. Everything else is mediocre to bad, but the competition on those three gives some really strong results. There are 3 bakeries, 2 fish and chips shops, and 4 burger joints walking distance from my house, and half of them are pretty damn good.
As someone who moved from being a 20 minute drive from NYC all the way to San Diego, I cannot overstate how sad I am at the lack of good places for food here (especially pizza). I distinctly remember a conversation amongst San Diegans I was having last year about them saying how "good" Domino's is. 💀
Like, if you're in a town that only has one pizza place, you'll go there because it's the best option, but it's definitely not going to be anywhere near the thousands in New York City.
As a Londoner, let me tell you: London's water is like 200000% calcium. Imagine the hardest water you can, then triple it. So to Taha, anything made with not-London water will seem softer than a cloud.
Sillier counteroffer ; Hinkley CA water. 2.2 ~ 1.19 parts per Billion of Chromium 6 in the water. Add some pizza dough and watch it turn to stone instantly.
8:31 got really nervouse about the sauce on Taha's finger with his long-sleeve white shirt on. 9:44 sabrina has chosen her thumb instead, but also went for a white top on pizza day. Then i realized Melissa, who is working with dough and flour, chose to wear BLACK. THATS AS RISKY AS WEARING BLACK AND PICKING UP A CAT. Ya'll are crazy - My retention was kept to make sure no messes were made.
The water is definitely part of it. There's a chain in Florida called Brooklyn Water Bagel and their whole gimmick is that they "Brooklynize" local water by distilling it and then adding minerals to mimic the composition of Brooklyn water.
Which, no joke, is exactly what I was thinking about during the video. "Huh, could you make a business out of it by selling New York pizza in a non-New York place by reverse engineering the water composition?"
THATS WHAT I IMMEDIATELY CAUGHT TOO. the funniest thing is that calling it a regular slice is so concentrated to the nyc/li area, because the moment you hit upstate new york even they start calling it a cheese pizza. vile.
Adam Ragusea* did this recently. He concluded that the higher fluoride level in the New York water killed the yeast off faster and resulted in the thin crisp crust. (at least that's how I remember it without watching the video again) Edit: *MatPat. It was MatPat. I have a terrible memory
i'm not a new yorker but i have worked in a pizzeria and you'd be surprised how much of a difference a pizza oven makes. i've tried making the exact same recipe from home but my oven just doesn't get anywhere close to the 650F we use at work and it's an incredibly noticeable difference. i bet if you had access to a hotter oven it would taste even better!
Not the just the oven, they put baked the pizza in a cold pan. Thin crusts like that really need to be baked on pizza steel that has sat in an oven for about an hour at as high as the oven will go. 650 is great...but you can get okay results if the steel is 500 degrees.....
What's also cool about NYC water from the Catskills is that it's completely unfiltered and makes its way to the city through the longest tunnel in the world, and the aqueducts don't use pumps it's entirely physics/gravity
I worked at Domino's for over 12 years. Melissa under-baked the pizzas! The bottom and the top of the crust should be a nice golden-brown color, not white. Having said, that, there is one other thing that makes New York pizza better (and way better than Domino's or Papa Johns for that matter). Real New York pizza is baked on a "stone" oven. Stone ovens have a stone surface that is heated from below, usually with gas. The pizza either sits on a metal screen, or directly on the stone. This makes the bottom of the crust brown and crunchy. A good stone oven will also cook the top of the pizza and the pepperoni etc, at the same time as the crust. This way you get a nice tasty bread crust with scalding hot pizza sauce and properly cooked toppings. Yummy!
Re: Domino's and Papa Johns and why they suck. Both companies use conveyor belt ovens, which cook a pizza in about 5 minutes. These are very dependable and efficient, but the direct gas heat affects the flavor, and the crust never gets that proper crunch. That's fine if you value convenience over quality, but I'd rather take a train to the nearest "Ray's Famous Original" pizza shop.
Definitely underbaked but another big issue was putting the pizza on a cold sheet! Best thing to do if you're a home cook and you don't have a pizza oven/stone is to get the oven as hot as it can get with the sheet inside, let it sit for a while (I've seen some suggest up to an hour of pre-heating) and place the pizza onto it directly just before cooking. I think thicker baking sheets work better as they hold onto more heat.
@@barence321 Ray's is definitely not 'crispy'. None of the hundreds of Manhattan pizzerias I have eaten in over the past 50 years, had crispy pizza, unless it was burnt. That's the reason for the fold; to slightly firm up the slice so it doesn't point down and all the cheese would slide off. And the trick that you can see in 'Saturday Night Fever' where Travolta puts a couple of slices right on top of each other, is okay, but if you do it with freshly cooked pizza you will burn your mouth, as the covered cheese on the bottom slice won't cool fast enough while the top one will cool too fast.
