shayke, as a very enthusiastic noob 18 months ago I bumped into this primer that really helped point me in the right direction for making way better NY Style.
The author got a lot of help here and synthesized it in a very helpful blog. If you follow her directions, you will make a very credible NY Style pizza. And it even has a button to convert measurements to metric.
https://feelingfoodish.com/the-best-new-york-style-pizza-dough/comment-page-7/
Great sauce too:
https://feelingfoodish.com/pizza-sauce/
I'm not exactly a beginner as I've been making pizzas and trying to make a good NY style for 5 years or more, but I am a beginner in that I have just in the past week or so "cracked the code" (and repeated it to make sure it wasn't a fluke) and reading through this link I can say for sure that a few of the points made here have been the difference that made all the difference in taking my pizza from pretty mediocre to reminding me of the pizzerias I used to eat at.
In particular, the points that I didn't know for years that really have made the most difference:
1) Freezing the cheese ahead of time
2) Not putting too much cheese on (basically making sure there are visible "patches" of sauce visible once the cheese is laid)
3) Shredding the cheese myself
I'd add one extra thought and one minor disagreement, coming from someone that's kindof a hybrid between very experienced (having been trying for years) and yet a beginner (having just figured out how to do it "right"):
1) I think using a pizza screen can be helpful at least when trying to get everything else right. Getting a pizza onto and off of a peel successfully is one of the things I've found to be the hardest to master. There's a real art to it, and it's easy to get it wrong and really mess up some pizzas when trying to get the hang of it, which makes it hard to evaluate (or to enjoy the fruits of!) all the other stuff you're doing. How's the dough? What adjustments need to be made to it? It's hard to tell if your crust is badly messed up because you had a hard time with the peel or it sticking. This is
especially true if you're putting toppings on. For the best of both worlds, set the pizza on the screen and put it on the stone/steel, then after it's firmed up for a few minutes slide it off of the screen onto the stone/steel for the rest of the cook time. (It can be helpful to use a large spatula to make sure it's separated from the screen before trying to slide it off).
2) I slightly disagree that one should never use a rolling pin as a beginner. Yes, it will mean the crust won't wind up as the very best style crust one could ever achieve, BUT as with the peel, shaping the dough is a real art form. Working on developing that artistry is someone one who wants to get good at making pizzas ought to do, but having done it both ways I don't personally think the rolling pin crust is so far inferior that it's not worth doing it if every time you go to make a pizza you wind up messing up the crust and making it hard to enjoy and to learn everything else. I think a nice middle ground that really helped me develop the skill to shape the dough without the pin was to use the pin to
start the dough, flattening it out from a ball into an 8 inch round or so, and then to take that round and form it the rest of the way by tossing it (or by whatever other method).
