@@blaizegottman4139 neapolitian pizza, new york pizzas come without any toppings naturally, its optional, but the classic pizza comes with just cheese and sauce
Might be of interest - the Pizza Pilgrims guys in London developed a home pizza kit during lockdown - cooked in a dry frying pan and finished under a grill - saves the ridiculous waste of energy in preheating an oven for an hour! Although Ben doesn't have the right sized pan (!) you can see how well it works on this Sorted Food episode from 2020 - Pizza starts at 5 minutes - ua-cam.com/video/B-oIOeg1UfE/v-deo.html Alan
Chef James Makinson. I have to be completely honest. You are my favorite reactor chef. Yes even more than Gordon Ramsay or any of the Master Chefs. The reason being is that you take the time to explain every step in the cooking processes about the food dishes you review. You don't cuss, or simply bash other chefs. No. You are very educative and informative and that is why i always keep coming back to watch your videos.
I also like how you can keep a straight face while we all know you are dying a little bit inside! It’s amazing how you can be so soft spoken when you know how wrong things are. Keep it up buddy!
Pizza chef here! In regards to sugar in the dough, it's a helpful crutch when making pizza at home due to the lower baking temps. There are (in my opinion) better ways to get around it such as malt powder, honey, beer, molasses, etc. My personal preference would be malt powder. But as long as you keep your ferment time nice and long despite the sugar, there aren't any real serious downsides besides it being less healthy. I prefer not to use sugar either at home or at pizzerias. If you have any questions about this or other parts, feel free to ask!
Keeping the ferment time long "despite" the sugar? Isn't it because of the sugar? All of the alternatives look like things that would be used to feed the yeast, and suggest that this is the purpose of (1)the added sugar (honey, malt, etc.), and (2)the long fermentation time. After all, New York pizza "should be yeasty". This is just my analysis though.
@@WerewolfLord Yeast feeds off of the natural sugars found in the flour. It doesn't NEED the added sugar at all. I prefer to not use any sugar or any alternative I mentioned. The added sugar would greatly speed up the fermentation process which can negatively impact digestibility. It (and the alternatives I mentioned) can be used as a crutch to speed up this fermentation time (let's say your walk-in goes down and you need dough quickly for the day) or if you're struggling to get proper browning on your crust (which is often a sign of improper baking temps and/or flour) NY pizza definitely should have a nice yeasty fermentation flavor to it from the long fermentation. But you don't need sugar to do that. If you're going to add sugar or the alternatives, lower the yeast amount, lower the water temp, reduce any bench rest time, etc. to keep the fermentation just as long as it would be without the sugar.
The pizza place I worked was owned by a guy who was born and raised in Brooklyn and had worked in pizza places his entire life of 56 years at that point. Our dough recipe was very similar to Josh's except fresh yeast, the sugar was replaced with brown sugar, the olive oil was incorporated at the last minute of mixing and we would knead the dough more and let it rise for at least 24 hours. The sauce was also similar but we did not cook it beforehand, just let it sit refrigerated, again, for at least 24 hours. We would also grate low and high moisture mozzarella for a 50/50 mix. One was for flavor and the other was for cheese pull, I forget which was which though.
For Neapolitan Pizza, the go to guy is clearly Vito Iacopelli. He has an excellent video about how to achieve great pizza even with the low temperatures of a normal oven. I have been using this technique ever since I saw it and I now can't go to any of the pizza places in my town anymore because I'll always be disappointed that the pizza is worse than what Vito has taught me to achieve. 😁 Since you're in glorious 230V Europe if you're looking for a pizza oven there is an italian company called Effeuno that makes electric pizza ovens that go up to 500°C. So no need to mess around with wood/gas outside.
I wouldn't call this pizza. Pizza is like egg and fried rice. You mix whatever you find in your fridge into a dish. You add rice (cause its healthy), and you add egg (cause it add creamy + flavour). With pizza you add the meat, fish, vegetables on a cheewey dough. Or inside. This New York pizza looks just tomato sause + cheese on a dough. Which is just unhealthy. plain and simple. Pizza has a long history. Flatbreads with toppings were consumed by the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. (The latter ate a version with herbs and oil, similar to today's focaccia.) But the modern birthplace of pizza is southwestern Italy's Campania region, home to the city of Naples. Pizza = Flatbreads with toppings, herbs and oil.
I get thrown off anytime somebody adds water to a tomato sauce - to me, the essence of a tomato sauce is reduction. Concentration of the tomato flavor with infused aromatics. Adding water to this... Why?
i'm a chef and a new yorker and pizza happens to be my favorite food and i've eaten and made many hundreds of pizzas and one thing i can tell you about new york style pizza is, there is no ONE single recipe for new york style pizza. some pizzerias use sugar(in their dough or sauce), some don't, some use use olive oil in their dough or sauce, some don't, some use crushed chili peppers in the sauce, some don't. the variety of herbs are different, and the ratios etc. one pizza joint i knew many years ago also cooked the sauce with carrots in it, which was then removed, and it actually was a delicious sauce. the main thing about New York style is large slices because almost all pizzerias sell by the slice, and yes they should be folded at least for structural integrity, but also keeps it warmer for longer, and the crust is thin, and often, but not always crispy and toasted. the cheese is often a blend of provolone and mozzarella, mostly mozzarella, and it's usually part skim low moisture block mozzarella cheese sold by the local purveyors. new york city is one of the oldest pizza cities in the world, as well as new haven connecticut, and because we had many immigrants here from Napoli, it was being made here at the same time as in Naples and long long before it was being made anywhere else in Italy, aside from around Naples. New York style pizza is an evolution of neapolitan pizza, and there was a gradual progression from 'new york neapolitan' (patsys is an example), where it looks more like neapolitan pizza, and uses fresh mozzarella, to the modern new york style, large pies, usually from 18-25 inches (45-64cm). since fresh basil was hard to get, as well as fresh mozz, the basil was often dropped and it was still a poor people's food, sold to factory workers, and cut into slices to fit their tight budgets. the sauce was also made more flavorful with the addition of aromatics and herbs and spices, and the use of canned tomatoes. one thing i never see mentioned is that EVERY pizzeria in new york always have the following condiments to top any slice: powdered garlic, dried oregano, chili flakes, and black pepper; always! also common and almost always is some kind of generic grated 'parmesan' cheese, and salt.
The pizza oven he uses is a Ooni Karu 16 and it's incredible. It's a multi fuel oven so you can cook with wood, charcoal or gas if you buy the propane burner. I've use this oven for 6 months now and it makes awesome pizza.
I prefer to cook my pizza sauce, because I want more developed flavors. I'm also not big on adding sugar, but that depends on the tomatoes. Sometimes they're quite a bit more acidic and need that edge softened. The OONI is a great pizza oven for home cooks, too, by the way.
I feel like making your own sauce is something you have time to do as a home cook. I usually use cherry or roma tomatoes when I do, and I've never added sugar.
I honor your method and efforts to make your own pizza even if cooking sauce is different than mine. Adjusting your ingredients is critical and the OONI takes pizza to another level than an oven.
@@GlennWatsonHome It's not really cooking the sauce twice, in my opinion. Simmering a sauce for a reasonable length of time develops a lot more flavor, and then pizzas cook pretty quickly, so that's really more like re-heating it briefly.
My family moved from Palermo to America in the early 1900’s, a lot of time your putting something together on the cheap. You are not adding sugar to the point it sweetens the sauce, you’re just trying to take then tinny flavor away from canned tomatoes. You can use shredded carrots too.
Regarding sugar in dough- fresh yeast doesn't really need it, dried does (just a little) Depends on the amount of salt too... In the words of Uncle Roger - 'Use feeling' :)
Mmmm, no. You don't even need to dissolve active dry yeast into water like most recipes will tend to instruct (though I would say it's generally a good idea). If you mix it into the flour, even with a little salt and add the water afterward, and just leave that out at room temperature, the yeast will absolutely work. No sugar required. Adding sugar does however change the way the yeast ferments things, and it does speed things up, but you'll end up with an entirely different dough that if you never added any sugar.
I never cook my sauce. I feel it's robust enough. But most importantly, after I mix in the seasonings, I put in the fridge overnight. This makes a world of difference.
Vito Copelli is the only pizza channel you need on UA-cam. I’ve learnt a lot from him. His NY style is far superior to this and he has some really useful advice for cooking in home ovens too
My brother actually has the pizza oven from this video (because of this video) and the pizza that comes out of it is absolutely amazing. Definitely worth the (expensive af) buy and he uses it pretty much every week
Long time late... bit no no. First, just time will do wondering oven wise... really let your oven crack up to max heat, and the most heat "holding" base is huge. Second, a good 65% hydration dough will be perfect
Sugar (and fat) are added to NY pizza dough to act as dough conditioners, to help retain moisture and softness in the crumb, because this type of pizza cooks at a much lower temperature (~450F/232C) and for a lot longer than Neapolitan pizza (anywhere from 6 to 12 minutes) in "deck" ovens that are normally used to make bread. They aren't cooked in Neapolitan style pizza ovens with wood fires. A lean dough would be pretty dry and would "die" pretty quickly when cooked this way. Anyway, that is the only way to get a crisp bottom, which is what we Americans like. The sugar does also help brown the crust. It's not added to make the dough sweet.