Just to let you guys know Food Theory did a video on this as well. Not to discourage you guys, just wanted to state I'm glad you are confirming your findings by expanding the sample size
While upstate pizza doesn't have the fame of NYC pizza its still alot better than most other pizza. (I genuinely think the gas station pizza of upstate NY is significantly better than most proper pizza specialized restaurants in CT, and it isn't even close.)
If you want to hit up Artichoke Basille's, just know that it's a very thick and heavy slice. It's creamy and oily, but still good. Normally, one slice in other areas will make you maybe 50% full but one slice from there (you gotta try their signature slice!) will probably put you at 70-80%. A slice from Joe's is a classic NYC slice: crispy but chewy, light, thin, and the cheese to dough ratio is just perfect. The bottom isn't burned till it's charred, and the sweetness in the sauce is a chef's kiss. Another place that's not mentioned in the video: Pizza Wagon. This is a Bay Ridge classic since 1966 and their classic cheese slice is one of the best in the neighborhood.
Go to Joe's! She interviewed those kids in front of it on West 4th. The kids that were like, extremely into the water theory. She probably couldn't get an interview with Joe's staff because they're always super busy and the place is mad small.
literally go to any pizza place in NYC. Many times I literally just walk into a random pizza store and way more often than not they have very good pizza.
Makes sense to me; I've been making sourdough and they recommend using bottle or filtered water so there isn't too much chlorine in the mix. The chlorine might kill off the yeast and the yeast is what makes the dough taste. There is also ambiance yeast in the air all around us naturally and diffrent yeasts in different flour types. Seriously look up yeast and sourdough starters. There is a lot of lore and cultural there!
To reduce plastic bottles, people in gardening channels say you can leave tap water out for an hour to overnight to let the chlorine gas dissipate. Chlorinated water is not great for soil, soil dwellers, or plants
I'm so glad you gave Bleeker Street Pizza a shot. Each pizzeria has its own edge over the other, and bleeker's is that cornmeal sprinkle at the bottom of the pie. CRUST IN EVERY BITE! 👌
You should DEFINITELY have taken Scott's Pizza Tour for this video. I thought I knew a lot about pizza before I took that tour. I had NO idea. I did the tour in 2008, when he was first getting started. His mother was on the tour just to pad attendance. I took it again a few years later when it was more established. It is awesome.
To cook pizza at home (without preheating a pizza stone for 2 hours), I recommend you set the oven as high as it'll go, and then put the pan on the bottom rack for a few minutes until you can peek at the bottom for crispness (mine took 4 to 6 mins). If the cheese hasn't cooked enough yet, put it under the broiler for another minute or two until it's beautiful. (credit goes to Not Another Cooking Show)
I do the same and that's exactly why I learnt how to make my own pizza. So I can have a full pizza and not feel as guilty(I will still feel a bit guilty tho)
if you want excellent tomato sauce first use whole peeled Plum tomatoes. and use only San Marzano tomatoes use the can tomatoes because they are picked at their perfect ripeness & then they are steamed to remove the peels and then packaged, 2nd is a thin crust, 3rd cook it at a high temp oven at least 450-500 degrees Farenhight. I was born & raised in NYC & I miss the pizza.
Lol, MatPat did a video about this same thing a month or so ago. He ended up landing on the amount of Flouride and stuff, after doing the same kind of experiment with homemade dough and stuff. Great minds think alike.
Hullo! This does not surprise me at all but fun to watch nonetheless. I am a coffee professional and the type of water from one place to the next makes a huge difference in taste and extraction, as hardness, ph and other variables affect the brew (even between Montreal and Toronto). Most specialty coffee machines have a system called "Water for Coffee" which is meant to optimize the best water for commercial coffee machines. It might make for an interesting video 😉
I'll save u 12 mins 00:00 New York City is known for having some of the best pizza in the world. 02:25 New York City tap water is believed to be a key factor in making New York pizza special. 05:50 New York pizza is characterized by a tender and chewy crust, and water quality may influence the dough texture. 08:29 Blind taste tests reveal that people couldn't distinguish between New York and Toronto water, but they preferred the New York pizza. 11:01 New York pizza is more than just water; it's a combination of sauce, cheese, ovens, recipes, and pizza makers' dedication.
The oven and the long ferment time for the dough are the things that make the biggest difference, IMO. If you have a back yard there's fairly easy ways to build a wood-fired pizza oven that aren't too expensive, and in a home kitchen if you have a convection oven and a baking stone or baking steel you can get pretty close as well. That said, I lived in NYC for a year, and oh my god do I miss the pizza.
i was a little confused when you said you had hard water at 117mg/l so i checked and uh. my water in both my hometown and university town is over 300mg/l lmao just england things (for reference, several places in scotland are under 30!)
The thing you are forgetting is that the sauce is made using NY water. The cheese (pending on the source) is made with NY water as part of the process. It's all NY water.
