Chef Felice recommends good bread flour for pizzas in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Sicily, such as unbroiled unbleached flour Gold Medal or Capua Americana. For Pizza Napoletana and Neo Neapolitan, recommend 00 flour made with finely ground Italian durum wheat. As an alternative, we recommend AP flour, but, like New York Style, it has to be kneaded for much longer to develop the high protein content it needs to obtain its superfine crust and crunchy texture. AP flour must also be passed through a sieve a few more times than 00 flour to achieve that fine, thick and fine texture for the crust.
Neapolitan pizza is so thin that it is one of the pizzas that can be eaten with a fork and knife. Consistency is also important when baking, especially at high temperatures, to avoid burning due to its thin crust. That's why this pizza is commonly baked in a wood or charcoal oven, or grilled, but only left for a shorter period of time, depending on how high the heat is in the oven. This style of pizza has the perfect texture for cooking inside a wood oven to achieve charcoal that will enhance flavor and texture.
Use high-quality flour. I like to use all-purpose flour or bread flour; high-protein flours (i.e. bread) work best. However, I prefer all-purpose flour because I like a light and airy dough.
Many New York pizzerias choose to use General Mills' All Trumps flour, which is made from hard red spring wheat that has a protein content of 14.2%. They make both joked and non-joked versions. California-style pizza is known to have a high content of vegetables, where the shape and consistency of the dough are crucial, with its characteristic fine and crunchy texture. Use semolina or flour on the bottom of the pizza shell to keep the pizza dough from sticking, but be careful not to overdo it because it will burn.
There are many ingredients that can make or break a pizza, but the most important part of pizza is the dough, which is obtained by having the perfect dough. Growing up in New Jersey in the 80s, most pizzerias had their pizza folded with orange oil and cheese to die for. California-style pizza is a common variant of pizza for experimenting with recipes that use gluten-free flours. The pizza I'm referring to is the pizza that they would give you if you walked into a New York area pizza place and ordered a piece of Sicilian food.
Make sure the oven is preheated for a sufficient amount of time (approximately 1 hour) and bake the pizza 6 to 8 inches away from the top of the oven (i.e., from the broiler) so that the top is browned enough along with the bottom of the pizza. Don't confuse this pizza with sfincione, which is a traditional Sicilian pizza that contains breadcrumbs, anchovies and caciocavallo cheese. When the stone has been preheated enough, the heat of the stone will cook the pizza from the bottom and you can turn on the grill if you discover that you need more browning on the top (now I use the grill to bake my pizzas). This style of pizza looks a lot like a “pizza pie”, so the dough must have the right flour to form and shape in the pan.
This is very important when you prepare the most popular variant of Neapolitan pizza: the Margherita pizza, which has sliced tomatoes, basil and sliced fresh mozzarella (not grated) as ingredients. Your New York-style pizza video changed my life. I've been trying to make pizza for years with limited success. Otherwise, you'd have to order it online and most of the cost will fall on shipping, but if you add up the cost of all the damn pizza stones I broke and all the money I saved, pizza steel is a bargain in my opinion ????.
However, with any pizza, there's nothing wrong with brushing the outside of the dough with some melted butter seasoned with garlic, salt, and oregano, especially for Chicago style pizza. You have to be able to knead and spread the pizza thinly and thinly (see the pizza in the image above) and that the texture is perfectly crispy and not too soaked. I BOUGHT PIZZA STEEL AND MY PIZZAS WERE GOOD, BUT THE BOTTOM DOUGH WAS A LITTLE HARD, SO I STARTED USING PARCHMENT PAPER FOR THE PIZZAS. .