The best way to achieve a crispy undercarriage in a home oven is to use a preheated baking steel. 550°F for one hour before launching a wet dough. A baking steel delivers beautiful leopard spots every time.
To quote my italian relative from Bologna: "You can top up with anything you want, if the dough is poorly executed your Pizza is ruined. Having a good dough can even cover up other mistakes within your Pizza"
Hi James, cool video! I'm a BCN guy nerd about pizzas, i've done hundreds at home, trying to master neapolitan style (which is a challenge at home, as you know). About the sugar thing, short answer, yes it is OK to add it. Long answer, yes when doing it at home, not in real wood oven: bcs one of the problems with home ovens is lack of temperature so to get a brown crust you need to overcook your pizza, but with sugar you can help to get a more brown crust with a shorter baking time (and i am not entering into the issue of how to succed with short baking time at home bcs it's a long story). About cooking tomato, big NO if you are doing neapolitan. But, as always there's room for imagination and adaptation (being this a NYP). I'm a hardcore fan of classic neapolitan, so for me raw san marzano tomatoes, preferably crushed by hand, and maximum with a bit of extra virgin oil and salt (if not previously salted) and in the most extreme cases with a few basilic leaves. Cheers and keep it on with pizza videos (also your own home version!)
Big facts, I've seen some Italian chefs use semolina/brown sugar sometimes too. Not traditional at all. But it's still an accepted thing, Unless you're making a Neapolitan ;)
I own an Ooni Pro pizza oven & love it, 3yrs later & it's still going strong. It was the game changer for neapolitan style pizza 🍕. I tried all the tricks possible in a home oven but had no success. Don't get me wrong, I can still make an amazing pizza in my home oven, but I had to tweak the dough recipe quite a bit to get an in-between NY/neapolitan style pizza. The one thing I have learned about dough making that has made a WORLD of a difference is making a poolish starter & letting your dough cold ferment overnight in the fridge. So yeah, my dough takes 3 days but it's worth the wait 110%!😎 👍
Im a chef at a new york style pizzeria and have found that balling your dough right after mixing and cold fermenting for 1-2 days works best rather than bringing up to room temp. Can pull your dough straight from the fridge and stretch with ease.
I'm 75 years of age, born and raised in Brooklyn New York. I've been making home pizza for over half a century. I love New York style pizza. For me, a New York style pizza has to be xtra large to duplicate NYC pizza. One trick I do is I go to Home Depot and buy unglazed quarry tiles. I line them up and cover my large outdoor BBQ grate. I preheat the tiles for 45 to 60 minutes. I use high glutton bread flour so I can get enough stretch to make the dough (window pain) thin enough to see light through it without breaking. I also splatter a little bit of sauce on top of the cheese. I sprinkle some Regiano cheese as well. I'm getting hungry.
I'm no chef, but I've made homemade pizza several times in my amateur kitchen and I very much prefer an uncooked sauce. In my opinion, when the sauce is cooked it usually tastes more like a lasagna to me. I may add sugar to the sauce depending on the acidity of the tomatoes. I also add sugar to my dough as it seems to have a more well balanced flavor and helps with browning.
I’ve eaten in all those places! NY pizza to me should be thin crust and well-done! But everyone has their preference. One of my favorite places was Forcella. They would quickly deep fry the dough then add all the sauce/cheese and throw it in the oven. Unfortunately the Forcella near my house was closed during covid but hopefully they have others.
I actually don't mind a hint of sweetness in the sauce, it kind of depends.. I had the opportunity to make pizzas in a wood-fire brick oven and I loved it. It gives a nice flavor from the wood. Also if you have a rush you can have pretty quick pies as long as you're attentive. I feel the flavor from the wood was really nice. Idk this may be unorthodox but I think the cherry wood was my favorite to use but just imo
The second pronunciation of 'mozzarella' Joshua used is from a dialect of English used in areas of New York City and the surroundings, especially New Jersey and Staten Island.
Instead of a pizza-oven or a pizza-stone, you can sear the dough in a pan (without oil, etc.) and insert it after in the oven ;) So the bottom gets almost like in an pizza-oven.
I usually make three pizzas at a time my first two I oven cook. The last one I pan cook on the stove then oven and last broil. I also put the sauce and cheese to the edge creating a crispy edge. After a few regular crust slices the pan slice is a nice change to give me incentive to have one more. Also, the pan slice reheats better using the same process. That is why I cook it lasts. Thanks for sharing.
I'm a home cook now but I've had over 20 years of restaurant experience. One of my first jobs was Little Caesars, back in the 80's when LC was good pizza. Over the years I've made many different styles of pizza. For a New York style, I use canned whole peeled tomatoes, drained. I squeeze the seeds out and add a small can of paste and cook it down and mash it until I have a very smooth thick sauce. I want the water content of the sauce to be low since the crust is already thin and droopy. For the crust, I use a fairly moist dough with a bit of olive oil, hand stretched and cooked on the bottom rack of my oven on a blackened steel pan at about 450F. I typically don't add sugar to the sauce unless the tomatoes are very acidic. I go by taste. As for the crust, I don't add sugar to a long-fermented dough because I find it rises too fast and becomes depleted by the time I'm ready for a final rise to room temp after taking it out of the fridge.
The old kitchen wisdom holds true: the fewer ingredients the more their quality matters and the more important the technique. French Omelette is just eggs and butter, and that's why it's one of the most difficult dishes to nail. You only have two ingredients so it's all up to their quality and your technique to make it just right and you can't make it without proper equipment. Same goes for New York style pizza. It's bread dough with tomato sauce and cheese, so to make it something truly great takes a lot of skill and good ingredients. And as far as the water goes, there definitely is something in that New York water that makes the pizza taste different. I can't pinpoint what it is exactly, but if you concentrate you can tell.
Former NYC resident here: I actually think Joe's is the best of the three spots Josh reviewed. Each Joe's location is consistent. 2bros isn't bad, per se, but it's just super-cheap. It's nice for a late night on St. Marks and you want something super-quick. Some of my favorite spots: Di Fara (actually lives up to the hype) Denino's in Staten Island (honestly my favorite pizza in NYC) Nunzio's in Staten Island Joe and Sal's in Crown Heights Brooklyn Pizza Master in on 58th and 1st Prince St. Pizza Artichoke Pizza (has my favorite vodka square slice, not a fan of their famous artichoke slice) Keste (I think they're still in the Financial District) John's on Bleecker sLICe in Long Island City Williamsburg Pizza in Williamsburg (also a location in the Lower East Side) Vinnie's Pizza in Williamsburg L&B Spumoni Garden near Bensonhurst (more of a cool spot to have get-togethers with a bunch of friends)
I want to say that last time I was in NYC, the “famous” places we went all had a more traditional Italian style toppings option (I think some called it Nonna’s) The crust was still NY style, but it had those fresh ingredients. Also, some call it a pie, but I LOVE me some deep dish Chicago style.
My thoughts 1 - No to how much cheese you want. Be reserved always keep in mind ratios, dough, sauce and cheese. Same with toppings too many too thick and won't heat properly . 2 - Yes to little sauce not because it gets hot but it is there for fresh flavor and moisture. 3 - Freshness, cooking your sauce removes the freshness of the tomatoes. Recommend using a fresh heirloom tomato even the expensive cans are not that good and need adjustments like salt and sugar. 4 - Flour is important - Bread flour puffs more and will not get you the thin crust great for squares though. Find what works for you I use a combo of 00 APF. A little sugar helps in browning. If you can taste sweetness in the dough you used too much. 5 - Use the broiler to finish the top and brown the crust at home. 6 - You need a flavorful cheese like Romano or parmesan. I mix together or you can put it down before the Mots. I also do not like a garlicy sauce as a standard base. When I want garlic I use roasted cloves as a topping. Maybe that's why they cook the sauce they think you need garlic when you do not. The freshness opportunity created by the quick cooking should be embraced and exploited. Freshness Freshness Freshness. Hope this helps
You may add a tiny bit of sugar or honey to your vessel that you are blooming your dry yeast in, however I wouldn't ever put enough to affect the flavor of the dough. It's only to boost the yeast to get a more aggressive rise, and I only do this if I need to make pizza less than 3 hours after mixing the dough.
Something I can't stress enough is how important good tomatoes are, and how key using San Marzano tomatoes are. Once you taste the difference and haven't tasted it before, you must. I have a Ooni oven and there are many other options out there, they are great and I have perfected pizza to be comparable to the ones I had in Rome and Venice. The amount of research, time and experience needed to make a good pizza is very underrated. One of the toughest skills to perfect.
No such thing as extra virgin olive oil. It is called virgin extra. Virgin means that the oil was extracted with mechanical processes only. Extra means that the taste, acidity and properties were tested before being bottled. Loving your channel.
I think the sauce has to be cooked and ideally chilled and left overnight for the best flavours… But Joshes videos are really good, he doesn’t do anything culinarily wrong, just some of his choices I don’t agree with… REAL Chicago deep dish is amazing… if your ever in chi town, George’s Deep dish pizzeria is amazing
My favorite NY pizza is Di Fara in Brooklyn. The old guy there (DeMarco) is famous for pulling pizzas out of the oven with his *bare hands* lol. I haven't been to NY in a long time but Di Fara is still something I remember fondly.