As proud owner of a Top Rated NYC pizzeria, i can assure you the flour(s), sauce, and secret ingredients will definitely negate the significance of the water used. Every step of a pizza can make or break it. The real secret of a great NY slice is the competition and the addictives. $1 pizzas can sometimes outbeat $5 premium slices because of the harsh additives used in cheap ingredients. It's the same reason why candy outbeats fruits in a kid's eyes.
Supporting your assessment that there's more to it than just the water: Italy generally has extremely hard water, and makes better pizza than New York.
I am from NYC and grew up eating the pizza. I now live in Cali and make NYC style pizza quite often and it tastes identical to or better than the pizza I grew up in NY. The water has little to do with it. The type of flour (high gluten --roughly 14%, ) fermentation time/technique--(I like to cold proof for 36 to 48 hours), degree of hydration, type of cheese , architecture of the sauce and baking technique has more to do it than water.
I'm only 1 1/2 minutes into the video and paused it. I make my own pizza occasionally and have done a lot of research. I haven't read any of the other comments yet either. The most important thing that sets NY pizza apart is full fat cheese. No skim cheese. The flavor is in the milk fat in the cheese. Its a richer flavor. Like ice cream made from cream instead of milk. All that oil you see on top of NY pizza is rendered milk fat. There are other good things like the crust and possibly a good sauce recipe but the cheese makes a big difference. Same as drinking whole milk vs skim milk. Everyone knows the taste difference. Most pizzerias across the country use part skim cheese.
this video brought such an big and cheesy smile to my face :) thanks to everyone on the team for continuing to put out such fun and genuinely interesting content
I randomly clicked on this video cuz Im bored and used to live in NYC. And Tony the pizzaman you interviewed was my old boss! He actually used to own Bleeker St pizza (where I worked) until the new owner bought it. He is the best.
Now, what I wanna try out next is if it's possible to get closer to the "New York Pizza" by putting the harder water through a filter first. The water where I live is pretty hard too and if you want to drink it you really should filter it. I haven't made pizza with it so far though.. 🤔
As a New Yorker who's had pizza all over the world, I can vouch that the hype behind new york pizza is just that...hype. Not only is there so much variation between the different pizza joints in the city that there's actually plenty of bad pizza there, pizza in general is a hard dish to mess up and there's plenty of great pizza all around the world, a lot actually being better than some new york pizza. I'll never understand why people swear by "New York pizza"
As a fellow person from New Jersey, I will portray New Jersey because people who make good pizza or actually folks from New York, who settle down in my town in New Jersey, who know make pizza, and sometimes when they have the pizza in New York with their family, Italian restaurants and pizzerias that are originally from New York but they have a second restaurant in the town in New Jersey where I live pizza even taste kind of different from New Jersey. New York, and New Jersey is literally under New York I suppose Melissa is right one can never fully comprehend the variables of what makes a New York City pizza so truly delectable!
She must be the prettiest content on youtube now. I like her inquisitive nature. This channel must be my favorite discoveries in 2022. Thank you youtube algorithm for choosing me to see this. Perfect match Nerdgasm overflows!
Making pizza dough is hard, man. I've tried for over a months to make a perfect pizza, but it was a coin-toss every time if they would come out amazing or just meh.
What wasn't mentioned, was that in some places, there's a risk of the dough not rising, if there's chloramine in the water (for safety, put in by the utility) -- it can kill the yeast. Chlorinated water can be made yeast-safe if it's left out long enough, but not chloramine. I'm in San José, Callifornia, and we have chloraminated water. So I have to use distilled water (spring water would work too).
Oh. I have, off and on, tried to bake bread and never had particularly good results. And I live near San Jose. That might well be why my bread never seemed to work right!
Should have got Ooni to sponsor this one! The right oven makes such a difference! Also, Ragousa recently enlightened me on the fact that they use whole milk low moisture moz, which does in fact make a giant difference to the taste!
did you do them all in the same conditions in the oven or did you do like, two at the same time, one on top rack and one in middle? cause that's another variable that should be controlled for
I was born and raised in NY, and the water thing is an urban legend. I mean, maybe there's some magical water in the Catskills, but I am sure that some other city has better water. And can't you just desalinate the water to make it soft? No, I can explain why NY pizza is the best with one word: compedition. Look at the density of pizza places in Manhattan. You won't find that much pizza per square mile anywhere in Italy. You definitely won't find that much pizza per square mile in Toronto. NY pizza is the best in the world because standards for NY pizza are higher. Also, next time you come down here, try some New York Poutine or New York Fish & Chips. It sucks. Because there's no competition. Nobody in NY wants Canadian or British food, and nobody in NY knows how to cook Canadian or British food. Magic water is not the answer, economics is the answer.
Hey isn't supporting people because of their gender/race straight up racism/sexism ? Isn't that the opposite of what we want ? A world were we are judged based on skills and not gender/race.
