Author Topic: What Do You Think of This NY Pizza - KoNYP (Read 4783 times)

Essen1 · « **Reply #20 on:** June 21, 2011, 04:26:56 PM »

Regarding the bromated flours and Cali laws, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Quote

In the United States, it has not been banned. The FDA sanctioned the use of bromate before the Delaney clause of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act—which bans potentially carcinogenic substances— went into effect in 1958, so it is more difficult for it to now be banned. Instead, since 1991 the FDA has urged bakers to voluntarily stop using it. In California a warning label is required when bromated flour is used.

Now, I don't know if Pizzerias have to indicate on their menus if they use bromated flour or not. Personally I have never seen a label on menus or in any pizza joint around here.

Pete-zza · « **Reply #21 on:** June 21, 2011, 05:32:45 PM »

Here is the post that scott r entered on KoNYP: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3483.msg40241/topicseen.html#msg40241.

Peter

PizzaEater101 · « **Reply #22 on:** June 21, 2011, 05:46:46 PM »

Got a an e-mail response from Roberto Martini in regards to KoNYP. I asked if they are a client and he said he does not know. That distributors buy from Lamonica and it's possible that KoNYP gets their dough from a distributor rather than directly from them. Well at KoNYP they did say they use Lamonica so I'll say they do. I never thought they were making that up, just my question was leading by mentioning Lamonica. So they might either drive out to Lamonica in Veron and pickup the dough themselves or purchase through a distributor. There are distributors listed at the Lamonica site so they might be buying from one of those. Love KoNYP! It's like visiting Heaven almost. Well almost, not quite but you get what I mean.

Peter, thanks for the link. Seems there is a lot of interest in Los Angeles area pizza. LA pizza is good. Maybe if I was from the east coast I'd think otherwise but being brought up on pizza out here I can tell the diff between good and bad pizza. In recent years it's gotten so much better too.

nick378311 · « **Reply #23 on:** July 24, 2011, 01:37:45 PM »

I don't even go by critic reviews. Half the time they don't know what they're talking about, I just try it for myself. I don't like sea food, so what if I went to a seafood restaurant and said I didn't like anything on the menu? I just like to try things for myself, because i've tried many places that had horrible reviews but I loved them

Nick

PizzaEater101 · « **Reply #24 on:** October 20, 2011, 03:12:51 PM »

I have not been to KONY Pizza since I started this discussion months back but plan on going again. I guess my ongoing pizza obession and fascination continues.

Wanted to say at Yelp they have a video of KONY Pizza. It's KONY promo video I guess. I am not sure if you guys saw the video but if you have not, go to the link and watch.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/king-of-new-york-pizzeria-los-angeles

Glutenboy · « **Reply #25 on:** October 22, 2011, 03:04:00 PM »

Went in right before closing this week to pick up my traditional late-night large sausage pie, and I got to see some secrets revealed! They were doing prep work for the next day. I'll itemize.

1) Frozen dough balls were being unpacked from large cardboard boxes, containers (much like the Glad/Tupperware type) were being oiled with evoo, and 1 dough ball was roughly deposited in each container.

2) The cardboard boxes had a return address with the zip 90024. I couldn't read the name, but this is Westwood, home of LaMonica. They are the dough suppliers for many NY pie shops (I believe Mulberry St. Pizzeria in Beverly Hills is a customer); so now we know where they get their dough. They had big cans of Stanislaus Full Red stacked up as well.

Whatever their choices for supplies, they make one of the best NY pies in LA. The sauce has a simple tomato flavor with plenty of zing to carry the pie, the cheese (while not fresh mozzarella) is flavorful and creamy, and when you fold a thin, chewy slice, watch out because you will get the coveted orange drip down your arm.

There's nothing gourmet about it, but there's enough Wolfgang Puckery going on around here. This is the most solid, straightforward old-school NY street slice I've had in 20 years of searching LA. Crust has a nice bubbly rim, but pie is nice and thin. Toppings are flavorful and sparingly applied. Great balance.

I don't know how much new info I contributed, but I saw it with my own peepers!

chickenparm · « **Reply #26 on:** October 22, 2011, 03:36:09 PM »

1) Frozen dough balls were being unpacked from large cardboard boxes, containers (much like the Glad/Tupperware type) were being oiled with evoo, and 1 dough ball was roughly deposited in each container.

Would not surprise me at all.I have used frozen dough balls and they worked very well.Thaw and when ready to go,most people are not going to be able to tell a difference.