You may not have heard of it but the channel Food theory actually has an episode on New York style pizza and talks about how the differences in in ingredients matter. He even makes pizzas using water from all over the country and shows that you get completely different results.
I think adding sugar in the sauce is an American thing but also double cooking the sauce makes it taste closer to ketchup. I personally prefer just opening the can of crushed tomatoes, adding oregano, garlic and onion powder and a touch of salt, blending that and putting it straight on the pizza, no boiling.I’m not a pro chef though just a home cook
Most NY Pizzerias do not cook their sauce so that is fine. In addition, American Tomatoes often are slightly more acidic than those from Europe so adding a little sugar is a way to balance the Acid better (THis comes from a Tomato farmer- and NJ has the best tomatoes in the world - tomatoes came from HERE first too- not europe)
@@Thommadura I think in general the sugar content of American foods (like canned tomatoes for example) is much higher than what we have in Europe. As for not boiling the sauce yeah, it tastes better if it’s not boiled, props to NY for not ruining pizza😁
I've worked in pizza kitchens for over 10 years. Should you cook the sauce? Well, no. Most places I have worked only have a pizza oven, and the amount of sauce that you need to the amount of space in the oven, plus the amount of time and attention isn't worth it. You would also need to make sure that it is cooled properly, and then cooled enough to put on your line so it wouldn't disturb the other ingredients on the line. That being said, with all the prep morning crew has already, it's much easier to throw all the ingredients in a blue top, burr blend the shit out of it and store it cold; ready to go. Hope that points out the obvious enough for a chef such as yourself. Love the channel, love you, keep it up. (edit) OH! for home cooks, go ahead, cook the sauce if you want. You can develop the flavor more and make it just the way you want it to taste. When you are making 5-gallon batches, however, you don't really have that luxury.
The Gozney Dome is absolutely phenomenal. I'd look into that for your home! I am anti-sugar in both the dough and the sauce. He already used an onion in the sauce for sweetness. Seems like a lot, imho.
I sell wood-fired consumer-grade pizza ovens (among other things) and every summer, we have a company pizza day where everyone gets to make their own pizza in one of our wood ovens. Being able to use a real pizza oven makes an ENORMOUS difference in the quality of the end product, though it's not always practical or affordable for a lot of home cooks. If you have the space and the budget for a real pizza oven, I highly recommend getting one. We also used to purchase pre-made dough from the store but this year I decided to make the dough from scratch for everyone. Wow, what a huge difference that made. James (and Josh) are 100% right about fresh ingredients. They make all the difference in the world. It's funny how pizza seems so simple, but man can it be super finicky to perfect. Every little change can make such a big difference in the end experience.
Lucali’s in Brooklyn is my favorite pizzeria. You have to be committed due to the wait times but it’s one of the few places worth the wait. I don’t think I’ll ever forget their ricotta.
Prior to my milk allergy my favorite was margarita and NY style. While not the same thing they have some important similarities. Crisp crust and simplicity is key. I really liked plain cheese pizza because more toppings sogginess or greasiness sets in and it's a mess.
I think if you have a grill(gass or coal) at home its at least a much better option to use the grill then the oven with a pizza stone inside, gives you a much closer reuslt to the pizza oven used in this video! :) PS. Just make sure you buy a pizzastone for grilling that can take the heat, the one for an oven can break in a grill.
adding sugar is important because it reacts with the yeast/flour mixture (much like salt does, but for people on low sodium diet, the sugar is preferred) , and contributes to rise in dough, helps with the browning when baked at high temperature. Every Italian knows that. IT is also added to yeast mixture, with warm water, to help activate the yeast. The mixture is then added to the dough.
flour, water, yeast- mix 6 minutes. rest 30 minutes add sugar and salt mix for 2-3 minutes. rest and shape. adding the sugar, and salt after the first rest makes the pizza less chewy. giving a better mouth feel.
I do 4-5 day cold ferment pizza doughs. My oven only gets 550 + a pizza steel. The sugar helps brown the crust in my limited heat options. If I had one of those monster coal/wood ovens I probably would pass.
I’m an American so I gravitate towards sweet and greasy, but reading these comments has opened my eyes to the freshness aspect. I do have to say I REALLY enjoy a fresh tasting Neapolitan style with fresh tomato, mozzarella and basil. Different experiences for different scenarios. If I’m cooking for family then I’ll probably use Josh’s NY style. If it’s for me and my wife, then fresh all the way.
AT 5:22, from what I've learned, from the channel Chain Baking and experience, sugar can be used for multiple things: - flavor - weakening the gluten bonds - removing access to water for the yeast, thus slowing down the fermentation process and modifying the flavor. Contrary to what people think, yeast does not need the sugar for energy. You want the yeast to synthesis the amylase of the starch in the flour to get its energy. This will also help the propagation of the yeast and yeast has a lot of umami flavor, it is delicious. Here's a quesiton for you: What do you think about chefs that pre-cook the dough and then add the toppings and cook the pizza a second time. I'm asking because I like thick dough and I had bad experiences where the dough wasn't completely cooked.
I ran a Sicilian restaurant for 9 years. The owner was from Long Island. His father was from Rome, and his mom was from Messina so our recipe was a culmination of ideas from Italy, Sicily, and New York. We did not use sugar in the mix and only used fresh yeast, and we added a splash of oil into the mix before the flour went in. The sauce was never, ever cooked. Canned San Marzano tomatoes chopped tomatoes in sauce, salt, pepper, oregano and just a hint of basil. We cooked in a large Blodget stone double oven set at 600 degrees preheated at least 90 minutes ahead of service time. The oven would hold 6 18" pizzas with space in between each on each deck. We grated and blended our own mozzarella 60/40 part skim to whole. More whole it would get greasy, more skim, it would dry out easy. Slapped and flattened the dough by hand the thickness we wanted, never by rolling pin and were to busy to "throw" the dough. It is an absolute wonder that I did not leave that place weighing 400 pounds.
Sugar is useful when cooking at lower temps to help browning; at the temperature used to cook Neopolitan pizza (~450 C) no sugar is needed in the dough, and the sugar would simply burn! When I make NY-style pizza at home I often use malt powder instead, which has a similar effect. When I make Neopolitan-style, flour water salt yeast are the only ingredients. Using a cooked tomato sauce is pretty typical in NY, though some places definitely use raw tomato sauces (which I prefer). Note that "raw" tomato sauces are rarely truly raw. Generally canned tomatoes are used, and the tomatoes inside are cooked as part of the canning process.
"It doesn't look 'as good'" is being too nice. "It doesn't look good" is what I followed up with, in perfect synch with Chef James! Keep up the good work!
Sugar is sometimes used in home pizza, but in a very small quantity. Sugar helps to get the brown color in the home owen, which rarely can reach the high temperatures needed for the job.
i have never had new york pizza, i'll be honest. but the type i like best as it stands now is windsor-style. for those who aren't aware, windsor ontario has their own style of pizza. it's got crispy pepperoni, top-quality cheese and thin crusts. also the canned mushrooms. i like it. the favorite spots are naples and riviera, check em out if you're going to canada any time soon
Greek style, done in a pan. Greek pizza has more oil in it which makes it fluffier and crispier, and when it cooks, some of the oil pulls out of it. Which is why you put it in the low-rimmed pizza pan, because that basically fries the crust in a great way.
New yorker here and italian heritage immigrant parents. If you are using olive oil and salt in the dough you dont need to add sugar. If youre using a drier dough with no olive oil or very little, then its common to add sugar. The end results will differ slightly but its a matter of preference - some pizzarias will use very moist dough with a lot of olive oil and salt the dough, and use salty parmesan or pecorino romano under the mozzarella. Others will sugar the dough, and salt the working space so it absorbs a light coating. Its really all jjst preference and personal techniques. Generally, good NY style pizza - especially from good pizzarias like New Park in Howard Beach, Queens or Pizza Paradiso in uptown Manhattan, or any other more popular and higher end spots - will use a little salt and a little sugar, very little olive oil, but then use a higher salt content homemade mozzarella. This way the dough has a good taste and firmness, but the whole slice isnt overwhelmed with salt. The cheaper pizzarias that advertise their $2 slices or $1 slices use no olive oil, a lot of sugar, and then cheaper, highly salted, highly processed, hermetically sealed mozzarella so all the flavor is just salt and sugar to mask the cheaper ingredients.
D' Fara's pizza, e16 street on ave. J, Brooklyn NY. I've been eating NY pizza for sixty years and although I haven't sampled EVERY NY pizza, this one is my favorite.
IMO there are 2 "secrets" to a good (home made) pizza: 1) Pizza stone (or dedicated pizza oven if you have the space) 2) The dough - and this is for sure the hardest part to perfect and get it right. Hint: it can't be rushed and takes time. The good thing: pizza dough can be kept in the freezer for months.