Sabrina and Taha's entrance is everything lmao. The chaos the giving up in the middle of it lol
If you thought they were chaotic on their own, putting all three of them together is on another level.
bro the goblin walk on the sofa
Is this the first time with all of them together? 😮
I’m here for it ❤
Also sold by the "c'mon follow gremlin!" at the end. I love these dorks.
I agree with the pizzaman at the end. What makes food better is competition. Where I live there are fewer places to eat and few good places. Most people are complacent with chains or complacent with meh food so no one really innovates or has passion to make their food as best it can be. In a high density place like NYC you HAVE to be at least good or you gonna go outta business fast.
Ditto! I live in a small town and so many restaurants are crap! It's wild what people will settle for when there aren't many options
Yeah, I notice something similar where I come from. Lots of bakeries, fish and chips shops, and burger joints. Everything else is mediocre to bad, but the competition on those three gives some really strong results. There are 3 bakeries, 2 fish and chips shops, and 4 burger joints walking distance from my house, and half of them are pretty damn good.
Where I live there are sooo many pizza places and they taste all... Sad... 😅🥲
As someone who moved from being a 20 minute drive from NYC all the way to San Diego, I cannot overstate how sad I am at the lack of good places for food here (especially pizza). I distinctly remember a conversation amongst San Diegans I was having last year about them saying how "good" Domino's is. 💀
Like, if you're in a town that only has one pizza place, you'll go there because it's the best option, but it's definitely not going to be anywhere near the thousands in New York City.
I lost it at Taha comparing the two pizzas going "Hey I'm walking here" vs "Sorry, I'll get outta your way"
Loved the ending, very cinematic
That was HILARIOUS 🤣
Prime NY vs. Prime Canada right there
I just wish it sounded more authentically sore-y
cOmE oN feLLoW gRemLiN!¡
piZzA PizZa pIzZaaaaaAaAAAa
Damn if that gets you dying of laughter you should watch Andrew Schulz.
literally obsessed with Sabrinas distant "shes a little freak!" after Melissa recognised the cheese patterns
I recognized it too 🤣 she puts 2 half circles of mozzarella in one of them
Timestamp ?
@@tayisinevitable 7:00
Omg same!
made the whole video for me lmfaooo
I think the variables that develop as a result of NY pizza being forged in a competitive cultural crucible will forever be impossible to quantify
As a NYC resident I can confirm
Shaq! Heyyyyy!
Or they put crack in it... maybe it's the crack.
Ayo it’s Shaquille
OC Shaq weighing in, this video is now blessed.
As a Londoner, let me tell you: London's water is like 200000% calcium. Imagine the hardest water you can, then triple it. So to Taha, anything made with not-London water will seem softer than a cloud.
I did get a little laugh when I saw scale top out at 200mg/l when mentioned safe limits.
oooo i love me some sweet sweet hard London water, honestly nothing compares and all other water just tastes strange to me lol
Sillier counteroffer ; Hinkley CA water. 2.2 ~ 1.19 parts per Billion of Chromium 6 in the water. Add some pizza dough and watch it turn to stone instantly.
@@jonathanrobles7377 chromium 6??? Scary stuff
Irish water is like like this too
and they're here wanting us to pay tax on that shit
I really enjoyed Sabrina and Taha entering the video with total chaotic energy
8:31 got really nervouse about the sauce on Taha's finger with his long-sleeve white shirt on.
9:44 sabrina has chosen her thumb instead, but also went for a white top on pizza day.
Then i realized Melissa, who is working with dough and flour, chose to wear BLACK. THATS AS RISKY AS WEARING BLACK AND PICKING UP A CAT.
Ya'll are crazy - My retention was kept to make sure no messes were made.
but also good video :)
everything according to plan :)
GingerPale!? :O
@@GingerPale yooo
Gingy!!!!
The water is definitely part of it. There's a chain in Florida called Brooklyn Water Bagel and their whole gimmick is that they "Brooklynize" local water by distilling it and then adding minerals to mimic the composition of Brooklyn water.
Which, no joke, is exactly what I was thinking about during the video. "Huh, could you make a business out of it by selling New York pizza in a non-New York place by reverse engineering the water composition?"
I love this so much
And those Brooklyn water bagels are so good!!
Are they good?
wow!
As a lifelong NewYorker, when ordering a “plain cheese pizza slice,” you can say: “hey-could I get a regular slice? thanks”
The fact that meatless pizza is apparently the default/standard is wild to me
Or just, "I'd like a slice, please." They know what you mean.
THATS WHAT I IMMEDIATELY CAUGHT TOO. the funniest thing is that calling it a regular slice is so concentrated to the nyc/li area, because the moment you hit upstate new york even they start calling it a cheese pizza. vile.
