Help with Best New York Pizza recipe

[Randy]

I agree with Steve, more water or less flour.  If your using a KitchenAid mixer then look for a silver dollar sized patch to stick under the moving dough after about 5 min.  If you don't have it add a tablespoon of water. and see what happens.
After 15 minutes, you should have had a great window.
On your type A pizza i would mix on stir for 2 minutes then to speed to for 4 min rest for 5 then speed 2 for 5 minutes.
1 teaspoon of yeast is a little short in my opinion; try 1 1/2 - to 2 tea.
A little sugar will feed the yeast and promote browning.
Do you scoop your flour or spoon and level?

Randy

[canadave]

I would go with the "less flour" option for sure.  You should only need 3 cups of flour, not 3 1/2.  I use 3 cups, and I easily get a 16"-17" NY pizza.  I also use slightly more than 1 cup of water--just under 1 1/4 cup.

FWIW, I don't think you really need to "windowpane test" the dough when stretching it.  Once you have your ingredient quantities correctly figured out (and I think you're just about right on the money there), you should just stretch it until it just about fits on your pizza peel or pizza screen.  I have a 16" peel--I stretch my dough until it just about stretches over the edges of the peel, then I stop  The only reason I'll glance at the dough while stretching it is to make sure I'm not stretching it so thin that it'll rip.  Other than that, I go strictly by the diameter of it in my hands to know when it's ready.

Dave

[canadave]

One other thing--you might want to occasionally punch down the dough after you've put it into the fridge for its 24-hour rise.  Don't just let it sit there--otherwise, when you take it out, it'll have big air pockets.  Punch it down every several hours just to get the air pockets out.

Dave

[Randy]

Dave I punch mine down when I take it out of the cooler and let it rise again while it sits two hours before baking then I shape into a pizza.
Not sure it makes any difference

Randy

[stock]

Dave I punch mine down when I take it out of the cooler and let it rise again while it sits two hours before baking then I shape into a pizza.
Not sure it makes any difference

that's what i do as well (though i've not tried other ways, now that i think about it).
-scott

[canadave]

It's funny--now that I think about it, sometimes the dough develops big air pockets in the fridge, but sometimes it doesn't.  It's probably an inconsistency in how I make the dough.

Hey...wanted to mention this.  My mother is friendly with the neighborhood pizza guy who's been making pizza in New York for about 20 years, at least.  She mentioned to him that I was still working on my version of a NY pizza, and he told her to tell me one thing he does....which is to use whole crushed tomatoes MIXED with pizza sauce.  I had been just using the 6-in-1 by itself, but his deal is to combine it with pizza sauce.  This makes a certain amount of sense to me, as the 6-in-1 is too liquidy on its own.

Dave

[Arthur]

wow...thanks for all of the great advice.

Let me make some comments...

Steve, yes I will try a "test" with more water.  Hopefully that will make it less stiff.  That will be my "C" test next time.

Randy, I think I will keep the 2 min/4min/5 min rest/5 min mix cycle.  That seemed to produce something tasty.  I do spoon and level being that I don't have a scale.   Frankly I'm "afraid" of more yeast (since it seemed to rise ok and most things I've read say less yeast, the better.  As for sugar - that's another one of those things that I'm not sure about.  I haven't ever added sugar before, but it may be worth a try.

Canadave...yes quanties are an issue.  My "A" dough was enough for 2 11-12'' pizzas.   I would either like to make this two 15" or one 15" being that I have a round pizza stong that's 15 1/2"  since my oven (like most ovens) can't allow anything larger depth-wize.  I'll probably stick with the 3 1/2 cups for now until I get the taste right and then mathematically adjust all ingredients to get 15" pizzas.  As for stretching...I have a large peel that I just placed a large 15" circle on it (in permanant marker).
As for air pockets, my "A" dough had just a few and my "B" dough had none....maybe due to the kneeding technique,  "A" was the 2/5 rest/5 vs. the straight 15 minutes of "B"?  not sure.