I am a New Yorker and eat pizza twice a week. I have 10 pizza places within a five block radius of my home, four if which are good. As far as I know, only one place uses butter and the use cultured butter in the sauce and also saute diced onions. They also kick it up a notch by not only using crushed Roma tomatoes, but also one out of the five cans is diced Roma tomatoes and they also add tomato paste for extra umami. They use fresh herbs and simmer the sauce to intensify flavor. It's a good thing that they are five blocks from me or my diet would be completely shot. (I wired their restaurant and set up their point of sale system, so I got to see the secret sauce being made. There are other ingredients.)
Never been to NY, I live in the US though, but I used to work at a Chaldean pizza place and our dough was made without sugar and the sauce also was not pre cooked. It was taken straight from the cans, given some added oregano and whatnot into it, then put on the dough.
I prefer the brighter tomato flavor from not pre cooking the sauce especially if it's going to get a long bake time with something like Lou Malnati's deep dish in Chicago
His sauce is super close to what I do with my sauce. I don’t find the need to add sugar to it. I find if I let it simmer long enough there’s a point where the sauce naturally acquires a sweet taste. Once that sweetness shows up it’s important to stop simmering before it’s starts to get a slight bitterness.
I make pizza at home every week! I found the sugar in the dough to work better for two reasons. 1. I only have tops an hour for the dough to rise. 2. It helps the dough brown a bit in a conventional oven that won't go over 500.
also you commented out that pizza crust is important for holding but fun fact its actully was for the chilldren in napolly... you see, when then sauce touches the pill, its almost impossible too launch so the adults to the children to not reach the end and leave a space so the pizzas wont get stuck
1) My aunt has that oven and just got it for my parents, ill let you know. 2) a GRILL with pizza stone is the same thing! Just grill things. Smoky and beautiful too.
As I am originally from Chi-Town, Chicago Style Deep Dish is good, but even for Chicagoans, we do not eat it as our regular pizza, contrary to popular belief. The less known but much more common pizza eaten in Chicago is the Pub Style Thin Crust. A very crispy cracker crust that is sooo good. Most folks that go out eat the thin crust pub pizza, and only eat deep dish for more elaborate outings. Both of these are my top pizzas hands down. As a side note, lots of the small shops that do the Pub Style also make their own BBQ sauce and you can get BBQ sauce, Peperoni, and Onion on that thin crust and it is hands down the best!
Grande pre-grated cheese is the BEST cheese for pizza !! I've tried blends, whole, part and skim and Grande is the best tasting pizza cheese hands down.
As a cook myself, we deal with celsius and fahrenheit at the same time in Canada. As we use American equipment, but when it comes to temping food, we use celsius.
Sugar helps with browning in home ovens. A couple of Italian chefs advised this for home cooks with ovens that can't go over 250 degrees C. Otherwise, no sugar in the flour mix.
I've had New York pizza in NYC, but it was a long time ago. But in my old college town of Ann Arbor, there was a place called New York Pizza Depot (NYPD), run by some guys from NYC, had those same giant slices just like this, that you basically had to fold to get in your mouth. I loved their 4-cheese Blanco, and their one with baked ziti pasta on it. I do tend to like thicker types, though, Chicago-style and Detroit-style (pretty similar to Sicilian) are both great, in my book. Even French bread style can be great, if you get the right bread.
The one thing I think we all can agree on is the pizza is divisive. Napoli vs Roma vs New York vs Chicago (the last one so much some deny that it's pizza) My favorite pizza was a "margarita pizza" in Roma (Yes, that's what they wrote) most margherita pizzas as you know have dollops of good cheese surrounded by sauce. Not this one. It was fully covered in amazing cheese. At that point.... ...Any pizza is a personal pizza if you have the will. Also, we in Oregon love our water. I could see someone flying in theirs if they wanted it just right. Excellent analysis as always.
I do a single rise on my dough and stretch it out to about a 3/16" ( 4-5 mm) or less but have never been able to turn up the temp that high. I use a pizza stone that is pre heated but when I go anything over 450deg F (232 C) it burns on the outside way before the dough cooks or rises on the bottom.
the dough is not supposed to rise on the bottom, if ur having a hard time cooking the middle of the crust you're using too many toppings. keep the toppings minimal
Here in BC, there’s a place called Hot Oven Pizza, and if I could magically send you a fresh slice, I think you might be impressed, or at least intrigued. They don’t put sugar in the dough; rather the crust is glazed with a touch of honey. It’s by far the best pizza I’ve ever had.
Hi James, Im making napolitan pizza for about a year, if you are adding suger you need to be carefull about your oven temp because if you are using a pizza oven 450 cels, the suger in the dough gets burned and you can actully see that on the pizze with little black bubbles, Im recommending adding suger only in a rush (8 hours fermantation rush lol) and lowering the oven temp - not the napolitan way
I visited NYC for a week and ate at a different pizzeria each day. On some nights I'd go to 4 different places so I could try 4 different slices. I might've tried about 20 different places. So it was not a very large sample size, but my favorite was Champion Pizza. I'm not sure how much locals like it or not, but as an outsider doing a blind taste test, Champion was definitely my favorite and the only pizzaria I went back to twice.
I make my pizza dough with "biga" letting it rest for at least 18 hours in the fridge. When I put together biga to the rest of the ingredients to complete the dough I add a table spoon of honey or malt.
I find I want to watch Joshua Weissman, but his personality can be a little overwhelming for me. You always bring a nice balance of calm and insightful commentary that make these videos really enjoyable for me! I find my favourite videos have been your Adam Ragusea ones however, and hope to see more of those as well!
Former New Yorkers here, not in Manhattan but the best pizza I've had in my life was New Park Pizza in Howard Beach, best Brick Oven NY style pizza around.
I live in eastern Massachusetts, where we have 2 styles of pizza you don't find too far outside the area: Greek style and Bar style. Greek style named for being created in pizzerias owned by Greek immigrants. It is cooked in a shallow pan and has a slightly chewy crust. Bar style named for being created at a bar. It has a cracker thin crust and no edge crust, as the cheese and toppings go all the way to the edge.
Well now I'm hungry for pizza! I lived in Ny and that was my favorite thing to do was try the different pizza shops. To just be able to walk in and grab a slice on the go is one of the things I truly miss about NY. Great video, insightful commentary I think Josh did a really good job with the pizza he made.
I am a home cook and have been making pizza for years. My ingredients have changed over the years to where I have been using the same recipe for about five years now. I use 00 flour, dried yeast, a little olive oil, filtered water and a teaspoon of sugar (to feed the yeast). I use the double fermentation method. My gas BBQ has a lid (round, like a weber kettle but smaller) has a stone on the grill and after about 30 minutes on full can reach 450 to 500C. Cooks my thin crust pizza in about 3 to 4 minutes. I end up with a crusty bottom, moderately charred. I live in SE Asia so it is pretty warm here which helps the fermentation time and the cook time.
yes, when you where talking about not cooking the tomato sauce, most pizzerias don't cook it, and most of the time it come directly from the bottle, italian tomatoes, from the south of itlay have much more taste and when formed into a "passata" which is kind of a puree of tomato, it has this nice balance not to be altered
Pizzaiolos let me know what you think of the pizza!
Too crusty
I'm pretty sure you don't put sugar in pizza he also didn't put any toppings on like what it's not a pizza if it don't have toppings
@@blaizegottman4139 neapolitian pizza, new york pizzas come without any toppings naturally, its optional, but the classic pizza comes with just cheese and sauce
He's using an ooni pizza oven fyi
Might be of interest - the Pizza Pilgrims guys in London developed a home pizza kit during lockdown - cooked in a dry frying pan and finished under a grill - saves the ridiculous waste of energy in preheating an oven for an hour! Although Ben doesn't have the right sized pan (!) you can see how well it works on this Sorted Food episode from 2020 - Pizza starts at 5 minutes - ua-cam.com/video/B-oIOeg1UfE/v-deo.html
Alan
Chef James Makinson. I have to be completely honest. You are my favorite reactor chef. Yes even more than Gordon Ramsay or any of the Master Chefs. The reason being is that you take the time to explain every step in the cooking processes about the food dishes you review. You don't cuss, or simply bash other chefs. No. You are very educative and informative and that is why i always keep coming back to watch your videos.
Thank you very much! I really appreciate it!
I also like how you can keep a straight face while we all know you are dying a little bit inside! It’s amazing how you can be so soft spoken when you know how wrong things are. Keep it up buddy!
you would like kenji lopez
At least lay siege and starve everyone to death before u butter him up
Wow thank you so much for your complete honesty!
Pizza chef here!
In regards to sugar in the dough, it's a helpful crutch when making pizza at home due to the lower baking temps. There are (in my opinion) better ways to get around it such as malt powder, honey, beer, molasses, etc. My personal preference would be malt powder. But as long as you keep your ferment time nice and long despite the sugar, there aren't any real serious downsides besides it being less healthy. I prefer not to use sugar either at home or at pizzerias.
If you have any questions about this or other parts, feel free to ask!
Thank you!
Like vanilla flavor? I’ve never seen pizza dough being made with malt powder…
Keeping the ferment time long "despite" the sugar? Isn't it because of the sugar? All of the alternatives look like things that would be used to feed the yeast, and suggest that this is the purpose of (1)the added sugar (honey, malt, etc.), and (2)the long fermentation time. After all, New York pizza "should be yeasty".