@@lex117 We call it a "Plain Slice" here in North Jersey. Probably y'all rubbing off on us
This!!! I was cringing so much everytime she said plain cheese 😭
Taha and Sabrina as pizza gremlins immediately flooded me with serotonin
I related to them so much in that moment.
Answer in Progress crew interacting with each other irl gives me such strong Chaotic Good vibes
ALSO MELISSA DROP THE PIZZA RECIPE
The whole recipe is in the video though
Yo same hahah, it gives me the vibes of my own friendgroup
Agreed, they are so wholesome and adorable together :)
Adam Ragusea* did this recently. He concluded that the higher fluoride level in the New York water killed the yeast off faster and resulted in the thin crisp crust. (at least that's how I remember it without watching the video again)
Edit:
*MatPat. It was MatPat. I have a terrible memory
This is such an Adam Ragusea topic
Wasn’t it matpat
@@alicekitteri3304 That sounds right, actually. I watch way too much UA-cam; it's all bleeding together. I need some grass to touch
Adam talked about doing this exact experiment on the pod. Asked someone to mail him a bottle of NYC water.
the chaotic energy once sabrina and taha were with melissa filming the pizzas and taste tests is what i live for
i'm not a new yorker but i have worked in a pizzeria and you'd be surprised how much of a difference a pizza oven makes. i've tried making the exact same recipe from home but my oven just doesn't get anywhere close to the 650F we use at work and it's an incredibly noticeable difference. i bet if you had access to a hotter oven it would taste even better!
Not the just the oven, they put baked the pizza in a cold pan. Thin crusts like that really need to be baked on pizza steel that has sat in an oven for about an hour at as high as the oven will go. 650 is great...but you can get okay results if the steel is 500 degrees.....
What's also cool about NYC water from the Catskills is that it's completely unfiltered and makes its way to the city through the longest tunnel in the world, and the aqueducts don't use pumps it's entirely physics/gravity
Sounds like a bit more Italian authenticity, as long as they calculated the grade using Roman Numerals jyst call it an aqueduct.
love this switch-up into a cooking channel, what next, the team streaming themselves playing sabrina's games on twitch? we'd love to see it.
I worked at Domino's for over 12 years. Melissa under-baked the pizzas! The bottom and the top of the crust should be a nice golden-brown color, not white. Having said, that, there is one other thing that makes New York pizza better (and way better than Domino's or Papa Johns for that matter). Real New York pizza is baked on a "stone" oven. Stone ovens have a stone surface that is heated from below, usually with gas. The pizza either sits on a metal screen, or directly on the stone. This makes the bottom of the crust brown and crunchy. A good stone oven will also cook the top of the pizza and the pepperoni etc, at the same time as the crust. This way you get a nice tasty bread crust with scalding hot pizza sauce and properly cooked toppings. Yummy!
Re: Domino's and Papa Johns and why they suck. Both companies use conveyor belt ovens, which cook a pizza in about 5 minutes. These are very dependable and efficient, but the direct gas heat affects the flavor, and the crust never gets that proper crunch. That's fine if you value convenience over quality, but I'd rather take a train to the nearest "Ray's Famous Original" pizza shop.
Definitely underbaked but another big issue was putting the pizza on a cold sheet! Best thing to do if you're a home cook and you don't have a pizza oven/stone is to get the oven as hot as it can get with the sheet inside, let it sit for a while (I've seen some suggest up to an hour of pre-heating) and place the pizza onto it directly just before cooking. I think thicker baking sheets work better as they hold onto more heat.
@@barence321 Ray's is definitely not 'crispy'. None of the hundreds of Manhattan pizzerias I have eaten in over the past 50 years, had crispy pizza, unless it was burnt. That's the reason for the fold; to slightly firm up the slice so it doesn't point down and all the cheese would slide off. And the trick that you can see in 'Saturday Night Fever' where Travolta puts a couple of slices right on top of each other, is okay, but if you do it with freshly cooked pizza you will burn your mouth, as the covered cheese on the bottom slice won't cool fast enough while the top one will cool too fast.
It's only "under-baked" because a home oven can't really get hot enough
Thanks for this insight v interesting take!!
Just to let you guys know Food Theory did a video on this as well. Not to discourage you guys, just wanted to state I'm glad you are confirming your findings by expanding the sample size
Same! I was so surprised when this came out
This was a more casual take on it. Food Theory really went all in on the science aspect of it.
i love how you all interact, just like the friendship is so real
After living in and around NYC for so long, having bagels and pizza literally anywhere else is so depressing.
Been to Europe?
While upstate pizza doesn't have the fame of NYC pizza its still alot better than most other pizza. (I genuinely think the gas station pizza of upstate NY is significantly better than most proper pizza specialized restaurants in CT, and it isn't even close.)
The absolute chaos when you are all in one room >>>>
could you possibly put a list of the small businesses you visited in new york? i need some good pizza :)
Some of them are in the credits!