Essen1 · « **Reply #27 on:** October 23, 2011, 01:07:02 AM »

Our SF Chronicle had a taste test recently on frozen pizza dough if that is of any interest:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/09/FD2L1LDG0O.DTL

scott r · « **Reply #28 on:** October 23, 2011, 12:15:58 PM »

Im glad to see this place getting some recognition. I hope business has picked up for them. When I discovered it many years ago it seemed quite slow. I was surprised because everyone I know that lives in LA is always saying how bad the pizza is in their town, and I thought KONY was very "NY style". I wonder if they really ever did buy frozen dough from the bronx, or if that was just a story. It sure seemed quite bromated to me back in the day, so maybe it was true and they have now switched to Lamonicas.

PizzaEater101 · « **Reply #29 on:** October 24, 2011, 10:58:20 AM »

Yeah, I don't mind that they don;t make their own dough since it taste really good as the finished pizza product.

Essen1 · « **Reply #30 on:** October 27, 2011, 12:46:28 AM »

Bought a couple of frozen Lamonica's dough balls just to see what the hype is all about. As of right now, they are thawing and will hopefully be ready to be used tomorrow night.

When I went over the ingredients list, I was surprised to find semolina and two different oils listed among them, olive and canola to be exact.

If anyone wants to try to reverse-engineer the dough, here are some pics, incl. the ingredients list...

Pete-zza · « **Reply #31 on:** October 27, 2011, 07:50:23 AM »

Mike,

With the semolina listed between the sea salt and the yeast in the ingredients list, there can't be much semolina, maybe between 1-2%. You won't even notice it. By any chance is there any loose semolina in the bag where the semolina might have been used to dust the dough ball?

Peter

Essen1 · « **Reply #32 on:** October 27, 2011, 12:18:12 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on October 27, 2011, 07:50:23 AM

Mike,

With the semolina listed between the sea salt and the yeast in the ingredients list, there can't be much semolina, maybe between 1-2%. You won't even notice it. By any chance is there any loose semolina in the bag where the semolina might have been used to dust the dough ball?

Peter

Peter,

That's what I thought first, too, that they may use the semolina for dusting but I didn't see any remnants of semolina in the bag nor on the dough balls itself. The bag was clean on the inside.

The semolina must be inside. I can tell you more tonight once the dough balls have thawed.

Essen1 · « **Reply #33 on:** October 28, 2011, 12:15:21 PM »

Peter,

Here are some pics from last night's bake of the Lamonica dough.

One thing that stood out, well actually two things, was the extreme lack of browning in the crust even after a minute under the burner and the lack of crunch despite the well-browned underside of the crust. It had a tremendous chew to it and the dough was very floppy. It also tasted like it had a very healthy amount of oil in it, perhaps in excess of 3%. The semolina was undetectable.

Also, in the instructions part of the bag it said to let the dough rise at room temp after thawing until it doubled in size. Didn't happen as you can see in the pics with the dough scraper next to the dough ball.

Once thing that was very nice, though, was the silkiness of the dough when opened. Very smooth and no problems in that area. Otherwise, it was an okay dough but could be a little lighter, with less chew and perhaps a tad crunchier. More coloration would also be nice...

The pizza was baked on my steel plate at 580°F for 5 minutes with an additional minute under the broiler.

chickenparm · « **Reply #34 on:** October 28, 2011, 02:02:11 PM »

The pie still looked very good Mike.I thought the bottom was excellent too.Its easy to see that Pizza places can order these dough balls and sell pizzas all day without having to purchase a mixer and do all the work in house.

I may buy a box of Primo Gusto dough balls from Gordons again.I used them before,but want to try them again and see how the measure up against the dough I can make at home.I do remember them working very well once I learned how to make pizza a bit more.

scott123 · « **Reply #35 on:** October 28, 2011, 04:43:26 PM »

Really nice job, Mike.

For the most part, this dough screams unbromated All Trumps and elevated hydration (67-69ish) combined with loads of kneading. High water All Trumps doughs can be kneaded long enough so that they're no longer tacky (this wasn't too tacky, right?), but will still contain enough water to make them soft and extensible but delay browning and increase flop. You typically end up with leather, though. I don't think you'd want to try this, but, in theory, you could recreate this phenomenon with the Power flour by treating it similarly (high water/long knead).

The only other possibility was the center of the dough was still cold. The water in colder dough takes longer to boil, so you get less evaporation, less color, more flop. Was the dough at all cold during the form?

Out of the two possibilities, my money is on AT/High water/Long knead

At this point, we're certain that this is the dough KoNYP is using, right? I watched their video and noticed that they're getting both a little more even browning and little less flop. The oil that they're brushing the dough with will contribute to more even browning, but the decrease in flop could very well translate into a longer bake. Maybe. They could be leaving the dough out for a bit to skin up, but that's probably not the case. Less flop means less residual water, and, if you can't change the hydration of the dough, just about the only way you're going to achieve that is with a longer bake. Not excessively longer- maybe 6 minutes.

