For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on another and hopefully close to final revision of Ash. My brain feels like it’s been pulverized and left for dead, so I’m not going to try to blog about anything too strenuous. Therefore, I’m going to blog about pizza. Yes, pizza.
That’s a pizza that my girlfriend and I made last week. She made the crust, I made the sauce (it’s the same standard sauce I made for lasagna), and we topped it with broccoli, chicken (from a store-bought roast chicken, I admit, but it’s tasty!), sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Then we put it in a very hot oven on a pizza stone covered with cornmeal, and we baked it until it was done. (Seriously, I’ve asked my girlfriend how long to bake it, and she’s the pizza baking expert and she will only say “till it’s done.”) That’s steam coming up from the pizza!
Here’s a close-up of one side of the beautiful thing:
So, here’s my thing about pizza: I love New York-style pizza. My devotion to it was firmly cemented by living in New York, in Manhattan, for two years. This was sandwiched between several years living in the Boston area, where there is also, I have to say, plenty of fine NY-style pizza. A truly delectable NY slice has a thin but crispy bottom crust, with a chewy and slightly puffy edge — but not too puffy! Now, there are several components to making an excellent slice of pizza, and they all must work together. Sure, some people think the crust is the most important part, but if the crust is good while the sauce and cheese are not, the slice is ruined. In fact, I think that there are three key components to a slice: crust, sauce, and cheese. If one is missing, the slice can only be subpar.
Now, of course, I live in California. I swear I have never had a good slice in California. It has been the one food tragedy of this state, in my opinion, and I don’t think I’m overstating it! (Let me say that I’m not talking about restaurant pizza, like from the wonderful Pizzeria Delfina, where you can get a very well-made whole pizza to eat with a glass of wine. I’m talking about a slice, coming out of a pizza shop, at midnight after a night out. Or even one you order to eat while watching TV.)
Sometimes I’ll find a slice with one or two components that are right, but it’s always killed by the subpar performance of the third. For example, in my old neighborhood in the Mission (where there are plenty of amazing burritos), there’s this pizza shop called Serrano’s. The amazing thing about Serrano’s is that each slice is made individually to order, and I have to say the sauce is excellent — spicy and tangy and salted just right. Unfortunately, the crust is usually too bready and thick (although at least it’s crispy), and they often put too much cheese on it.
Wait! you might be thinking: How can there be too much cheese? Well, there can be. There must be a proper proportion of cheese to sauce to other toppings, and too much of one thing is just shoddy performance. It’s like adding a pink feather boa to a classy evening gown. It’s even worse if the cheese is not high quality. This is the biggest problem I’ve encountered in California pizzas: too much cheese combined with bad cheese.
I’ve lived here for eight years now (OMG!) and I’ve tried as many pizzas as I can. I’ve gone to the famous Zachary’s in Berkeley, and though their Chicago-style stuffed pizza is certainly filling, it is not New York-style. As I mentioned above, sometimes you can get a good pizza in a restaurant, but that’s not the same as coming into a shop off the street and getting a slice to go and it’s all gooey and hot and crispy and basically the only thing in the world that will satisfy your needs. The closest I’ve found is Escape From New York, which isn’t really a NY slice (the crust is a bit too puffy), but at least it’s the right size and gets probably a 6 out of 10 in terms of sauce and cheese, and it benefits from having cute dykey employees (at least in the Castro branch).
Anyway, I’ve given up on finding a good slice in California. So now I realize I must perfect the home-made pizza. We’re close (as you can see from the pictures above), but the main area where we’re tripping up is the edge of the crust. How do you make the edges rise up a little while maintaining a thin and crispy bottom? Does this involve tossing the dough in the air? I suspect it might. I have never successfully tossed a pizza in my life, but I’m willing to give it a try. (If anybody has any pointers on the best way to do this without simultaneously flinging flour all over the kitchen and/or getting the dough stuck on the ceiling, let me know.)