If you want to hit up Artichoke Basille's, just know that it's a very thick and heavy slice. It's creamy and oily, but still good. Normally, one slice in other areas will make you maybe 50% full but one slice from there (you gotta try their signature slice!) will probably put you at 70-80%.
A slice from Joe's is a classic NYC slice: crispy but chewy, light, thin, and the cheese to dough ratio is just perfect. The bottom isn't burned till it's charred, and the sweetness in the sauce is a chef's kiss.
Another place that's not mentioned in the video: Pizza Wagon. This is a Bay Ridge classic since 1966 and their classic cheese slice is one of the best in the neighborhood.
Go to Joe's! She interviewed those kids in front of it on West 4th. The kids that were like, extremely into the water theory. She probably couldn't get an interview with Joe's staff because they're always super busy and the place is mad small.
literally go to any pizza place in NYC. Many times I literally just walk into a random pizza store and way more often than not they have very good pizza.
@@ILP123able american psycho
Makes sense to me; I've been making sourdough and they recommend using bottle or filtered water so there isn't too much chlorine in the mix. The chlorine might kill off the yeast and the yeast is what makes the dough taste. There is also ambiance yeast in the air all around us naturally and diffrent yeasts in different flour types. Seriously look up yeast and sourdough starters. There is a lot of lore and cultural there!
I see what you did there with "culture" 👏
@@3countylaugh honestly I didn't even think about it when I wrote it XD thank you for pointing it out
@@3countylaugh Yeah, well in my comment that was mostly about the minerals and pizza making I smuggled in the phrase "chalk it up to".
To reduce plastic bottles, people in gardening channels say you can leave tap water out for an hour to overnight to let the chlorine gas dissipate. Chlorinated water is not great for soil, soil dwellers, or plants
AiP answering the real questions - amazing video as always!
As a nyc resident I approve this message
I love Sabrina's very scientific reasoning compared to Taha's "this one's more pizza-ry"
now we need to see adam ragusea’s recipe with new york water for the ultimate at home new york style pizza
1. go to Upstate New York
2. get water from there
I'm so glad you gave Bleeker Street Pizza a shot. Each pizzeria has its own edge over the other, and bleeker's is that cornmeal sprinkle at the bottom of the pie. CRUST IN EVERY BITE! 👌
You should DEFINITELY have taken Scott's Pizza Tour for this video. I thought I knew a lot about pizza before I took that tour. I had NO idea. I did the tour in 2008, when he was first getting started. His mother was on the tour just to pad attendance. I took it again a few years later when it was more established. It is awesome.
I have no clue what you are talking about, but I want to go
It was so nice seeing all of you being chaotic in the same room! Loved the vid, keep up the good work!!
Omg all three of them are sharing existence in the same physical space.
The trio is like the random weird unpopular friend group in high school, and I just love the energy!
The best kind of friend group :')
That "come on, fellow gremlin" was PERFECT lol
To cook pizza at home (without preheating a pizza stone for 2 hours), I recommend you set the oven as high as it'll go, and then put the pan on the bottom rack for a few minutes until you can peek at the bottom for crispness (mine took 4 to 6 mins).
If the cheese hasn't cooked enough yet, put it under the broiler for another minute or two until it's beautiful.
(credit goes to Not Another Cooking Show)
Reminds me a lot of the Food Theory episode covering the same topic. Glad to see inspiration trickling through to other channels :D
was looking for this comment, still need to decide for myself where to go for pizza when in New York though 😂🍕
@@blackheartlily go to Long Island they gotttt it over there Brooklyn pizza is my absolute fav there’s this nice spot near battery park that’s amazing
Inspiration? The whole idea is ripped off
@@capjackson3796 This episodes dont take a week to make, specially if they need to travel all the way to NY, they probably just had the same idea :/
SO THIS IS THE PIZZA EPISODE!!! Watching Melisa, Sabrina, and Taha in the same space is amazing I need more episodes like this
I love your entire group so much. The chaotic energy feeds me
No replys?? Lemme fix dat.
The way I CHEERED when all three of you were in the same room together
This is a good day
Are we not going to talk about how Taha’s one bite of pizza was literally 3/4 of the slice😂
I do the same and that's exactly why I learnt how to make my own pizza. So I can have a full pizza and not feel as guilty(I will still feel a bit guilty tho)
He is a cartoon character.
5:40 was GOLDEN
As an NYC native I feel like you started your search in the right city 😋
the dynamic between the 3 of you is so cute and fun to watch. friendship goals!
if you want excellent tomato sauce first use whole peeled Plum tomatoes. and use only San Marzano tomatoes use the can tomatoes because they are picked at their perfect ripeness & then they are steamed to remove the peels and then packaged, 2nd is a thin crust, 3rd cook it at a high temp oven at least 450-500 degrees Farenhight. I was born & raised in NYC & I miss the pizza.