KoNYP is certainly not crispy, but, in all fairness, classic NY style pizza isn't. To achieve crispiness with the Lamonica's dough, you'd probably have to exceed an 8 minute bake. My water-based concerns with the Lamonica dough related less to crispiness and more to flop. KoNYP can get around the flop issue with a longer bake, but, as I've discussed before, between extending the bake or decreasing the water to achieve less flop, decreasing the water is just about always the winner, and, when someone else is making the dough for you, that's not an option.

Lamonica's dough won't ever produce a Luigi's, Bronx or Avellino's crust, but, for a frozen dough that someone else is making for you, pizzerias could do a lot worse.

Btw, I'm not sure if we've talked about this, but how far is your plate from your broiler? You are using the broiler while the pizza is still cooking on the plate, correct?

I'm with Bill on the undercrust. The char is just a tiny bit past (maybe 15 seconds) the point where I prefer it, but, overall, that's an incredibly pro looking bottom.

Essen1 · « **Reply #36 on:** October 28, 2011, 07:07:21 PM »

Scotty,

I'm not so sure that the hydration was anywhere near 67-69 percent. My guess is it's somewhere in the ballpark of 60-61% with maybe 3-4% oil in it.

And the excessive chew might cement your theory of a long kneading time. Regarding the cold center, I left the opened skin on the peel for about 15 mins to make sure everything's the same temp.

Overall, I wasn't too impressed with this dough but it has room for improvement. It might also have been developed for professional ovens instead of a home oven.

And since I'm still working on two other doughs I don't think I'll engage in yet another reverse-engineering project

Pete-zza · « **Reply #37 on:** October 28, 2011, 07:53:37 PM »

Mike,

I don't think the amount of the oil blend can be in the 3-4% range. The ingredients are listed in the order of predominance by weight. To peg some of the numbers, you might start with the sea salt. Salt is typically used in the 1.75-2% range, although some frozen doughs use a bit more for dough stability purposes. So, if the salt is around 1.75-2%, then the semolina must have a lower baker's percent. Yeast in frozen doughs is about triple the usual amount. About 0.75-1% might be typical. That means the semolina might be in the 1-2% range. Also, the oil blend would have to be less than 0.75-1%.

With respect to the hydration value, commercial dough ball makers tend to lower the hydration value so that there are fewer frozen water crystals to harm the yeast. Around 59-60% hydration might be typical for a high-gluten flour.

Peter

scott123 · « **Reply #38 on:** October 29, 2011, 12:01:01 AM »

Respectfully, Mike and Pete, but a 59-61% hydration dough, with a 5 minute bake time that produces that much color, can't be both floppy AND chewy. That level of floppiness with that thickness factor can only be achieved with high residual water and the only way to get high residual water where that much browning is involved is with an elevated hydration dough. To end up with a lot of water (flop), you've got to start out with a lot of water.

If it was just floppy, then I might be open to the prospect of a lower protein flour <12% with a relatively high hydration (for it's AV) of 59-61, but... there's no amount of kneading that will ever make a <12% protein crust chewy.

Not that this makes a huge amount of difference, because I think we're all in agreement that this dough isn't worth reverse engineering, but, just for argument's sake, I'm leaning towards 67% hydration. If you knead All Trumps enough, it will act like a much lower hydration dough (no tackiness), but still end up plenty chewy and abundantly floppy.

Essen1 · « **Reply #39 on:** October 29, 2011, 12:05:28 AM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on October 28, 2011, 07:53:37 PM

Mike,

I don't think the amount of the oil blend can be in the 3-4% range. The ingredients are listed in the order of predominance by weight. To peg some of the numbers, you might start with the sea salt. Salt is typically used in the 1.75-2% range, although some frozen doughs use a bit more for dough stability purposes. So, if the salt is around 1.75-2%, then the semolina must have a lower baker's percent. Yeast in frozen doughs is about triple the usual amount. About 0.75-1% might be typical. That means the semolina might be in the 1-2% range. Also, the oil blend would have to be less than 0.75-1%.

With respect to the hydration value, commercial dough ball makers tend to lower the hydration value so that there are fewer frozen water crystals to harm the yeast. Around 59-60% hydration might be typical for a high-gluten flour.

Peter

Peter,

When I grow up, my friend, I hopefully have the same pizza making knowledge as you. But I know that's just wishful thinking. You are a treasure trove of information. At least, as a consolation, I got one out of two right...missed the oil part was probably right on the hydration.

Anyway, I just pulled the second dough out of the fridge, which has been thawing and fermenting now for two days. What I noticed that it has the same little dark specs on it as the Marcello dough ball I bought awhile back. That's only the second dough that I have seen those dark specs or spots on.

Could the cause be the semolina? I can't find the pics of the Marcelo's dough balls right now but it looked identical. I have never experienced those spots with my own doughs, even after long fermentation times, such as 3-4 days.