This is just my analysis though.
@@WerewolfLord Yeast feeds off of the natural sugars found in the flour. It doesn't NEED the added sugar at all. I prefer to not use any sugar or any alternative I mentioned. The added sugar would greatly speed up the fermentation process which can negatively impact digestibility. It (and the alternatives I mentioned) can be used as a crutch to speed up this fermentation time (let's say your walk-in goes down and you need dough quickly for the day) or if you're struggling to get proper browning on your crust (which is often a sign of improper baking temps and/or flour)
NY pizza definitely should have a nice yeasty fermentation flavor to it from the long fermentation. But you don't need sugar to do that. If you're going to add sugar or the alternatives, lower the yeast amount, lower the water temp, reduce any bench rest time, etc. to keep the fermentation just as long as it would be without the sugar.
@@eliyahusvocalcoaching I use his recipe as well. I love using the biga method.
The pizza place I worked was owned by a guy who was born and raised in Brooklyn and had worked in pizza places his entire life of 56 years at that point.
Our dough recipe was very similar to Josh's except fresh yeast, the sugar was replaced with brown sugar, the olive oil was incorporated at the last minute of mixing and we would knead the dough more and let it rise for at least 24 hours.
The sauce was also similar but we did not cook it beforehand, just let it sit refrigerated, again, for at least 24 hours.
We would also grate low and high moisture mozzarella for a 50/50 mix. One was for flavor and the other was for cheese pull, I forget which was which though.
It's great to see Chef James being consistent on this channel. May God bless him.
thank you!
You are on every video.
For Neapolitan Pizza, the go to guy is clearly Vito Iacopelli. He has an excellent video about how to achieve great pizza even with the low temperatures of a normal oven. I have been using this technique ever since I saw it and I now can't go to any of the pizza places in my town anymore because I'll always be disappointed that the pizza is worse than what Vito has taught me to achieve. 😁
Since you're in glorious 230V Europe if you're looking for a pizza oven there is an italian company called Effeuno that makes electric pizza ovens that go up to 500°C. So no need to mess around with wood/gas outside.
Thank you for letting me know! :)
I wouldn't call this pizza. Pizza is like egg and fried rice. You mix whatever you find in your fridge into a dish. You add rice (cause its healthy), and you add egg (cause it add creamy + flavour). With pizza you add the meat, fish, vegetables on a cheewey dough. Or inside.
This New York pizza looks just tomato sause + cheese on a dough. Which is just unhealthy. plain and simple.
Pizza has a long history. Flatbreads with toppings were consumed by the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. (The latter ate a version with herbs and oil, similar to today's focaccia.) But the modern birthplace of pizza is southwestern Italy's Campania region, home to the city of Naples.
Pizza = Flatbreads with toppings, herbs and oil.
I get thrown off anytime somebody adds water to a tomato sauce - to me, the essence of a tomato sauce is reduction. Concentration of the tomato flavor with infused aromatics. Adding water to this... Why?
@@somerandomchannel382 yes
@@galaxy_brain agreed
i'm a chef and a new yorker and pizza happens to be my favorite food and i've eaten and made many hundreds of pizzas and one thing i can tell you about new york style pizza is, there is no ONE single recipe for new york style pizza. some pizzerias use sugar(in their dough or sauce), some don't, some use use olive oil in their dough or sauce, some don't, some use crushed chili peppers in the sauce, some don't. the variety of herbs are different, and the ratios etc. one pizza joint i knew many years ago also cooked the sauce with carrots in it, which was then removed, and it actually was a delicious sauce. the main thing about New York style is large slices because almost all pizzerias sell by the slice, and yes they should be folded at least for structural integrity, but also keeps it warmer for longer, and the crust is thin, and often, but not always crispy and toasted. the cheese is often a blend of provolone and mozzarella, mostly mozzarella, and it's usually part skim low moisture block mozzarella cheese sold by the local purveyors.
new york city is one of the oldest pizza cities in the world, as well as new haven connecticut, and because we had many immigrants here from Napoli, it was being made here at the same time as in Naples and long long before it was being made anywhere else in Italy, aside from around Naples. New York style pizza is an evolution of neapolitan pizza, and there was a gradual progression from 'new york neapolitan' (patsys is an example), where it looks more like neapolitan pizza, and uses fresh mozzarella, to the modern new york style, large pies, usually from 18-25 inches (45-64cm). since fresh basil was hard to get, as well as fresh mozz, the basil was often dropped and it was still a poor people's food, sold to factory workers, and cut into slices to fit their tight budgets. the sauce was also made more flavorful with the addition of aromatics and herbs and spices, and the use of canned tomatoes.
one thing i never see mentioned is that EVERY pizzeria in new york always have the following condiments to top any slice: powdered garlic, dried oregano, chili flakes, and black pepper; always! also common and almost always is some kind of generic grated 'parmesan' cheese, and salt.
The pizza oven he uses is a Ooni Karu 16 and it's incredible. It's a multi fuel oven so you can cook with wood, charcoal or gas if you buy the propane burner. I've use this oven for 6 months now and it makes awesome pizza.
I prefer to cook my pizza sauce, because I want more developed flavors. I'm also not big on adding sugar, but that depends on the tomatoes. Sometimes they're quite a bit more acidic and need that edge softened. The OONI is a great pizza oven for home cooks, too, by the way.
I agree on the sugar in the sauce, but sometimes you can’t get the good tomatoes and you have to. Crappy tomatoes have to be compensated for.
I feel like making your own sauce is something you have time to do as a home cook. I usually use cherry or roma tomatoes when I do, and I've never added sugar.
I honor your method and efforts to make your own pizza even if cooking sauce is different than mine. Adjusting your ingredients is critical and the OONI takes pizza to another level than an oven.
@@GlennWatsonHome It's not really cooking the sauce twice, in my opinion. Simmering a sauce for a reasonable length of time develops a lot more flavor, and then pizzas cook pretty quickly, so that's really more like re-heating it briefly.
My family moved from Palermo to America in the early 1900’s, a lot of time your putting something together on the cheap. You are not adding sugar to the point it sweetens the sauce, you’re just trying to take then tinny flavor away from canned tomatoes. You can use shredded carrots too.
Regarding sugar in dough- fresh yeast doesn't really need it, dried does (just a little) Depends on the amount of salt too... In the words of Uncle Roger - 'Use feeling' :)
Mmmm, no. You don't even need to dissolve active dry yeast into water like most recipes will tend to instruct (though I would say it's generally a good idea). If you mix it into the flour, even with a little salt and add the water afterward, and just leave that out at room temperature, the yeast will absolutely work. No sugar required. Adding sugar does however change the way the yeast ferments things, and it does speed things up, but you'll end up with an entirely different dough that if you never added any sugar.
Agreed I'm a home bread baker and I never add sugar to bread dough with dry yeast
I never cook my sauce. I feel it's robust enough. But most importantly, after I mix in the seasonings, I put in the fridge overnight. This makes a world of difference.
Thats the difference between pizza sauce and marinara.
Vito Copelli is the only pizza channel you need on UA-cam. I’ve learnt a lot from him. His NY style is far superior to this and he has some really useful advice for cooking in home ovens too
My brother actually has the pizza oven from this video (because of this video) and the pizza that comes out of it is absolutely amazing. Definitely worth the (expensive af) buy and he uses it pretty much every week
I've noticed that in a home oven it's easier to get a crispy and brown crust if I add sugar in the dough, so I find it perfectly acceptable.
Long time late... bit no no. First, just time will do wondering oven wise... really let your oven crack up to max heat, and the most heat "holding" base is huge.
Second, a good 65% hydration dough will be perfect
Sugar (and fat) are added to NY pizza dough to act as dough conditioners, to help retain moisture and softness in the crumb, because this type of pizza cooks at a much lower temperature (~450F/232C) and for a lot longer than Neapolitan pizza (anywhere from 6 to 12 minutes) in "deck" ovens that are normally used to make bread. They aren't cooked in Neapolitan style pizza ovens with wood fires. A lean dough would be pretty dry and would "die" pretty quickly when cooked this way. Anyway, that is the only way to get a crisp bottom, which is what we Americans like. The sugar does also help brown the crust. It's not added to make the dough sweet.
The best way to achieve a crispy undercarriage in a home oven is to use a preheated baking steel. 550°F for one hour before launching a wet dough. A baking steel delivers beautiful leopard spots every time.
To quote my italian relative from Bologna: "You can top up with anything you want, if the dough is poorly executed your Pizza is ruined. Having a good dough can even cover up other mistakes within your Pizza"
That's SO TRUE.
Hi James, cool video! I'm a BCN guy nerd about pizzas, i've done hundreds at home, trying to master neapolitan style (which is a challenge at home, as you know). About the sugar thing, short answer, yes it is OK to add it. Long answer, yes when doing it at home, not in real wood oven: bcs one of the problems with home ovens is lack of temperature so to get a brown crust you need to overcook your pizza, but with sugar you can help to get a more brown crust with a shorter baking time (and i am not entering into the issue of how to succed with short baking time at home bcs it's a long story).