Lol, MatPat did a video about this same thing a month or so ago. He ended up landing on the amount of Flouride and stuff, after doing the same kind of experiment with homemade dough and stuff.
Great minds think alike.
Hullo! This does not surprise me at all but fun to watch nonetheless. I am a coffee professional and the type of water from one place to the next makes a huge difference in taste and extraction, as hardness, ph and other variables affect the brew (even between Montreal and Toronto).
Most specialty coffee machines have a system called "Water for Coffee" which is meant to optimize the best water for commercial coffee machines. It might make for an interesting video 😉
I'll save u 12 mins
00:00 New York City is known for having some of the best pizza in the world.
02:25 New York City tap water is believed to be a key factor in making New York pizza special.
05:50 New York pizza is characterized by a tender and chewy crust, and water quality may influence the dough texture.
08:29 Blind taste tests reveal that people couldn't distinguish between New York and Toronto water, but they preferred the New York pizza.
11:01 New York pizza is more than just water; it's a combination of sauce, cheese, ovens, recipes, and pizza makers' dedication.
Finally the pizza content I knew was coming when I subscribed to this channel
Really fun video to watch. Gonna echo the sentiment everyone else has that yall have this chaotic energy on camera that I love
The oven and the long ferment time for the dough are the things that make the biggest difference, IMO. If you have a back yard there's fairly easy ways to build a wood-fired pizza oven that aren't too expensive, and in a home kitchen if you have a convection oven and a baking stone or baking steel you can get pretty close as well.
That said, I lived in NYC for a year, and oh my god do I miss the pizza.
Pizza should be a food group 😎
i was a little confused when you said you had hard water at 117mg/l so i checked and uh. my water in both my hometown and university town is over 300mg/l lmao just england things (for reference, several places in scotland are under 30!)
My hometown water is just above 13 mg/l.
Going abroad always makes my hair stand on end, quite literally. My nails like it though.
The thing you are forgetting is that the sauce is made using NY water. The cheese (pending on the source) is made with NY water as part of the process. It's all NY water.
Get out, burger king foot lettuce.
Make way for Mellissa's house foot cheese.
Number 16
I'm only 3 videos into this channel and already crushing on Sabrina. She's a whole vibe
As proud owner of a Top Rated NYC pizzeria, i can assure you the flour(s), sauce, and secret ingredients will definitely negate the significance of the water used. Every step of a pizza can make or break it. The real secret of a great NY slice is the competition and the addictives. $1 pizzas can sometimes outbeat $5 premium slices because of the harsh additives used in cheap ingredients. It's the same reason why candy outbeats fruits in a kid's eyes.
It makes me so happy to see the three of you together!!!
Supporting your assessment that there's more to it than just the water: Italy generally has extremely hard water, and makes better pizza than New York.
Can't really compare the two. They're very different. I know some people who prefer NY pizza though.
"I brought some friends"
Shows the most chaotic and amazing two people I've ever seen-
11 minutes of pizza content this is amazing
So wholesome seeing you guys together
Is the oven really at 450°C? 450°F would make more sense. That would be around 230°C.
As someone with celiac disease the fact that I'm still watching this torture says a lot about how much I love AiP!
I am from NYC and grew up eating the pizza. I now live in Cali and make NYC style pizza quite often and it tastes identical to or better than the pizza I grew up in NY. The water has little to do with it. The type of flour (high gluten --roughly 14%, ) fermentation time/technique--(I like to cold proof for 36 to 48 hours), degree of hydration, type of cheese , architecture of the sauce and baking technique has more to do it than water.
Answer in Progress is a new fave, love your guys' dedication to the topics
excellently written and executed, thank you for the video and hard work
I'm only 1 1/2 minutes into the video and paused it. I make my own pizza occasionally and have done a lot of research. I haven't read any of the other comments yet either. The most important thing that sets NY pizza apart is full fat cheese. No skim cheese. The flavor is in the milk fat in the cheese. Its a richer flavor. Like ice cream made from cream instead of milk. All that oil you see on top of NY pizza is rendered milk fat. There are other good things like the crust and possibly a good sauce recipe but the cheese makes a big difference. Same as drinking whole milk vs skim milk. Everyone knows the taste difference.
Most pizzerias across the country use part skim cheese.
this video brought such an big and cheesy smile to my face :) thanks to everyone on the team for continuing to put out such fun and genuinely interesting content
I have to say, you three seem like the absolutely best coworkers in the world.
I love supporting small businesses 🥰🥰 thank you Google for sponsoring this video
I randomly clicked on this video cuz Im bored and used to live in NYC. And Tony the pizzaman you interviewed was my old boss! He actually used to own Bleeker St pizza (where I worked) until the new owner bought it. He is the best.
Matpat moment
Pretty sure Melissa + Pizza is my new favorite thing on UA-cam!