As for sauce, I have to assume that puree tomatoes or some canned ones are just too thin for pizza and must be mixed with something since I'm almost positive pizza places don't cook their sauce.  
I'm going to call a food distributor today - roma food - I know they sell to many of the "new york style" pizza places (not the lombardi's and such, but the run of the mill new york places - and see if I can get some information out of them like:  1)typical pizza sauce - cooked or uncooked; 2) cheese; 3) anything else I can think of.

As for next weeks test, I will probably be trying....

Dough C - same as "A" but use more water (10.5 oz)  

Dough D - maybe more yeast...more sugar.

Arthur.

[Arthur]

ok...just found out from a distributor that:

- most pizza places mix their sauce between 7-11 and/or 6 in 1 and/or other tomato sauces....  and probably not cook them
- as for cheese - usually a 50/50 mix between whole and part-skim mozz.
- as for flour - high-gluten (as we know)

[Steve]

Anyone have a source for the Stanislaus 7/11 tomatoes?

http://www.stanislausfoodproducts.com/home_pass.asp

[Steve]

Never mind, I answered my own question:

http://www.chefswarehouse.com/Catalog/DisplayDetail.aspx?prd_id=GT200

[Foccaciaman]

Arthur, unless I missed something in your posts about not wanting to cook your sauce, you can just simmer any mixture of canned tomatoes, peeled or sauce to reduce the liquid, making it much thicker.
Usually about 20 - 25 min on medium heat will do.

[Arthur]

yes...looks like I'll have to cook it to thicken it up a bit....I guess just from reading about how cooking sauce takes away a little of the flavor I was hesitant to do so.

[Pierre]

Arthur, you could also add some extra heavy puree or a very good tomatoe paste to thicken the sauce to the consistency you would like. You would then not need to cook or simmer the sauce. It would have to be a very good paste though so the taste would not turn toward the bitter side.

It took me very long to find a paste that still had that fresh taste and bright red color (many pastes are dark red).

Pierre

[RoadPizza]

I've found that the color of the tomato paste doesn't depend on the brand of the can but rather on the tomato harvest itself.  We've used a consistently good brand that delivered a nice red tomato paste and once in a while we'd get a batch that was more maroon or brown and it would look horrible on the display line.  When we sent feedback to the supplier/manufacturer, they said that it was due to the tomatoes that season - they were all pretty much that color (not bright red).  When we switched to another brand that got its tomatoes from elsewhere, we got better results.  Eventually, we switched back to the original brand.  

Happily, none of our recipes now depend on tomato paste.  

Arthur, you could also add some extra heavy puree or a very good tomatoe paste to thicken the sauce to the consistency you would like. You would then not need to cook or simmer the sauce. It would have to be a very good paste though so the taste would not turn toward the bitter side.

It took me very long to find a paste that still had that fresh taste and bright red color (many pastes are dark red).

Pierre

[itsinthesauce]

I always use tomatoe paste to thicken the sauce...I also add at least a Tbsp of suger to sweeten it/ After adding the spices, I simmer it for 20 minutes to get everything working. My sister adds a little ginger...a little twist. But, then agin, I always thought she was a little twisted herself.

[Randy]

I find the 6 in1 ground, peeled tomatoes to be thick enough straight from the can.  When spread they will hold a row and when cooked on the pizza they will stick nicely to the crust.  In the past when I used crushed tomatoes, I would add some paste.  

In my spaghetti sauce, I use one can of 6-in-1 and I 303 sized can of crushed tomatoes drained.

Randy

[canadave]

Randy--don't you find that if you spoon the 6-in-1 directly from the can, there are rather large chunks of tomato in the sauce?  I puree mine to get the sauce a little smoother.

Dave

[Randy]

Dave I do add spices but as far as the big chunks go they seem to give way when spread.

Randy

[Pierre]

I just use a hand Blender for a second or so. I like the sauce to still have some smaller chunks of tomato. I wouldn't puree it completly.

Pierre

[Steve]

Arthur,

I made up a double batch of my NY style pizza dough using the correct amount of water (I used 2 pounds of flour, 20 ounces of water, 2 tsp active dry yeast, and 2 tsp salt).

The dough was perfect... smooth and elastic. I was able to stretch the dough without a single tear... I even tossed the dough and it spun perfectly.

I divided the batch into three dough balls, each dough ball made one 16" pizza.