About cooking tomato, big NO if you are doing neapolitan. But, as always there's room for imagination and adaptation (being this a NYP). I'm a hardcore fan of classic neapolitan, so for me raw san marzano tomatoes, preferably crushed by hand, and maximum with a bit of extra virgin oil and salt (if not previously salted) and in the most extreme cases with a few basilic leaves.
Cheers and keep it on with pizza videos (also your own home version!)
thank you for the explanation!
Big facts, I've seen some Italian chefs use semolina/brown sugar sometimes too. Not traditional at all. But it's still an accepted thing, Unless you're making a Neapolitan ;)
That comment radiates pure pizza love vibes. Love it 😄
Can you share with some great recipie for home style pizza? Maybe something similar to NY one?
What if I have access to great fresh tomato but no San marazano? Do you recommend I use it raw or cook it?
I own an Ooni Pro pizza oven & love it, 3yrs later & it's still going strong. It was the game changer for neapolitan style pizza 🍕. I tried all the tricks possible in a home oven but had no success. Don't get me wrong, I can still make an amazing pizza in my home oven, but I had to tweak the dough recipe quite a bit to get an in-between NY/neapolitan style pizza. The one thing I have learned about dough making that has made a WORLD of a difference is making a poolish starter & letting your dough cold ferment overnight in the fridge. So yeah, my dough takes 3 days but it's worth the wait 110%!😎 👍
Im a chef at a new york style pizzeria and have found that balling your dough right after mixing and cold fermenting for 1-2 days works best rather than bringing up to room temp. Can pull your dough straight from the fridge and stretch with ease.
I'm 75 years of age, born and raised in Brooklyn New York. I've been making home pizza for over half a century. I love New York style pizza. For me, a New York style pizza has to be xtra large to duplicate NYC pizza. One trick I do is I go to Home Depot and buy unglazed quarry tiles. I line them up and cover my large outdoor BBQ grate. I preheat the tiles for 45 to 60 minutes. I use high glutton bread flour so I can get enough stretch to make the dough (window pain) thin enough to see light through it without breaking. I also splatter a little bit of sauce on top of the cheese. I sprinkle some Regiano cheese as well. I'm getting hungry.
As an Italian trying to replicate NY style pizza, thank you for sharing your knowledge!
I'm no chef, but I've made homemade pizza several times in my amateur kitchen and I very much prefer an uncooked sauce. In my opinion, when the sauce is cooked it usually tastes more like a lasagna to me. I may add sugar to the sauce depending on the acidity of the tomatoes. I also add sugar to my dough as it seems to have a more well balanced flavor and helps with browning.
I’ve eaten in all those places! NY pizza to me should be thin crust and well-done! But everyone has their preference. One of my favorite places was Forcella. They would quickly deep fry the dough then add all the sauce/cheese and throw it in the oven. Unfortunately the Forcella near my house was closed during covid but hopefully they have others.
Good to know! thank you!
Yes to well done! I love those charred bits on the crust.
I actually don't mind a hint of sweetness in the sauce, it kind of depends.. I had the opportunity to make pizzas in a wood-fire brick oven and I loved it. It gives a nice flavor from the wood. Also if you have a rush you can have pretty quick pies as long as you're attentive. I feel the flavor from the wood was really nice. Idk this may be unorthodox but I think the cherry wood was my favorite to use but just imo
the ovens do make a difference!
The second pronunciation of 'mozzarella' Joshua used is from a dialect of English used in areas of New York City and the surroundings, especially New Jersey and Staten Island.
Ahh okay!
Instead of a pizza-oven or a pizza-stone, you can sear the dough in a pan (without oil, etc.) and insert it after in the oven ;)
So the bottom gets almost like in an pizza-oven.
A pizza steel is the perfect accessory for a conventional home oven.
I usually make three pizzas at a time my first two I oven cook. The last one I pan cook on the stove then oven and last broil. I also put the sauce and cheese to the edge creating a crispy edge. After a few regular crust slices the pan slice is a nice change to give me incentive to have one more. Also, the pan slice reheats better using the same process. That is why I cook it lasts. Thanks for sharing.
I'm a home cook now but I've had over 20 years of restaurant experience. One of my first jobs was Little Caesars, back in the 80's when LC was good pizza. Over the years I've made many different styles of pizza. For a New York style, I use canned whole peeled tomatoes, drained. I squeeze the seeds out and add a small can of paste and cook it down and mash it until I have a very smooth thick sauce. I want the water content of the sauce to be low since the crust is already thin and droopy. For the crust, I use a fairly moist dough with a bit of olive oil, hand stretched and cooked on the bottom rack of my oven on a blackened steel pan at about 450F. I typically don't add sugar to the sauce unless the tomatoes are very acidic. I go by taste. As for the crust, I don't add sugar to a long-fermented dough because I find it rises too fast and becomes depleted by the time I'm ready for a final rise to room temp after taking it out of the fridge.
The old kitchen wisdom holds true: the fewer ingredients the more their quality matters and the more important the technique.
French Omelette is just eggs and butter, and that's why it's one of the most difficult dishes to nail.
You only have two ingredients so it's all up to their quality and your technique to make it just right and you can't make it without proper equipment.
Same goes for New York style pizza. It's bread dough with tomato sauce and cheese, so to make it something truly great takes a lot of skill and good ingredients.
And as far as the water goes, there definitely is something in that New York water that makes the pizza taste different. I can't pinpoint what it is exactly, but if you concentrate you can tell.
Former NYC resident here:
I actually think Joe's is the best of the three spots Josh reviewed. Each Joe's location is consistent. 2bros isn't bad, per se, but it's just super-cheap. It's nice for a late night on St. Marks and you want something super-quick.
Some of my favorite spots:
Di Fara (actually lives up to the hype)
Denino's in Staten Island (honestly my favorite pizza in NYC)
Nunzio's in Staten Island
Joe and Sal's in Crown Heights
Brooklyn Pizza Master in on 58th and 1st
Prince St. Pizza
Artichoke Pizza (has my favorite vodka square slice, not a fan of their famous artichoke slice)
Keste (I think they're still in the Financial District)
John's on Bleecker
sLICe in Long Island City
Williamsburg Pizza in Williamsburg (also a location in the Lower East Side)
Vinnie's Pizza in Williamsburg
L&B Spumoni Garden near Bensonhurst (more of a cool spot to have get-togethers with a bunch of friends)
thank you for the recommendations!
I want to say that last time I was in NYC, the “famous” places we went all had a more traditional Italian style toppings option (I think some called it Nonna’s) The crust was still NY style, but it had those fresh ingredients.
Also, some call it a pie, but I LOVE me some deep dish Chicago style.
I sometimes use sugar in my dough to help the yeast along. More often than not, I will add a little bit of lager to add a little flavor.
My thoughts 1 - No to how much cheese you want. Be reserved always keep in mind ratios, dough, sauce and cheese. Same with toppings too many too thick and won't heat properly . 2 - Yes to little sauce not because it gets hot but it is there for fresh flavor and moisture. 3 - Freshness, cooking your sauce removes the freshness of the tomatoes. Recommend using a fresh heirloom tomato even the expensive cans are not that good and need adjustments like salt and sugar. 4 - Flour is important - Bread flour puffs more and will not get you the thin crust great for squares though. Find what works for you I use a combo of 00 APF. A little sugar helps in browning. If you can taste sweetness in the dough you used too much. 5 - Use the broiler to finish the top and brown the crust at home. 6 - You need a flavorful cheese like Romano or parmesan. I mix together or you can put it down before the Mots. I also do not like a garlicy sauce as a standard base. When I want garlic I use roasted cloves as a topping. Maybe that's why they cook the sauce they think you need garlic when you do not. The freshness opportunity created by the quick cooking should be embraced and exploited. Freshness Freshness Freshness. Hope this helps
Great perspective. Thank you for this comment.
Yeah he put to much cheese
Right on
You may add a tiny bit of sugar or honey to your vessel that you are blooming your dry yeast in, however I wouldn't ever put enough to affect the flavor of the dough. It's only to boost the yeast to get a more aggressive rise, and I only do this if I need to make pizza less than 3 hours after mixing the dough.
Something I can't stress enough is how important good tomatoes are, and how key using San Marzano tomatoes are. Once you taste the difference and haven't tasted it before, you must.
I have a Ooni oven and there are many other options out there, they are great and I have perfected pizza to be comparable to the ones I had in Rome and Venice. The amount of research, time and experience needed to make a good pizza is very underrated. One of the toughest skills to perfect.
No such thing as extra virgin olive oil. It is called virgin extra. Virgin means that the oil was extracted with mechanical processes only. Extra means that the taste, acidity and properties were tested before being bottled. Loving your channel.
I think the sauce has to be cooked and ideally chilled and left overnight for the best flavours…
But Joshes videos are really good, he doesn’t do anything culinarily wrong, just some of his choices I don’t agree with… REAL Chicago deep dish is amazing… if your ever in chi town, George’s Deep dish pizzeria is amazing
I agree, he does do a good job! :)
My favorite NY pizza is Di Fara in Brooklyn. The old guy there (DeMarco) is famous for pulling pizzas out of the oven with his *bare hands* lol. I haven't been to NY in a long time but Di Fara is still something I remember fondly.