Now, what I wanna try out next is if it's possible to get closer to the "New York Pizza" by putting the harder water through a filter first. The water where I live is pretty hard too and if you want to drink it you really should filter it. I haven't made pizza with it so far though.. 🤔
You can't filter out dissolved solids
@@dirkofeel9821 There are chemical filters as well... I wasn't talking about straining water through a sock. 😋
the joy of seeing 2 places that ive been to during the pizza montage
But hey that’s just a theory, a FOOD THEORY
damn, I heard that.
These videos take months to make. It is *just* a coincidence.
@@Deadflower019 It's almost like that's the joke
@@ThomasTheThermonuclearBomb 🙄
this right here is the definition of life and friendship.
now what is that mysterious water bottle?
First time I haven't skipped a 'thank the sponsor' spot for as long as I can remember. Totally worth it to know what Google's doing.
As a New Yorker who's had pizza all over the world, I can vouch that the hype behind new york pizza is just that...hype. Not only is there so much variation between the different pizza joints in the city that there's actually plenty of bad pizza there, pizza in general is a hard dish to mess up and there's plenty of great pizza all around the world, a lot actually being better than some new york pizza. I'll never understand why people swear by "New York pizza"
As a fellow person from New Jersey, I will portray New Jersey because people who make good pizza or actually folks from New York, who settle down in my town in New Jersey, who know make pizza, and sometimes when they have the pizza in New York with their family, Italian restaurants and pizzerias that are originally from New York but they have a second restaurant in the town in New Jersey where I live pizza even taste kind of different from New Jersey. New York, and New Jersey is literally under New York I suppose Melissa is right one can never fully comprehend the variables of what makes a New York City pizza so truly delectable!
So could you dilute the Toronto water with distilled water to get something that behaves like new york water
She must be the prettiest content on youtube now. I like her inquisitive nature.
This channel must be my favorite discoveries in 2022.
Thank you youtube algorithm for choosing me to see this.
Perfect match
Nerdgasm overflows!
Making pizza dough is hard, man.
I've tried for over a months to make a perfect pizza, but it was a coin-toss every time if they would come out amazing or just meh.
What wasn't mentioned, was that in some places, there's a risk of the dough not rising, if there's chloramine in the water (for safety, put in by the utility) -- it can kill the yeast. Chlorinated water can be made yeast-safe if it's left out long enough, but not chloramine. I'm in San José, Callifornia, and we have chloraminated water. So I have to use distilled water (spring water would work too).
Oh. I have, off and on, tried to bake bread and never had particularly good results. And I live near San Jose. That might well be why my bread never seemed to work right!
Should have got Ooni to sponsor this one!
The right oven makes such a difference!
Also, Ragousa recently enlightened me on the fact that they use whole milk low moisture moz, which does in fact make a giant difference to the taste!
The Olive Oil makes a difference too. There is a lot of color and taste range to choose from. Each to their own.
did you do them all in the same conditions in the oven or did you do like, two at the same time, one on top rack and one in middle? cause that's another variable that should be controlled for
Water is the key ingredient but as cliche as it sound the chef making the recipe in a traditional way is the real winner.
Didnt food theory already do this
They did, it's likely just a coincidence considering how long the videos may take to make
My new favorite channel on YT! I'm binge watching Everything!
I was born and raised in NY, and the water thing is an urban legend. I mean, maybe there's some magical water in the Catskills, but I am sure that some other city has better water. And can't you just desalinate the water to make it soft? No, I can explain why NY pizza is the best with one word: compedition. Look at the density of pizza places in Manhattan. You won't find that much pizza per square mile anywhere in Italy. You definitely won't find that much pizza per square mile in Toronto. NY pizza is the best in the world because standards for NY pizza are higher. Also, next time you come down here, try some New York Poutine or New York Fish & Chips. It sucks. Because there's no competition. Nobody in NY wants Canadian or British food, and nobody in NY knows how to cook Canadian or British food. Magic water is not the answer, economics is the answer.
As a New Yorker, this makes me happy. You’re always welcomed in NY, Melissa! Come come come! We have pizza! ☺️
"I like supporting small business"
"This video is sponsored by Google"
💀
Well, they were _supported by_ Google, not the other way around 🤷♂
Milo and Wade were not only funny, but surprisingly knowledgeable!
Damn, Food Theory beat you to it a month ago...
the production value for AIP has gotten so good - this video is GORGEOUS! ❤
Hey isn't supporting people because of their gender/race straight up racism/sexism ? Isn't that the opposite of what we want ? A world were we are judged based on skills and not gender/race.
Yea I dont get that especially about the quotas
Yeah. Bump.
When Google sponsors your video, you know you made it. 😂
I love how Sabrina m9ved her head to look for approval from Melissa when she guessed the pizza
The food theorists made a video theorizing how it is the best and I can't wait to answer in progress and their video/theory 🥺🥺🥺