And if there actually is good NY-style pizza in California, let me know where. I’ll try it. But I’m skeptical.
{ 4 comments }
I share your love of New York style pizza. I even worked at NY style pizza place while at university. Making the dough just right takes a lot of effort. Only one guy made the pizzas. I never attempted but I can say that I know how to correctly slice a pizza. There is a correct way believe it or not and I was schooled on my first day. A proper pizza had only eight slices no matter the size.
Okay, here’s the only tip I have: it’s all in the hands. The guy would use his knuckles to work the dough and move it about. I guess this is how the edges stayed a bit thicker than the middle. He didn’t toss the pizza about too much and never had a cloud of flour about him. All I know is that every slice of pizza was perfectly made from the right amount of sauce to the perfect amount of high quality cheese to a crispy enough crust that didn’t buckle when you went to fold the slice together.
It’s weird that California doesn’t have any good NY style pizza places. Norman, Oklahoma did and I found some great places wandering around Boston. There’s a place by the Mass Ave T-line stop that I thought was a hoot but I think my opinion might have been clouded by too much alcohol and hunger.
Hi Malinda!
I’m not going to pretend that I’m some kind of NY-style pizza prodigy or something… but I do know a thing or two about crust.
First, a properly made pizza dough doesn’t really require any or much flour to stretch into shape. It should be tacky to the touch, but not sticky. So this should take care of your cloud of flour: don’t use any (or much).
Second, the only reason for tossing it up in the air is to stretch it out while keeping it in a circle. There are a few steps that I have taken to get really good pizza crusts. First, you have to get the ball of dough into a disc shape, then take it in one hand and use the other hand to slowly stretch it. It works best if you hold it perpendicular to the table/counter and do it pretty quickly. This also helps the middle to be thinner. Then, once (or if, as the case may be) it’s too big to keep up with that, form your hands into fists (thumbs in) and stretch your dough around and around the backs of your hands and knuckles. The larger your crust, the harder this gets. That is where the tossing comes in. And I’ve tried tossing a pizza – it’s harder than it looks. The key is speed and not height. Lower tosses have better odds of making back onto your hands. And you want it to go fast enough that it stretches the dough, but not so fast that it goes flying across the kitchen. I would say that if any one of these techniques works better than the others, stick with it. I find the two-hand stretching method the easiest and it produced the best circle.
Third… if you’re using a mix or something from a can (I always do because I’m lazy, but I don’t care too much), it’s going to be about a thousand times harder.
Anyway, I also wanted to tell you that I really enjoy reading your blog, whether you post about pizza or not.
And I’m really sorry this comment is so long!
PS: I’m not really sure if there is any good NY-style pizza here in Colorado either. Then again, I haven’t really looked too hard.
Holly, everything good is all about the hands.
MaryAnn, thanks for the pizza tossing primer! Honestly it made me feel like I will never be able to do it, but I like a challenge. Also, it strikes me that it must be something that you have to learn physically, and once your hands remember how to do it, it’s all downhill from there. (Again: hands!)
Also, I don’t think there’s good NY-style pizza in Colorado. Maybe there’s good pizza, as in tasty, but I’m even more skeptical about Colorado pizza than California pizza (I can say this because I grew up in Colorado in a town founded by Italian coal miners!).
Hi Malinda,
I know that’s an old post but..love for pizza is eternal!
I’m italian and if you want or need some help for any italian plate i’m here and i’m really happy if i can be useful.
I have seen generally in US a fake italian cuisine, really different from here.
I don’t want to be offensive because it’s not bad but just..different.
I’m from Toscana not from the south of Italy (where pizza was born), every italian region has really different cuisine, just as if it were a different nation, but still very good!
Just a last thing, the lasagna sauce is different from pizza sauce ( i mean in Italian cuisine), the real lasagna sauce is called Ragù, if you want the recipe i’m here and happy to share with you
Thank you for your posts.I absolutely love your blog.
A big hug
P.S. i’m sorry for my ugly english
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