I personally love a sweeter sauce bc i love lots of extra cheese and the sweeter sauce seems to balance out the saltiness of the cheese.
Why not just sprinkle some sugar on it? Not joking. They're is no such thing as a sweet tomato.
You may not have heard of it but the channel Food theory actually has an episode on New York style pizza and talks about how the differences in in ingredients matter. He even makes pizzas using water from all over the country and shows that you get completely different results.
I will have to take a look!
I think adding sugar in the sauce is an American thing but also double cooking the sauce makes it taste closer to ketchup. I personally prefer just opening the can of crushed tomatoes, adding oregano, garlic and onion powder and a touch of salt, blending that and putting it straight on the pizza, no boiling.I’m not a pro chef though just a home cook
Most NY Pizzerias do not cook their sauce so that is fine. In addition, American Tomatoes often are slightly more acidic than those from Europe so adding a little sugar is a way to balance the Acid better (THis comes from a Tomato farmer- and NJ has the best tomatoes in the world - tomatoes came from HERE first too- not europe)
@@Thommadura I think in general the sugar content of American foods (like canned tomatoes for example) is much higher than what we have in Europe. As for not boiling the sauce yeah, it tastes better if it’s not boiled, props to NY for not ruining pizza😁
I've worked in pizza kitchens for over 10 years. Should you cook the sauce? Well, no. Most places I have worked only have a pizza oven, and the amount of sauce that you need to the amount of space in the oven, plus the amount of time and attention isn't worth it. You would also need to make sure that it is cooled properly, and then cooled enough to put on your line so it wouldn't disturb the other ingredients on the line. That being said, with all the prep morning crew has already, it's much easier to throw all the ingredients in a blue top, burr blend the shit out of it and store it cold; ready to go. Hope that points out the obvious enough for a chef such as yourself. Love the channel, love you, keep it up.
(edit) OH! for home cooks, go ahead, cook the sauce if you want. You can develop the flavor more and make it just the way you want it to taste. When you are making 5-gallon batches, however, you don't really have that luxury.
The Gozney Dome is absolutely phenomenal. I'd look into that for your home!
I am anti-sugar in both the dough and the sauce. He already used an onion in the sauce for sweetness. Seems like a lot, imho.
I sell wood-fired consumer-grade pizza ovens (among other things) and every summer, we have a company pizza day where everyone gets to make their own pizza in one of our wood ovens. Being able to use a real pizza oven makes an ENORMOUS difference in the quality of the end product, though it's not always practical or affordable for a lot of home cooks. If you have the space and the budget for a real pizza oven, I highly recommend getting one. We also used to purchase pre-made dough from the store but this year I decided to make the dough from scratch for everyone. Wow, what a huge difference that made. James (and Josh) are 100% right about fresh ingredients. They make all the difference in the world. It's funny how pizza seems so simple, but man can it be super finicky to perfect. Every little change can make such a big difference in the end experience.
Woow amazing the reaction! The pizza that he made looks really good! See you 🦇
Thank you so much 😁
Lucali’s in Brooklyn is my favorite pizzeria. You have to be committed due to the wait times but it’s one of the few places worth the wait. I don’t think I’ll ever forget their ricotta.
usually the good places are busy.
Prior to my milk allergy my favorite was margarita and NY style. While not the same thing they have some important similarities. Crisp crust and simplicity is key. I really liked plain cheese pizza because more toppings sogginess or greasiness sets in and it's a mess.
In December of 2021 I stood on a sidewalk in Brooklyn and consumed some of the best pizza I've ever tasted: Di Fara Pizza.
I think if you have a grill(gass or coal) at home its at least a much better option to use the grill then the oven with a pizza stone inside, gives you a much closer reuslt to the pizza oven used in this video! :) PS. Just make sure you buy a pizzastone for grilling that can take the heat, the one for an oven can break in a grill.
adding sugar is important because it reacts with the yeast/flour mixture (much like salt does, but for people on low sodium diet, the sugar is preferred) , and contributes to rise in dough, helps with the browning when baked at high temperature. Every Italian knows that. IT is also added to yeast mixture, with warm water, to help activate the yeast. The mixture is then added to the dough.
Mostly unnecessary if you use packet activated yeast
Stay awesome Chef!
Thanks, you too!
flour, water, yeast- mix 6 minutes. rest 30 minutes add sugar and salt mix for 2-3 minutes. rest and shape. adding the sugar, and salt after the first rest makes the pizza less chewy. giving a better mouth feel.
I do 4-5 day cold ferment pizza doughs. My oven only gets 550 + a pizza steel. The sugar helps brown the crust in my limited heat options. If I had one of those monster coal/wood ovens I probably would pass.
I've never been to NY but - man oh man - I have watched the crap out of Scott's Pizza Tours. Just fantastic.
I’m an American so I gravitate towards sweet and greasy, but reading these comments has opened my eyes to the freshness aspect. I do have to say I REALLY enjoy a fresh tasting Neapolitan style with fresh tomato, mozzarella and basil. Different experiences for different scenarios. If I’m cooking for family then I’ll probably use Josh’s NY style. If it’s for me and my wife, then fresh all the way.
AT 5:22, from what I've learned, from the channel Chain Baking and experience, sugar can be used for multiple things:
- flavor
- weakening the gluten bonds
- removing access to water for the yeast, thus slowing down the fermentation process and modifying the flavor.
Contrary to what people think, yeast does not need the sugar for energy. You want the yeast to synthesis the amylase of the starch in the flour to get its energy. This will also help the propagation of the yeast and yeast has a lot of umami flavor, it is delicious.
Here's a quesiton for you: What do you think about chefs that pre-cook the dough and then add the toppings and cook the pizza a second time.
I'm asking because I like thick dough and I had bad experiences where the dough wasn't completely cooked.
I like a more traditional sauce personally
so do I!
I ran a Sicilian restaurant for 9 years. The owner was from Long Island. His father was from Rome, and his mom was from Messina so our recipe was a culmination of ideas from Italy, Sicily, and New York. We did not use sugar in the mix and only used fresh yeast, and we added a splash of oil into the mix before the flour went in. The sauce was never, ever cooked. Canned San Marzano tomatoes chopped tomatoes in sauce, salt, pepper, oregano and just a hint of basil. We cooked in a large Blodget stone double oven set at 600 degrees preheated at least 90 minutes ahead of service time. The oven would hold 6 18" pizzas with space in between each on each deck.
We grated and blended our own mozzarella 60/40 part skim to whole. More whole it would get greasy, more skim, it would dry out easy. Slapped and flattened the dough by hand the thickness we wanted, never by rolling pin and were to busy to "throw" the dough. It is an absolute wonder that I did not leave that place weighing 400 pounds.
Thank you for the information!
Did you lose some experience? You used to cook for “many many years” :(
what are you talking about? I have been cooking since I was 14.
@@ChefJamesMakinson He is joking about the intro talk I think
@@JormaKuusi ^^ I was quoting it and couldn’t believe he switched it up
Sugar is useful when cooking at lower temps to help browning; at the temperature used to cook Neopolitan pizza (~450 C) no sugar is needed in the dough, and the sugar would simply burn! When I make NY-style pizza at home I often use malt powder instead, which has a similar effect. When I make Neopolitan-style, flour water salt yeast are the only ingredients.
Using a cooked tomato sauce is pretty typical in NY, though some places definitely use raw tomato sauces (which I prefer). Note that "raw" tomato sauces are rarely truly raw. Generally canned tomatoes are used, and the tomatoes inside are cooked as part of the canning process.
"It doesn't look 'as good'" is being too nice. "It doesn't look good" is what I followed up with, in perfect synch with Chef James! Keep up the good work!
I will! I need some pizza after seeing all these pizza videos! haha
It's nice that you mostly agree with Joshua, and I still feel like you add value. Thanks
Sugar is sometimes used in home pizza, but in a very small quantity. Sugar helps to get the brown color in the home owen, which rarely can reach the high temperatures needed for the job.
i have never had new york pizza, i'll be honest. but the type i like best as it stands now is windsor-style. for those who aren't aware, windsor ontario has their own style of pizza. it's got crispy pepperoni, top-quality cheese and thin crusts. also the canned mushrooms. i like it. the favorite spots are naples and riviera, check em out if you're going to canada any time soon
I’ve got a NY pizzeria. Yes we use sugar in the dough (extra food for the yeast). No we don’t cook our pizza sauce. Fun video!
Greek style, done in a pan. Greek pizza has more oil in it which makes it fluffier and crispier, and when it cooks, some of the oil pulls out of it. Which is why you put it in the low-rimmed pizza pan, because that basically fries the crust in a great way.
New yorker here and italian heritage immigrant parents. If you are using olive oil and salt in the dough you dont need to add sugar. If youre using a drier dough with no olive oil or very little, then its common to add sugar. The end results will differ slightly but its a matter of preference - some pizzarias will use very moist dough with a lot of olive oil and salt the dough, and use salty parmesan or pecorino romano under the mozzarella. Others will sugar the dough, and salt the working space so it absorbs a light coating. Its really all jjst preference and personal techniques. Generally, good NY style pizza - especially from good pizzarias like New Park in Howard Beach, Queens or Pizza Paradiso in uptown Manhattan, or any other more popular and higher end spots - will use a little salt and a little sugar, very little olive oil, but then use a higher salt content homemade mozzarella. This way the dough has a good taste and firmness, but the whole slice isnt overwhelmed with salt. The cheaper pizzarias that advertise their $2 slices or $1 slices use no olive oil, a lot of sugar, and then cheaper, highly salted, highly processed, hermetically sealed mozzarella so all the flavor is just salt and sugar to mask the cheaper ingredients.
D' Fara's pizza, e16 street on ave. J, Brooklyn NY. I've been eating NY pizza for sixty years and although I haven't sampled EVERY NY pizza, this one is my favorite.
IMO there are 2 "secrets" to a good (home made) pizza:
1) Pizza stone (or dedicated pizza oven if you have the space)
2) The dough - and this is for sure the hardest part to perfect and get it right. Hint: it can't be rushed and takes time. The good thing: pizza dough can be kept in the freezer for months.
Chef James. You're so calm about about everything! You have this Zen energy that is rarely found in Celebrity or YT chefs.
hahah thank you! but I am more relaxed at home
I am a New Yorker and eat pizza twice a week. I have 10 pizza places within a five block radius of my home, four if which are good. As far as I know, only one place uses butter and the use cultured butter in the sauce and also saute diced onions. They also kick it up a notch by not only using crushed Roma tomatoes, but also one out of the five cans is diced Roma tomatoes and they also add tomato paste for extra umami. They use fresh herbs and simmer the sauce to intensify flavor. It's a good thing that they are five blocks from me or my diet would be completely shot.
(I wired their restaurant and set up their point of sale system, so I got to see the secret sauce being made. There are other ingredients.)
You wired their kitchen?! 😳😂
Never been to NY, I live in the US though, but I used to work at a Chaldean pizza place and our dough was made without sugar and the sauce also was not pre cooked. It was taken straight from the cans, given some added oregano and whatnot into it, then put on the dough.
I prefer the brighter tomato flavor from not pre cooking the sauce especially if it's going to get a long bake time with something like Lou Malnati's deep dish in Chicago
His sauce is super close to what I do with my sauce. I don’t find the need to add sugar to it. I find if I let it simmer long enough there’s a point where the sauce naturally acquires a sweet taste. Once that sweetness shows up it’s important to stop simmering before it’s starts to get a slight bitterness.
I use a bread machine on dough setting, leave in until doubles in size , before balling and second rise .So easy .
I make pizza at home every week! I found the sugar in the dough to work better for two reasons. 1. I only have tops an hour for the dough to rise. 2. It helps the dough brown a bit in a conventional oven that won't go over 500.
I worked in a lot of pizzeria and we never cook pizza sauce! Yes we do cook our marinara sauce but not pizza sauce.
also you commented out that pizza crust is important for holding but fun fact its actully was for the chilldren in napolly...
you see, when then sauce touches the pill, its almost impossible too launch so the adults to the children to not reach the end and leave a space so the pizzas wont get stuck
1) My aunt has that oven and just got it for my parents, ill let you know.
2) a GRILL with pizza stone is the same thing! Just grill things. Smoky and beautiful too.
13:11 the absolute face of disgust of James hahahahhahahaha I 100% agree. Greetings from Paella City.
😂
As I am originally from Chi-Town, Chicago Style Deep Dish is good, but even for Chicagoans, we do not eat it as our regular pizza, contrary to popular belief. The less known but much more common pizza eaten in Chicago is the Pub Style Thin Crust. A very crispy cracker crust that is sooo good. Most folks that go out eat the thin crust pub pizza, and only eat deep dish for more elaborate outings. Both of these are my top pizzas hands down. As a side note, lots of the small shops that do the Pub Style also make their own BBQ sauce and you can get BBQ sauce, Peperoni, and Onion on that thin crust and it is hands down the best!
Grande pre-grated cheese is the BEST cheese for pizza !! I've tried blends, whole, part and skim and Grande is the best tasting pizza cheese hands down.
As a cook myself, we deal with celsius and fahrenheit at the same time in Canada. As we use American equipment, but when it comes to temping food, we use celsius.
New Haven Coal fired is my Fav. Specifically Sally's!
Sugar helps with browning in home ovens. A couple of Italian chefs advised this for home cooks with ovens that can't go over 250 degrees C.
Otherwise, no sugar in the flour mix.
I've had New York pizza in NYC, but it was a long time ago. But in my old college town of Ann Arbor, there was a place called New York Pizza Depot (NYPD), run by some guys from NYC, had those same giant slices just like this, that you basically had to fold to get in your mouth. I loved their 4-cheese Blanco, and their one with baked ziti pasta on it. I do tend to like thicker types, though, Chicago-style and Detroit-style (pretty similar to Sicilian) are both great, in my book. Even French bread style can be great, if you get the right bread.
The one thing I think we all can agree on is the pizza is divisive.
Napoli vs Roma vs New York vs Chicago (the last one so much some deny that it's pizza)
My favorite pizza was a "margarita pizza" in Roma (Yes, that's what they wrote) most margherita pizzas as you know have dollops of good cheese surrounded by sauce. Not this one. It was fully covered in amazing cheese. At that point....
...Any pizza is a personal pizza if you have the will.
Also, we in Oregon love our water. I could see someone flying in theirs if they wanted it just right.
Excellent analysis as always.
I do a single rise on my dough and stretch it out to about a 3/16" ( 4-5 mm) or less but have never been able to turn up the temp that high. I use a pizza stone that is pre heated but when I go anything over 450deg F (232 C) it burns on the outside way before the dough cooks or rises on the bottom.
the dough is not supposed to rise on the bottom, if ur having a hard time cooking the middle of the crust you're using too many toppings. keep the toppings minimal
Here in BC, there’s a place called Hot Oven Pizza, and if I could magically send you a fresh slice, I think you might be impressed, or at least intrigued. They don’t put sugar in the dough; rather the crust is glazed with a touch of honey. It’s by far the best pizza I’ve ever had.
Hi James, Im making napolitan pizza for about a year, if you are adding suger you need to be carefull about your oven temp because if you are using a pizza oven 450 cels, the suger in the dough gets burned and you can actully see that on the pizze with little black bubbles, Im recommending adding suger only in a rush (8 hours fermantation rush lol) and lowering the oven temp - not the napolitan way
I visited NYC for a week and ate at a different pizzeria each day. On some nights I'd go to 4 different places so I could try 4 different slices. I might've tried about 20 different places. So it was not a very large sample size, but my favorite was Champion Pizza. I'm not sure how much locals like it or not, but as an outsider doing a blind taste test, Champion was definitely my favorite and the only pizzaria I went back to twice.
I just got back from New York. Tried over 10 popular places. Favorites were John’s of Bleecker, Lucali, and Ignazio’s
Every time I’m in the big apple and want an authentic NY slice there’s no better place than SBARROS!
-Michael Scott
I make my pizza dough with "biga" letting it rest for at least 18 hours in the fridge. When I put together biga to the rest of the ingredients to complete the dough I add a table spoon of honey or malt.
I'm personally not seeing a real, NY style pizza here...but, I mean, it still looks really good!
Im a BOH manager at a pizza shop, we both use sugar in our dough as well as cooking our pizza sauce.
I find I want to watch Joshua Weissman, but his personality can be a little overwhelming for me. You always bring a nice balance of calm and insightful commentary that make these videos really enjoyable for me!
I find my favourite videos have been your Adam Ragusea ones however, and hope to see more of those as well!
Former New Yorkers here, not in Manhattan but the best pizza I've had in my life was New Park Pizza in Howard Beach, best Brick Oven NY style pizza around.
I live in eastern Massachusetts, where we have 2 styles of pizza you don't find too far outside the area: Greek style and Bar style. Greek style named for being created in pizzerias owned by Greek immigrants. It is cooked in a shallow pan and has a slightly chewy crust. Bar style named for being created at a bar. It has a cracker thin crust and no edge crust, as the cheese and toppings go all the way to the edge.
Well now I'm hungry for pizza! I lived in Ny and that was my favorite thing to do was try the different pizza shops. To just be able to walk in and grab a slice on the go is one of the things I truly miss about NY. Great video, insightful commentary I think Josh did a really good job with the pizza he made.
yes he did!
I am a home cook and have been making pizza for years. My ingredients have changed over the years to where I have been using the same recipe for about five years now. I use 00 flour, dried yeast, a little olive oil, filtered water and a teaspoon of sugar (to feed the yeast). I use the double fermentation method. My gas BBQ has a lid (round, like a weber kettle but smaller) has a stone on the grill and after about 30 minutes on full can reach 450 to 500C. Cooks my thin crust pizza in about 3 to 4 minutes. I end up with a crusty bottom, moderately charred. I live in SE Asia so it is pretty warm here which helps the fermentation time and the cook time.
Nice!
yes, when you where talking about not cooking the tomato sauce, most pizzerias don't cook it, and most of the time it come directly from the bottle, italian tomatoes, from the south of itlay have much more taste and when formed into a "passata" which is kind of a puree of tomato, it has this nice balance not to be altered